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This past Saturday, April 20, BART fans caught a final ride on the trains all of us will soon miss. Thousands of people, many wearing their favorite BART outfits, including those they made themselves, came to MacArthur Station to bid adieu to the historic legacy fleet and take their last ride on the 51.5-year-old trains. The event included a celebration in the station plaza, a retirement ceremony, and a final journey aboard three legacy trains brought from the yard just for the day. Some people traveled from outside the state just to attend the event. 

“I’m coming out here to pay my respects to an old friend that I’ve been missing these last few weeks," said one rail fan who arrived over an hour early to the event. “It’s going to be sad to see it go, but it’s nice to know I’ll be here for its final moments.” 

In the plaza, throngs of BART fans enjoyed food trucks and activities, including a stamp rally, as well as a raffle for legacy car number plates. There was also a Railgoods popup shop so folks could top off their collections of BART merch and purchase the latest product offerings, including a shirt made specifically for the day. 

The party in the plaza was followed by a ceremony opened by BART Board President Bevan Dufty and including remarks by General Manager Bob Powers, FTA Region 9 Regional Administrator Ray Tellis, and BART Chief of Police Kevin Franklin. There were also representatives from groups who will receive legacy cars after successfully submitting proposals to repurpose the vehicles, including the Western Railway Museum, which is establishing a Rapid Transit History Center that will include three legacy BART cars; the Sierra Train House, a forthcoming residence and short-term rental in the Sierra Foothills constructed from a BART car; and the Original Scraper Bike Team, who will use a car for a bike shop, providing free repairs and bike repair lessons to local youth, as well as a clubhouse for community events and the organization's mentorship program.  

At the end of the ceremony, it was time for the last hurrah aboard the legacy trains. Incredibly, the line to get on a train was so long it reached MacArthur Boulevard. Despite the line, everyone was able to get onboard a train. 

The trip ran from MacArthur to Fremont Station – the reverse of BART’s inaugural run in 1972. Some of the cars in service for that momentous day were hauling passengers for this last ride, more than fifty years after their wheels first touched rail. 

After the trains reached Fremont, they rode off into the sunset and came to rest at BART’s Hayward Yard. A crowd on the station platform at Fremont, their cameras rolling, was there to see them off. 

The BART Board of Directors is currently in the process of recruiting a Public-At-Large appointee for the BART Police Citizen Review Board (BPCRB).

The BPCRB is comprised of 11 members and residents of the following counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and San Francisco. The Public-At-Large position is appointed by all nine BART directors. 

Members of the BPCRB work to increase the public's confidence in BART's policing services by:

• Reviewing, recommending, and monitoring the implementation of changes to police policies, procedures, and practices
• Receiving citizen allegations of on-duty police misconduct
• Advising Board of Directors, General Manager, Independent Police Auditor, and Police Chief
• Participating in recommending appropriate disciplinary action
• Meeting periodically with representatives of the BART Police associations
• Participating in community outreach

Submit an e-application or download the printable application.

Application period opens Monday, Nov. 18, and closes on Friday, December 20, 2024.

Call (510) 464-6083 or email [email protected]  with questions.

BPCRB Recruitment Flyer - Public-At-Large

General BPCRB information (.doc)

Some of the winners from our BART Lines Teen Poetry Contest will be participating in the Bay Area Book Festival's free and family-friendly Outdoor Fair this Sunday, June 2 in Berkeley.

Festivalgoers can stop by our table to write a BART “flash” poem with our award-winning poets. Every flash poem writer gets a BART prize. Several of the teen poetry contest winners along with Youth Speaks Brave New Voices team members will be reading their BART Lines poems at the table throughout the day. We’ll be tabling at the Outdoor Fair in the Family Fun Zone - booth 106.

We’ll also be selling our hot-off-the-presses BART Lines chapbook. Be the first to get your hands on a copy and get it signed by one of the teen poets whose work is featured in the collection. The one-of-a-kind books will be for sale on railgoods.com after the event.

The Outdoor Fair runs from 11am to 4pm in MLK Jr/Civic Center Park in Downtown Berkeley, and the BART station is just a 3-minute walk from the festivities. More info here. See you there!

As part of it’s ongoing commitment to making BART the Bay Area’s safest way to travel, the BART Police Department is pursuing an aggressive recruiting campaign to fill 28 officer vacancies. The announcement comes after the BART Board of Directors unanimously approved an agreement that increased BPD officer salaries to make them competitive with other Bay Area law enforcement agencies. BPD salaries had previously been 19% below the market average for 10 comparable jurisdictions.

“We are pulling out all stops to fill our current officer vacancies and continue our progress toward making BART the safest way to travel the Bay Area,” said interim Police Chief Kevin Franklin." Competitive pay is essential to attracting the top officer candidates, and we believe this pay increase will help BPD attract excellent candidates. We also offer state-of-the-art equipment and training, an array of special assignments, and an unmatched commitment to community policing across the Bay Area.”
           
BART General Manager Bob Powers and the BART Board have committed to adding 19 additional new officer positions once BPD fills all its current vacancies. 

