New video illustrates challenge of keeping BART running for the next 40 years

A new video illustrates the challenges facing BART in the decades ahead by providing viewers with rare behind-the-scenes footage of the Operations Control Center, inside a Train Operator’s cab and in the shops where technicians struggle to keep the oldest-in-the-nation train cars running reliably.

Entitled “The Next 40 Years: BART’s Plan to Keep the Bay Area Moving,” the video explores the issues confronting a transit agency that carries 400,000 daily trips now, but which must prepare to serve 750,000 riders in the years ahead.

The video demonstrates BART’s need for a new fleet of train cars, a state-of-the-art repair facility in Hayward and a new automated train control system to boost the capacity of train traffic. All told, BART will need $16 billion over the next three decades for capital projects; finding the money is a huge part of the struggle. 

“Right now the federal government is not offering us a lot of hope and Sacramento is not offering us a lot of hope,” BART General Manager Grace Crunican tells viewers. “It’s going to be the Bay Area that contributes. It’s going to be the riders, it’s going to be the taxpayers and it’s going to be the employees.”