Why BART Is Falling Apart

HughPickens.com writes: Matthias Gafni writes in the San Jose Mercury News that the engineers who built BART, the rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area that started operation in 1972, used principles developed for the aerospace industry rather than tried-and-true rail standards. And that's the trouble. "Back when BART was created, (the designers) were absolutely determined to establish a new product, and they intended to export it around the world," says Rod Diridon. "They may have gotten a little ahead of themselves using new technology. Although it worked, it was extremely complex for the time period, and they never did export the equipment because it was so difficult for other countries to install and maintain." The Space Age innovations have made it more challenging for the transit agency to maintain the BART system from the beginning. Plus, the aging system was designed to move 100,000 people per week and now carries 430,000 a day, so the loss of even a single car gets magnified with crowded commutes, delays and bus bridges. For example, rather than stick to the standard rail track width of 4 feet, 8.5 inches, BART engineers debuted a 5-foot, 6-inch width track, a gauge that remains to this day almost exclusive to the system. Industry experts say the unique track width necessitates custom-made wheel sets, brake assemblies and track repair vehicles.

Another problem is the dearth of readily available replacement parts for BART's one-of-a-kind systems. Maintenance crews often scavenge parts from old, out-of-service cars to avoid lengthy waits for orders to come in; sometimes mechanics are forced to manufacture the equipment themselves. "Imagine a computer produced in 1972," says David Hardt. "No one is supporting that old equipment any longer, but those same microprocessors are what we have controlling our logic systems." Right now BART needs 100 thyristors at a total cost of $100,000. BART engineers said it could take 22 weeks to ship them to the San Francisco Bay Area to replace in BART's "C" cars, which make up the older cars in the fleet. Right now, the agency has none. Nick Josefowitz says it makes no sense to dwell on design decisions made a half-century ago. "I think we need to use what we have today and build off that, rather than fantasize what could have been done in the past. The BART system was state of the art when it was built, and now it's technologically obsolete and coming to the end of its useful life."

Comments

Save money

[damicatz]

Save money by firing all the "drivers" since they absolutely aren't necessary (the trains are automated; the only reason they keep the driver around is to push the "start" button as a concession to unions). Then reinvest that money in actual maintenance costs.

Re:Save money

[hawguy]

Not true, actually. Engineers (remember, trains don't have drivers) actually watch the track ahead of them and respond to various conditions, including animals on track, broken down trains on track, and, perhaps most importantly, idiots standing on the yellow tiles at the station. You've clearly never ridden... or you'd have some idea just how often the engineer has to stop short of the station while the station manager gets on the PA to tell people to get off the yellow tiles, while everyone else waiting to get on the train is deciding whether to pull them back from the track, or push them onto it for delaying the train. Engineers also respond to various issues with the train itself; for example, I was on a car that had a stuck brake once; it took the engineer one stop to determine what the problem was, another to determine which car, and a third to get the attitude of that car and the car on either side of it adjusted such that the affected car remained level while the affected wheel was lifted off the track enough to alleviate the risk of the brake spontaneously combusting without making the train unstable. Once that train reached the end of the line, the affected car was removed, but the engineer had to get it there, first. Even track switching isn't automated on the BART system, so the engineers do that as well.

If there's no system that lets a train detect foreign objects on the track ahead, then there is no hope at all for self-driving cars.

Likewise, passengers too close to the edge of theboarding platform can be solved by the same sliding doors that other automated train systems use. With the added benefit of stopping so many suicides (which, besides the human cost, can cause delays across the entire bart system). And sliding doors will be coming sooner or later, just like the much delayed golden gate bridge suicide barrier.

That said, if trains stopped short of a station just because someone is standing on the yellow tiles, they'd never get into the stations, since people *always* stand on the yellow tiles. And the "station manager"? You mean those people in the booths that are on their cell phones all day? The only thing I've ever seem them do is put an "out of order" sign on a faregate when someone complained that it was broken.

Even track switching isn't automated on the BART system

Well that's part of the problem. Central dispatch should be able to route trains around a disabled train without an operator standing there throw a switch.

Re:Save money

[BronsCon]

Pressing buttons to make the train go is "operating" and I would agree, someone who does that and only that is an "operator. Making in-service repairs and adjusting the ride parameters of individual cars to work around mechanical failures that cannot be repaired in-service goes well beyond "operating".

Given that I've actually witnessed the latter (I was on the car it was being done to, I can authoritatively say that yes, it does happen.

An operator... well... operates a well-functioning device. An engineer or, at least, a technician keeps it functioning; typically, a technician doesn't also operate the device, though. What I've seen BART "operators" do is "engineering". That makes them engineers in my book; though, I suppose when BART calls them operators, it's difficult to argue. Legally, the difference is that the engineer must have a Federal Railroad Administration certification; while they crap they have to know how to deal with in the course of their job is different, the amount and difficulty of said crap is not.