“We are putting our money where our mouth is when it comes to ensuring the safety of our riders,” said Powers. “In addition to our success adding Crisis Intervention Specialists and Transit Ambassadors, these new sworn BPD officers represent an important investment in the safety and security of the BART system that the Bay Area demands, and we will provide. We know that by filling these vacancies through the duration of 2023, as well as adding additional, highly-trained BPD positions, we will ensure BART is safer and cleaner for all our riders.”

BPD has set a goal of hiring 6 officers a month starting in August. The department has hired 19 officers so far this year including 4 that are set to graduate from academy this month.

BPD has streamlined its hiring procedures to ensure qualified candidates move swiftly through the process. The department’s latest recruitment open house in July was a great success. It attracted 65 prospects and 21 applied on the spot to take BPD’s written exam and physical agility test.

BPD has had success hiring non-sworn Crisis Intervention Specialists (CIS) and Transit Ambassadors. BPD has filled 19 of its 20 CIS positions and 9 of its 10 Ambassador spots. These unarmed BPD staff play a vital role in helping the department to boost its visible safety presence in the system. They receive de-escalation training and work in coordination with sworn officers.

Officer candidates can learn more about working for BPD at the department’s employment page. The site allows prospects to text a recruiter so they can speak live to staff about applying with the department.

BART will provide four trains with limited stops before regular BART service begins for the Bay to Breakers event on Sunday, May 19, 2024. The special service will get race participants to Embarcadero around 7am.

The special early morning event trains will pick up passengers for an Embarcadero arrival with limited service from the following peninsula stations; Millbrae, Daly City, and 16th Street Mission in San Francisco and from the East Bay; West Oakland, MacArthur, Pleasant Hill, El Cerrito del Norte, Bay Fair, and Dublin stations. These stations will be the only stations opened early for service.

These four trains will go out of service once they drop riders off at Embarcadero. Riders cannot board a train at Embarcadero. 

Special Service Details

• One train will leave Millbrae at 6:30am and will stop at Daly City at 6:43am, 16th Street Mission at 6:53am and then Embarcadero at 6:58am. No other stops will be made along the line.
• A second train will leave Pleasant Hill at 6:24am and will stop at MacArthur at 6:43am, West Oakland at 6:52am and then Embarcadero at 6:58am. No other stops will be made along the line.
• A third train will leave Dublin at 6:18am and will stop at Bay Fair at 6:35am, West Oakland at 6:55am, and then Embarcadero at 7:01am. No other stops will be made along the line.
• A fourth train will leave El Cerrito del Norte at 6:36am and will stop at MacArthur at 6:49am, West Oakland at 6:58am and then Embarcadero at 7:04am. No other stops will be made along the line.

Regular systemwide BART service starts at around 8am.

Tips

BART parking is free on Sundays. People driving to BART to take the train should park at one of these stations being served: Pleasant Hill, El Cerrito del Norte, MacArthur, Bay Fair, West Oakland, Daly City, and Millbrae. 16th Street Mission does not have a BART parking lot.

BART has loaded these event trains as special service to the Trip Planner.

Once on the platform, these four trains will be labelled as: “Limited Stop to Embarcadero.”

Load your Clipper card in advance with enough funds for the round trip.

If you don’t have a Clipper card, add one for free ($3 savings) to your phone’s wallet in advance and use Google Pay or Apple Pay.

For New Year’s Eve, Sunday, December 31, BART will run standard Sunday service (starting at 8am) but with an extended closing time and extra event trains.

• Last East Bay bound train running through downtown San Francisco will be at around 1:30am.
• Last southbound train heading toward Millbrae will run through downtown San Francisco at 2:10am (it will not stop at SFO).

Our 1am Extended Service will be as listed:

• Three-line special service (Yellow, Blue and Orange only in both directions, for total of six trains for 1am Extended Service). Yellow Line will be the only line running in San Francisco and Peninsula. Blue Line will run between Bay Fair and Dublin/Pleasanton.
• Trains will be waiting at 12th St Oakland, MacArthur and Bay Fair to complete timed transfers.
  • Yellow Line and Orange Line trains in all directions will be timed to meet at MacArthur Station at 1:47am in a "Grand Meet". This is the transfer point for riders coming from San Francisco heading toward Richmond or Berryessa or riders coming from the East Bay heading toward San Francisco.
  • Yellow Line and Orange Line trains will be timed to meet at 12th St Oakland. 
    • Riders boarding a Berryessa-bound Orange Line train heading to San Francisco can exit their train and wait for the Millbrae-bound Yellow Line at 1:55am on the same Platform 2 (Lower Level).
    • There will be a timed transfer at 1:43 am on Platform 1 and 3 (Upper Level) between Antioch-bound Yellow Line train and Richmond-bound Orange Line train.
  • Orange Line and Blue Line trains will be timed to meet at Bay Fair Station at 2:16am. Dublin-bound riders can take the Berryessa-bound Orange Line train and transfer at Bay Fair Station.
• SFO and OAK airport stations will NOT be served.
• Last East Bay bound train running through downtown San Francisco will be at around 1:30am.
• Last southbound train heading toward Millbrae will run through downtown San Francisco at 2:10am.

