BART Police Investigating Vandalism That Caused Major Service Delays

BART police are investigating the vandalism of the transit system’s equipment, which has caused at least two major service disruptions in the last month.

The investigation comes after a pair of incidents in which BART suffered communications failures that knocked out its train-control system along parts of the line between San Leandro’s Bay Fair station and Berryessa station in San Jose.

The incidents — one on Aug. 8 near Bay Fair, the other last Friday near Hayward — occurred after someone vandalized the fiber-optic cable the control system relies on.

During the Aug. 8 event, train controllers in BART’s operations center suddenly lost track of where trains were on that 27-mile stretch of tracks, including seven stations.

Controllers were reduced to asking train operators over the radio exactly where they were as they tried to coordinate traffic. BART was forced to shut down service south of Bay Fair due to what it described at the time as “a network computer problem.”

Service wasn’t fully restored for eight hours, and delays persisted into the following morning as crews worked to repair the damaged cable.

Travis Engstrom, BART’s director of technology, told the agency’s board of directors on Aug. 15 that someone breached a fence and protective metal box and vandalized three cables.

“Those three cables included over 400 individual strands,” Engstrom said. “What complicated this was not only the loss of the primary cable but a secondary and a third cable.” Crews from BART and a contractor worked for several nights to fully repair the damage.

The episode last Friday, Sept. 13, again involved deliberate damage to fiber-optic cable near Hayward and shut down all traffic between Hayward and Fremont stations from 1 p.m. to around 4:30 p.m.

BART managed to reopen limited service on its Orange Line, between Berryessa and Richmond, through the evening. Transbay service on the Green Line between Berryessa and Daly City was canceled.

The agency confirmed Tuesday that BART police have an active investigation underway into fiber-optic cable vandalism. However, the agency declined to comment on how many incidents police are looking into, whether they’re working with outside agencies or whether they have identified any suspects.

Further service disruptions

The investigation comes as the transit agency releases new details about some of the 15 or so major service disruptions the system has suffered this year. In addition to the fiber vandalism, the issues have included fires, electrical failures, defective rails and even rodents damaging train-control equipment.

“We’ve had a rough summer,” Shane Edwards, BART’s assistant general manager for operations, told the agency board of directors last week. “Our riders had a rough summer. We understand their frustration. I understand their frustration. I hear it when I’m out in the field on the trains.”

One of the episodes that caused a prolonged service disruption occurred in the early morning hours of June 26, an event BART described on social media at the time as a derailed maintenance vehicle followed by emergency track repair work.

Edwards disclosed that the 3 a.m. derailment involved a collision between a pair of work trains near downtown Oakland’s 19th Street station, an incident he called “avoidable” and which has led to disciplinary proceedings against both operators.

In answer to follow-up questions this week on Edwards’ presentation, BART said the derailment cost the agency $8 million in equipment damage, labor expenses and revenue lost during a daylong shutdown of its Red Line between Richmond, San Francisco International Airport and Millbrae.

The most serious service foul-up occurred July 27, when the system’s vital rail junction in central Oakland was shut down for 17 hours after an electrical fire at the 12th Street station. A loss of electrical power prevented trains from running through the area and forced East Bay-bound trains to turn back toward San Francisco at the West Oakland station.

In his board presentation, Edwards acknowledged that the trouble-plagued service of recent months “is not the product that we expect to deliver to our patrons.”

He said that work already completed thanks to the $3.5 billion Measure RR bond measure voters passed in 2016 prevented the summer’s breakdowns from being even more debilitating and that 21 renovation projects now underway will improve service over the long run.

“But,” he added, “rebuilding takes time.”

BART’s problem this summer comes amid signs that more customers are returning to BART after a long period of nearly flat year-over-year ridership.

Between June 1 and Aug. 31 this year, ridership grew just 1% compared to the same period in 2023.

However, the number of riders this month has surged 10% compared to last year, breaking the previous post-pandemic daily ridership record five times. Overall, BART ridership so far in September is 46% of its pre-pandemic baseline.