Call me when a diesel engineer has to perform a live repair on a train's 1000VDC electrical system because there is no way to remove power from a train sitting on the track with a connection to the third rail. Oh, wait, diesel engineers don't have to do that, they can kill the generator or pull a disconnect.

Re:Save money

[BronsCon]

If there's no system that lets a train detect foreign objects on the track ahead, then there is no hope at all for self-driving cars.

Such systems exist; the question is whether they exist within the closed-loop that is the BART system. They do not.

Likewise, passengers too close to the edge of theboarding platform can be solved by the same sliding doors that other automated train systems use.

And, again, the question is whether or not these exist within the ART system. And, again, they do not.

That said, if trains stopped short of a station just because someone is standing on the yellow tiles, they'd never get into the stations

And yet, though I've only ridden BART a couple dozen times, I've witnessed this on no less than six occasions.

Well that's part of the problem. Central dispatch should be able to route trains around a disabled train without an operator standing there throw a switch.

And you completely miss the point that I was talking about what is, not what should be. Look at the post I was replying to... I'll make it easy, here it is:

Save money by firing all the "drivers" since they absolutely aren't necessary (the trains are automated; the only reason they keep the driver around is to push the "start" button as a concession to unions). Then reinvest that money in actual maintenance costs.

While most of what you've said here is correct, none of that is relevant to this discussion; the only relevant thing you said also happened to be incorrect.

Excellent post, my friend. Very well done.

Re:Don't confuse "old" with "poorly designed"

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not conflating old with obsolete; they're suggesting that a bespoke, cutting-edge system that didn't turn into a template has left BART on a tree branch all by itself, and thus has engendered its obsolescence.

You misunderstand. The designers of the BART in 1972 did conflate "old" with "obsolete". The designers thought that the tried-and-true rail standards were obsolete, so they created something new that was up-to-date with the standards of the aerospace industry. Aerospace was a modern, thriving industry at the cutting edge of technology. And it was the coolest industry to work in--aerospace engineers could tell their friends that there were "rocket scientists", and they would be granted instant respect and admiration.

Re:I sympathize I ride DC's METRO rail

[Penguinisto]

Gotta pitch in additional praise for the MAX at PDX. In spite of its origins (a giant money-sink/boondoggle made to enrich political friends), it operates nicely, and covers most of the metro area quite well. I've used it lots of times on business trips, where the missus drops me off at Hillsboro (the west end of the line), and I take it to PDX no sweat. Drops me off right at the airport.

Now if you take a MAX at 2am, you'll see the occasional meth head or homeless dude looking to warm up, but otherwise it's perfectly safe nearly any time you take it.

By the way, BART also goes right to SFO (wish it went to OAK as well - it would save massive cab/uber/shuttle fare costs that way).

Re:Mass transit isn't the only poorly planned thin

[Anonymous Coward]

Our district had the opposite problem. The school board tried year after year to set aside money for future maintenance and upgrades and got largely replaced by the 'Concerned Citizens' (sort of a local Tea-Party-inspired group) who managed to replace the board with people who wanted to squeeze every dime out the budget. Ergo, no money set aside for anything, schools falling apart, sports and extra-curriculars slashed, accreditation in jeopardy.

Unfortunately if a government entity tries to 'set aside' money for anything, it gets viewed by some as 'waste' and an unnecessary tax burden.

Re:People say "custom-made" like it's a bad thing

[plover]

Asking that question today doesn't tell us much, because the answer is now obvious: "no, it's very expensive". Instead, let's ask "Back in 1968, when BART was being designed, what were the expected benefits of using a non-standard gauge track?" Maybe it allowed the designers to consider higher speed curves, or better platform designs.

Maybe the rail vendor was trying to create a new standard for mass transit rail systems, and gave them a discount for using an over-sized gauge. Maybe the vendor was completely sleazy, and was trying to create a vendor-lock-in system where only they would be able to sell spare parts. Maybe the politicians of the day were corrupt and took kickbacks to look the other way?

Regardless, there were probably a bunch of engineers shouting "don't buy non-standard gauge rolling stock!", and BART happened anyway.

Re:I sympathize I ride DC's METRO rail

[Salgak1]

Muggers on Metro are a relatively recent phenomena. However, the Metro system seems to be suffering from imminent cascade failure. During the one day total shutdown of Metro, 26 separate badly-worn cable connections were found, of the sort that caused a local shutdown on March 14th, and similar to the short that caused the L'Enfant Plaza incident in 2015 that killed one rider, and hospitalized 80 more. .

The REAL question, at least in my eyes, for Metro, is given the damage shown during the March 17th shutdown, how did these cables POSSIBLY have passed the inspection that was claimed to have been done after the L'Enfant Plaza incident. . .

Re:The worst part...

[__aaclcg7560]

If there had been tax dollars, it would've happened 30 years ago.

The original design for BART was to form a circle around the San Francisco Bay Area. But the residents of San Mateo County declined to have BART go through their neighborhoods, citing quality of life issues. So the BART circle never got built. Building the BART extension to the South Bay 30 years later requires significantly more tax dollars than originally estimated.