The regular last trains of the evening (Yellow, Blue, and Orange lines) will be dispatched from the end of their lines at midnight and then at 1:00am, we will run another set of last trains of the evening to serve 48 out of our 50 stations. The 1am trains will not serve SFO and OAK airport stations.

BART’s Trip Planner has been updated to include the extended service trains.

Avoid Vending Machines and Put Clipper on Your Phone

We encourage all New Year's Eve riders who need a Clipper card (BART no longer sells paper tickets) to add a digital card to their phone’s mobile wallet and to load round trip funds before arriving to BART. The funds will be available for immediate use. 

A digital card avoids the $3 plastic card fee and the hassle of waiting in long lines at machines. Here are the Google Pay and Apple Pay instructions. Do not download the Clipper app, go through your phone's wallet. 

Each person 5 years and older need their own Clipper card. There isn't a way to share one because you have to tag in and out at the fare gates. Multiple cards can be added to a phone's digital wallet, if you need to use multiple cards, turn off express mode so you can toggle through each one when entering and exiting at the fare gates. 

1am Extended Service details

Besides the extra event trains which be dispatched as available, only the Yellow line (Millbrae to Antioch) will run between San Francisco and the East Bay. Riders heading from San Francisco towards Richmond, Berryessa, and Dublin will need to transfer. Yellow Line trains will not serve SFO. Southbound Yellow line (Antioch to Millbrae) trains will run to Millbrae, stopping at all stations except SFO.

The Blue line will operate from Bay Fair to Dublin only. If travelling from San Francisco, Dublin-bound riders need to transfer at MacArthur to a Berryessa (Orange line) bound train and then transfer to a Dublin (Blue line) train at Bay Fair to complete their trip. These transfers will be timed meets to reduce travel time.

The Orange line (Richmond to Berryessa) will also run hourly to coincide with the other trains. Riders coming from San Francisco who need to transfer to a Richmond-bound train will do so at MacArthur; riders who need to transfer to a Berryessa-bound train (or Dublin) will do so at 12th Street. These transfers will be timed meets to reduce travel time. BART to OAK service will not be operating after regular BART hours.

Avoid lines, get Clipper in advance

Each rider 5 and older needs their own Clipper card to pay for BART fare.

For those who already have Clipper, make sure you have your roundtrip fare loaded (lines will be long at the station).

If you don’t already have a Clipper card, save $3 per plastic card, and add Clipper to your phone’s digital wallet for free. No app required. You can instantly load cash value with your Apple Wallet or Google Wallet.

For step-by-step instructions on how to add a new Clipper card to your phone, please go to Clipper's  Apple Pay page or Google Pay page for more information.

Parking

Parking is free on Sunday, except at Berryessa/North San Jose and Milpitas stations, which are owned and operated by VTA and parking fees are enforced on 7 days a week, including holidays. Monday, January 1, will also be free parking, excpet at Berryessa/North San Jose and Milpitas stations.

You can leave your car at BART lots overnight if necessary.

Stay Safe

Save these numbers in your phone:

• 510-200-0992 to text BART Police dispatch to discreetly report criminal activity
• 510-464-7000 to call BART Police in an emergency (It’s faster than calling 911)

We also offer the free the BART Watch app--a free mobile app available on the App Store and Google Play that allows you to quickly and discreetly report criminal or suspicious activity directly to BART Police.

You can reach the train operator using call buttons in each car. On old cars the button is at the end of the car, on new cars, the call button is by the side doors.

Note your train car number when contacting police or the train operator. The train number is located above the doors on the inside of each end of the train car.

BART will have extra safety staff working on New Year’s Eve to have more staff on trains, on platforms and inside stations. 

Sunday Service on New Year's Day

New Year’s Day, January 1, 2024, will be a regular Sunday schedule with service running 8am until midnight.

UNGAR: We're now approaching MacArthur Station. MacAarthur Station is a transfer point for patrons headed in the Berryessa direction. If your head down Berryessa away, step across the platform and catch that Berryessa train on platform number four. This is a San Francisco International Airport Yellow Line train making all stops in downtown Oakland, San Francisco and all points on the Peninsula to San Francisco International Airport.

FILIPPI: Welcome to “Hidden Track Stories from BART.” I'm Chris Filippi and on this edition of our podcast, I'm joined by Casey Unger, who is a Transportation Supervisor based in our Daly City Yard.

As a Transportation Supervisor, Casey plays a critical role in BART's daily ability to implement our service. But before he got a promotion, Unger was a Train Operator and a very popular one with announcements just like that. Casey, welcome to Hidden Tracks.

UNGAR: Thank you so much, Chris. I'm thrilled to be here.

FILIPPI: Did I detect a little bit of a dialect on that one?

UNGAR: Oh, it's hard to say. We had a train controller, a man named Virgil, and Virgil had a beautiful southern accent and whenever Virgil came on to the console, people listened. People perked up. The whole system was a little more responsive. And part of that was because listening to Virgil was a delight. He was a change from the everyday. What I tried to do when I first started operating trains was to make my announcements listenable, to make my announcements something that people would actually perk up to that might cut through the noise on their headphones or whatever they were doing at that time and to be reassuring, you want people to listen to the Train Operator when anything anomalous occurs, when something weird happens and for the Train Operator to be a voice of reassurance. You know we're going to be delayed for 15 minutes in downtown San Francisco direction due to police activity. I'll let you know when something changes and that's a good way not only to keep our patrons involved, our patrons interested, but a good way to keep the system as a whole running, as a good way to reach out to people, to provide that customer service, that as an organization we really try to strive for.

FILIPPI: That was very soothing. I noticed in the announcement and you have a musical background, is that right?

UNGAR: I do. I was in conservatory for a couple of years. I then transitioned over to history and when I was a historian at San Francisco State University in graduate school, I studied the history of sound and the history of religion. The history of sound in particular is something that's very interesting in the Bay Area. People talk about the noise of BART or the noise of Muni, the fog horns in San Francisco. To me, that's all part of what makes the Bay Area and public transit in the Bay Area a crucial part of the fabric of our everyday lives. How the train sings to you when it pulls into the station, the clatter of the overhead wires, the bus goes through an intersection. They're incredibly important parts of the soundscape of the Bay Area. That's always something I tried to be cognizant of, that people would hear my voice sometimes for upwards of an hour and a half, and I wanted to make sure it was a pleasant experience, not a grating experience.

FILIPPI: It's funny you talk about the sounds of transit. It's almost like it's like comfort food. We hear so much about the BART screech and it's annoying if you're in the Transbay Tube, but for a lot of folks, it's almost like that comfort food for our ears.

UNGAR: It really can be, you know, to tell a personal story. I lived on Fourth and Balboa for quite some time in San Francisco, and there was a trolley coach line that I used to drive that ran right outside of my apartment. One of the things that felt like coming home was to sit in my living room and to hear the were of the trolleys, to hear the carbons on the top of the trolley poles interact with the breakers, to hear the air brakes at the stop outside of my house. For me, that's a big part of how we perceive place. The sound of public transit, the sound of BART, the horns on the legacy fleet, Gracie and George when they're in the station, you know, it's important. It helps people understand where they are. It gives them a sense of place, gives people like me a sense of purpose in a very real way.

FILIPPI: I’m speaking with Casey Ungar, a Transportation Supervisor here at BART, formerly a Train Operator. Casey, you really have a passion for public transit and even before you came to BART, that started with Muni.

UNGAR: Yes. I dropped out of graduate school, as one does, to drive a bus for a couple of years. And prior to that, I had or prior to coming to San Francisco, should I say, I never had the opportunity to take a bus in my hometown. The bus ran every hour, if you were lucky. SLO-RT is doing a fabulous job in San Luis Obispo County, but limited resources. The buses never run past 8:30. When I moved to Stockton to be in conservatory, there wasn't really a reason for me to take the bus. I was centered around campus. When I moved to San Francisco for the first time in 2010, I believe I'm coming up on my 13th anniversary this week. It was the first time in my life I had never had a car. 

Taking the bus throughout the city, taking BART throughout the Bay Area felt like a sense of freedom. It was an incredible thing to be able to stand on the corner of California and Park Presidio and to have the 28 come and take me to school. Every 15 minutes, every 10 minutes. It was an incredible thing to go to Daly City BART and to have a train that would take me to UC Berkeley so I could go to class just so that I could use the library. Regularly it would get me there quickly. It would be faster than driving. It was a sense of freedom for me. I didn't have to fill up my car. I didn't have to pay for insurance. I didn't have to find parking. I could just get up and go. So, when I decided that graduate school wasn't for me and Muni came calling, that felt like a really good way for me to figure out who I was in the space of the greater Bay Area, figure out who I was in terms of what it meant to my community to have this really good bus service and to give back in a very real way. I'd been riding the bus, I drove for five years at that point, and again Muni came calling and it taught me so much about the city I lived in. It taught me so much about the people around me. It taught me a lot about myself. The habits I formed driving out of Presidio Division on Presidio and Geary, I still hopefully carry with me through this day or to this day. It was hard work. It was stressful and difficult work. It was work where you could go throughout a ten hour shift and you might not have more than a five minute break.

But at the end of the day, what Muni gave me was a real sense of fulfillment. It felt like I was doing good work that helped people and so when BART came calling and offered me a similar sort of position, one that was a little more technical, maybe, of course, I jumped at the opportunity.

FILIPPI: It must have a special importance for you, considering how empowering transit could be, especially for folks with limited incomes or even perhaps limited personal mobility, to have this opportunity to use a public transit system that can get you to a job, to see loved ones to a vital medical appointment, that must have given you a lot of purpose in the work that you were doing.

UNGAR: Absolutely it did. I operated one of the busiest trains in the system prior to the pandemic. I would leave San Francisco International Airport at 4:57 pm or 16:57, as we prefer in operations, and I would get to Embarcadero at 17:26 or thereabouts. There were 1500 to 2000 people on my train every single day operating that train through the Transbay tube under a couple of hundred feet of water, knowing that I was getting these folks safely home, safely to their loved ones where they needed to go, getting them to work in the mornings when I had a morning shift.

That was something that really motivated me and gave me drive to continue. BART and Muni and public transit as a whole is the lifeblood of the Bay Area and I am so lucky to have been able to be a part of this and I'm so lucky to have been able to be an operator for four years and even throughout the pandemic, when we were serving 25,000 riders a day, 22,000 riders a day in April of 2020, I felt honored to serve the essential workers. I felt honored to be an essential worker with these people and to give those folks who needed us the most the option to take the service. Having BART there, even in the darkest days of 2020, I feel, was an incredible service. It was the honor of a lifetime.

FILIPPI: And it's interesting you talk about how few riders we had at that point, but literally each one of those riders, they were relying on us. Most of them had no other option and they were coming to us and you were in a position where you could help each of them.

UNGAR: Absolutely. I remember again in April of 2020, right after shelter in place, there was one person in my lead car, whereas previously there had been 175. They were people working out of Oakland International Airport. There were people working at SFO. There were nurses, there were janitors, there were people working at the supermarkets. The people in society who really help society run relied on us and they still rely on the work we do and that's an incredibly important thing. And that's something that now as a supervisor who works with Train Operators, who works with Foreworkers, I try to remind my people that the work we do is incredibly important.

FILIPPI: I've heard multiple people tell me that the best job at BART is being a Train Operator. Do you agree with that?

UNGAR: That is a fabulous question and I 100% agree with you. Now, when I was a Train Operator, people would come and tell me that being a Train Operator was the best job at BART, and I thought they were crazy. Now that I'm a supervisor, I completely agree. It's good work. It's fulfilling work and its interesting work. At the end of the day, you clock out not only do you have a paycheck, you have a sense of purpose. Train Operator and Station Agent, for that matter, are incredibly important jobs and they’re jobs that I feel should be getting a lot more recognition from the public. You know, we should be saying thank you more to our Train Operators and Station Agents. Train Operator. Absolutely a wonderful job and I miss it every day.

FILIPPI: I was going to say so you were a Train Operator and you messed it up by becoming a supervisor?

UNGAR: Well, you know, desperate times call for desperate promotions.

FILIPPI: There you go. So, tell us about that, because I think a lot of people, a lot of our riders don't really know what a Transportation Supervisor does. How does that play out? What's your role here?

UNGAR: Well, I've only been a Transportation Supervisor for about 18 months now, maybe a little more. And I'm still learning everyday what it is that my job entails. It's a very complex job. As a Train Operator, you're responsible for a single train as a Station Agent, as single station. As a Foreworker, which I did for six months, you’re responsible for the operations side of things, the integrity of the line, making sure that trains dispatch on time, people are paid appropriately, that everything moves smoothly, even though like a duck underwater, you're paddling frantically, you're still on top and the system continues to run.

Now, as a Transportation Supervisor, I'm responsible for BART itself. When I breakdown my job, it's really four major components. I do a lot of customer service, both external, responding to patron complaints, going to incidents. I'm out there doing service disruptions. If you send an email, you might get one back from me. I help in stations. I help whenever we have train problems. That's external customer service that's making the system run just a little bit better. 

I do a lot of internal customer service though too. I'm the face of the District for my employees. If they have questions about policies, they come and talk to me. If they need something, they come and talk to me. If they're feeling overwhelmed by their responsibilities, they know they can come and talk to me.

It's important. That part is important because I try to make my employees feel like they're respected by the District, that their input is valuable. I let management know when we're having problems. I try to solve the issues on my own. If I can't I try to bring in people who can by serving my Train Operators and Station Agents in that way I try to make a better working environment for everyone. I try to make the system run just a little more smoothly. I try to make people happy. Customer service is one. The next part is safety. I, with help, obviously run the Daly City Rail Yard, the Millbrae terminal, the airport terminal, and our Daly City terminal 122 train operators, lot of trackage.

I'm out there every day checking to make sure Train Operators are following the rules. Checking to make sure that we're working safely, checking to make sure that our stations are safe, you know, are there slipping hazards that need to be mitigated? Are there other issues that I, as a supervisor can take care of proactively? Safety is a big part of it. And as a supervisor, when I'm on the line or when I'm out in the field, I want my people to know that all I want from them is for them to behave safely. And all I want is for the system to be safe so our patrons can be safe, so that we can all go home at the end of the day and say, wow, that was boring day.

The third major component of my job is kind of a labor relations component. I work with one of our unions, the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555. That's the operators’, agent and clerks’ union and I work to make sure the rights of their members are respected. I answer their grievances. I meet with our union reps to discuss pressing concerns again, doing some of that internal customer service there but sometimes they also have to do investigations, sometimes they also have to do discipline. But one of the things that I really like about that, that I really respect about the way we do things here at BART is we use positive discipline. It's corrective in nature. We focus on the problem, but not the person and I hope that whenever I do an investigation or have to talk to an employee about an issue, they come away feeling respected, having learned something.

The final part is kind of miscellaneous. You know, some days I might have to write a report, some days I might have to make a presentation about trends that are going on in my rail yard. A lot of what I do is employee morale. My train operators know that once a week there's going to be free food in one of the break rooms. It's an incredibly important thing. Other miscellaneous things, I love doing employee development. I love talking to new Train Operators and new Station Agents, seeing what's going on, trying to help them figure out how they fit in the system and how the system can help them live a good life and how they can have a good life at BART. It's a big job.

FILIPPI: And that's critical, isn't it? Because what I'm thinking of is BART has really placed an emphasis in recent months on hiring more Train Operators and by doing that, giving the operations greater flexibility, avoiding cancelations, because we don't have enough Train Operators for a given day. This is a huge customer service initiative for BART, and what I'm struck by is what you're saying about that internal communications part and making people feel valued and wanting to be part of this complex dance when it comes to providing our service, how important is that to ensure that everybody feels like they're a part of the puzzle here and they're really serving the Bay Area by being a TO at BART?

UNGAR: It's incredibly important and it's kind of difficult at the same time. Train Operators, you're really focused on the train and it's easy to forget that you're part of this bigger, more complex organism. 

What I've seen the last eight months is that our train cancelations have dropped virtually to zero. Our Train Operators are less stressed. They don't have to worry when they go into work every day that they might be doing something different. They know what they're going to be doing. Our yards are running a little more smoothly because we've got more people in place who are willing to work. It's a huge deal for our employee morale and I feel like hiring more Train Operators, hiring more Station Agents is one of the best things we could do to promote good customer service in the Bay Area. By staffing those stations, by staffing those trains, we're showing the Bay Area that we are invested in making the BART experience better, in making our reliability better, and for that matter, in our employees’ well-being because staffing the system better means that everyone gets to relax a little more, gets to feel better about the work they do. And frankly, over again, in the last six or eight months since we've really been hiring, I've noticed so much improvement not only in the temperament in my breakroom, not only in the morale of my employees, but system wide. It's really been an incredible thing to see, and I'm thrilled that we're continuing to hire through the end of the year.

FILIPPI: I'm struck by how the people component is critical to service. And there are so many moving parts to it that go beyond our employees. You're talking about the track, the trains, the stations, and then the external factors. Weather, our riders, external traffic, there's so much that goes into it. How complex is it to ensure that our service is operating the way it should be?

UNGAR: Oh, my goodness.

FILIPPI: And I probably only touched on a fraction of the different factors that go into it.

UNGAR: Absolutely. A lot of that has to do with the Operations Control Center. But a lot of that also comes from our Train Operators, how they're trained, our Station Agents, how they work, you know, as a Transportation Supervisor, as kind of a middle management sort, I am fortunate to be able to interact with the different departments that make BART tick. Buildings, tracks, train control, power, mechanical. I work a lot with outside agencies. I'm BART's incident commander. When incidents occur, I'll deal with the police, fire department, San Francisco International Airport. As a Train Operator and a rider, I never realized. I thought it was a magical thing that a train came out of Richmond Yard and would take me from downtown Berkeley to Montgomery Street. And it's an incredibly complex thing, transportation is not an island. We work closely with our shops to make sure that we've got the cars that we need to provide revenue service. We work closely with the buildings department to make sure that our stations are in tip top shape, that the bathrooms are open. Elevator, escalator, they work invisibly day after day after day to keep our stations accessible for people. It's an incredibly complex dance and when I was on the front lines, when I was Foreworker, you never know about it. And one of the things that I really love to do as a Transportation Supervisor is to reach out to these different departments and to see how we can get things working a little better. To see if we can get the radios down at Millbrae reprogramed to work with our new system just a little better. To see if we can do little ergonomic things the train cabs or in our break rooms, working with the Vehicle Systems Engineer to make my Train Operators lives a little more comfortable. I live to help the front line do their jobs and working with all of these different departments to help the front line get our patrons from point to point is a complex and interesting thing.

BART as an entity is fascinating. We do so much here that people may not know about. And again, I've only been a supervisor for 18 months and I'm still learning about ways that we can make the customer experience better. That I can make my Train Operators and Station Agents lives a little easier, that we can make things just work a little more smoothly.

FILIPPI: I'm speaking with Casey Unger, a Transportation Supervisor here at BART. Casey, before that, you talked about your experience as a Train Operator. How much does it help having that hands on experience as an operator and now as a supervisor?

UNGAR: It's incredibly helpful. As a former Train Operator, there are two big parts of my job that it really, really impacts. The main one for me right now is how I'm able to talk to our patrons. When a customer comes to me with a complaint, I'm not just offering an apology on behalf of the District. I'm not just telling the customer we're sorry, we're going to do better for you next time. I'm trying to figure out what happened so that I can educate the customer this is why this sort of thing happens. This is why the doors on this train car didn't open. This is why the Train Operator’s announcements might not have been clear in 1681, but they were certainly clear in car 1522.

And as a former Train Operator who's worked with Train Operators before, who's worked with kind of the train control system and the broader nitty gritty operational elements of BART, I find that a lot of my job when I'm doing that external customer service is educational. I want people to come away from interacting with me, from talking to me about the problems they're having, and I want them to understand why we do things here the way that we do them. The answer shouldn't be, well, this just happened because and we're really sorry. It should help give people a better investment in the system, a better understanding of why we do things the way that we do them. And more impetus to continue riding, continue working with BART. I try to assure people that even when they're having a bad day in the system, it's not something that happens all the time.

Their problem was something that was rare and interesting and that we can all learn from. And as a supervisor, it's my job to try to instruct my employees to take those proactive actions to communicate a little more clearly about these issues. As a former Train Operator, that's incredibly useful when I'm talking to my employees, because while I speak the language, it's a huge thing for me to be able to go to my operators and try to find out what happened and talk to them and see what is going on and mainline to read between the lines of the issues they may be having. 

I will never forget what it was like to be the last train of the night coming from Dublin, Pleasanton to Daly City and having to sweep the train out of service and bring it into the yard. I will never forget going through a Station Agent class and I was a Foreworker and having to close 19th Street Station with only one other Station Agent. For me, being a part of BART's front line, learning about how to be a Station Agent, which was the other frontline working position, I would hope it's made me a more empathetic person. I would hope it's made me a better communicator for our patrons. And I would hope that when I go out into the field and I talk to my agents, when I talk to my operators, they don't see a supervisor. They see someone who's lived the same life they have. I have 27 years until I retire, give or take, and I hope that until the day I retire, I don't forget what it was like sweeping that train out of service. I don't forget what it was like closing 19th Street. I hope that I am able to be the sort of supervisor and manager who is there for my employees, who is there to understand the problems they're facing, and who can communicate to our patrons who are having issues why these things happen, why the system runs the way it does, why we work the way it work, and to get that buy in both from our external customers and our internal customers, to make BART run better, to bring our patrons back after the pandemic and make the system as a whole just a little bit more of a joyful, understandable place.

FILIPPI: Casey, you work at the Daily City Yard, so that's a really important portion of the system. You're touching on multiple lines there. What is it like working there?

UNGAR: Daily City Yard has been my home well, for the entire time I was a Train Operator and as a Foreworker I worked at one of the adjunct terminals. Daily City Yard is also the newest yard in the system. It was built, I believe, in the 1990s as part of a capacity project, as part of the Colma extension and the Daly City tail tracks. Daly City Yard is one of the busiest places in the system. My Foreworkers are there checking Train Operators in and out. They're pulling bad order trains from mainline and replacing them flawlessly and seamlessly. They're there coordinating with the shops to make sure that we can make our revenue requirements in the morning. My terminal zones are dispatching trains. They're checking Train Operators in and out, they're communicating with central. It's an incredible ballet to see when I come in at 1300 all that's been accomplished and all we have to accomplish. 

And as a supervisor, my role is unfortunately not to be in the nitty gritty anymore. I'm no longer a Foreworker, I can't manage a terminal. But what I can do is I can be there for my Foreworkers, I can be there for my Train Operators. I can help them figure out what they need to do to make sure the yards and the terminals are running. And Daly City, again, as a yard is fairly unique. We dispatch Dublin trains, we dispatch Berryessa trains, we dispatch Antioch trains. We dispatch just about everything except for the occasional Richmond train although we've done that before too. And in Daly City Yard it's very busy, but we've got the best Foreworkers in the system. We have the best Train Operators in the system. We have people who are willing to work to make it work. And I am so lucky to have cut my teeth there as a train operator, to have worked at Daly City Terminal as a Foreworker, and now to be there as a supervisor. The work we do at Daly City Yard is important for the functioning of the system, and we do it well. And I am so proud of the people that I work with. I am so proud of the work that we do there because every day we make it happen, all of our trains go out on time, all of our trains got the link they need., all of our operators are there and they're ready to work and they're ready to put in the work that they need to make the yard run, that they need to make the system run.

Daly City Yard is the smallest yard, but we are a linchpin in BART and I like to remind my people of that. I'd like to remind my people that the job they do is important. And it's not only important to get the trains out, it's important to keep the Bay Area running.

FILIPPI: Is there a particular challenge that's most common that comes up when it comes to executing that vision?

UNGAR: Oh, gosh. As a supervisor, the challenge is knowing what's happening and knowing why things happen. So just knowing why we weren't able to run a train one day, it isn't enough. Knowing why it happened that's part of the job. To know that our train wash is broken, that's not enough. To know when it'll get fixed and how it'll affect our ability to wash trains. That's a huge challenge. And then to be able to present my findings to my boss and my boss's boss and the Chief Transportation Officer, and to give suggestions on how we can do it a little better. To give suggestions to my Foreworkers about how we can maybe staff a little bit more efficiently to make things run a little better.

My job is not one where I'm making decisions that are tremendous. It's not one where I make decisions every day that will change the world. My job is to make things run a little bit better, to provide that oversight, to ask the questions, and to find out reasons why the things that happened happened. And for me, as a former historian, as someone who really is interested in research and really interested in the way the system runs, there's an incredible fulfillment. My days go by really fast and there is a joy to knowing that the support that I give to my frontline workers helps make it happen and helps make the yard run, and that every day we're getting a little better.

FILIPPI: You touched a little bit on your history before really getting into BART and public transit of being a historian. Where would you put BART in terms of its importance to the history of the Bay Area?

UNGAR: To my eyes, BART is one of the most impactful projects the Bay Area has had within the last century. After the Key System dissolved in the fifties, after Muni streetcars stopped running, what did we have? We had the automobile. We had all of these towns that weren't connected. When I think of the Bay Area, I think of what it must have been like in 1950, 1960, 1970, when they were waiting for BART. The traffic, you had to take a bus. You couldn't use the Transbay Tube. You were going across the Bay Bridge. Maybe there was a ferry. There was so much air pollution. I try to think of a world now without BART, a world where there's traffic, a world where the people who need us the most don't have us. What would the Bay Area look like without BART? My answer is that it wouldn't be the Bay Area. When BART opened in 1972 on its little stub line from Fremont to MacArthur, that was an incredibly transformative moment for the Bay Area, for the culture of the Bay Area. It brought back what we had lost to the Key System. It gave people more options and more places they could live.

I try to think counterfactually what is a Bay Area without BART look like? It doesn't look like the Bay Area. The work we do, the system we have is a treasure. BART is something that cannot be replaced. We can widen the freeways as much as we may want. We may build more bridges. We can never replace the work that BART did during the ‘89 earthquake. We can never replace the capacity BART has in the Transbay Tube. We can never replace the the important impacts BART has on our environment. That’s huge, we're running electric trains in the Bay Area.

We are making people's lives better simply by running by taking those cars off the road, by giving people that option. So where is BART in the history of the Bay Area? It's one of the most hugely impactful infrastructure projects in the last 100 years. Could the Bay Area run without the Bay Bridge? Absolutely. Could the Bay Area run without BART? I don't think so.

FILIPPI: And you mentioned all of the importance that BART has had throughout the history of the Bay Area the last 50 years. Certainly, the pandemic was a historic time as well. And you touched on your experience during that time with our diminished ridership. And on a much lighter note, I know you would go to Millbrae during the pandemic and saw some interesting things there.

UNGAR: So, one of the things that I loved about the pandemic was the genesis of the Slow Streets movement. Areas that were closed to cars where people could walk and be socially distanced and be outside. And for me, when I was working at Millbrae during the pandemic, I had a shift that started at I think it was 14:45, 2:45 if you're out of operations and then end at 10 pm or 10:30 pm. I had some downtime in there between when I would run the shuttles and take a train from the airport to Antioch and back. And one of the things that I did instead of being in the break room was I would walk on the Millbrae parking structure on the top level. I do four or five laps. There'd be a few of us who all do our laps at about the same time. 

One of the clearest memories to me was back then you could see the airlines coming in and landing at San Francisco International Airport. You could see the sunset over the mountains. And there was a family of very cute ravens and I got to watch one of them raise their fledglings from a chick to a full grown raven over the course of that pandemic year. And I just remember walking on by the ravens and they'd look at me and I'd look at them. They'd fly to the other side of the parking structure, and they'd look at me and I'd look at them. It was one of the weirder relationships I've had in my life. But that moment of connection with those ravens as the planes fly in from parts unknown and as I'm getting ready to take my train from the airport to Antioch and the cool of the winter evening, that was an experience that kind of defined the pandemic for me. And that was for me a very BART thing.

FILIPPI: It really was something how the world kind of slowed down in that time and BART was always there. No matter what the ridership was or what the circumstances were, BART was still there and our frontline workers continued to show up, even though there was so much uncertainty about what was going to happen with that virus and what it would do to people awe were still there. I mean, there's a really powerful statement in that, isn't there?

UNGAR: There absolutely is and being a Train Operator during the pandemic, seeing my coworkers show up to work every day, knowing the stations were staffed was an incredibly powerful thing. And again, you want to speak to the importance of BART in Bay Area history. I would say our two greatest moments were the service we ran after the ‘89 quake when we replaced the Bay Bridge for months, 24-hour service, we kept the Bay Area moving. But that we kept running throughout the pandemic, that we kept providing people with the ability to get where they need to go without a car. And I think that's a very powerful argument for BART as part of the social safety net of the Bay Area and for something that is absolutely indispensable to our culture.

FILIPPI: BART Transportation Supervisor Casey Unger, thank you so much for joining us.

UNGAR: Thank you, Chris. It's been a delight.

FILIPPI: And thank you for listening to Hidden Tracks, stories from BART. You can listen to our podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Play and of course at our website, BART.gov/podcasts.