January 2, 2008
BART Delays This Morning
What better way to celebrate the new BART fare hikes than a 30 minute train delay on the first official day of work in 2008? It kind of threw the new train schedule a little out of whack too.
We haven't been able to find anything officially reported on the delay yet, but from what we gleaned from the PA system, it sounded like a train got stuck at 24th Street with a jammed door. This somehow caused all the trains going in both directions through San Francisco to stop entirely -- though, as if to taunt us, the signs kept flashing "MILLBRAE 2 MINUTES" on one side and "FREMONT 2 MINUTES" on the other. We kept thinking, "we didn't even want to go into work this morning."
The 16th Street BART station platform was packed shoulder to shoulder with anxious commuters who were already cutting it a little close to getting into work by 9 a.m. And, adding to the excitement, there was also a man in some sort of mental distress on the platform, pacing back and forth from end to end and periodically shouting phrases like "Stop staring at me!" and "OH NO! OH NO!" right by the edge of the platform. There was much studious avoiding of eye contact and surreptitious moving away from the edge of the platform as he orbited by.
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I'm not sure, but I think the 16th st Bart station had cell phone service. I got on the train and saw that I had two bars.
what, no bart police in the station with the mental guy? Oh wait! They're patrolling parking lots looking for theives!
This is news? This happens about one every two or three weeks.
On the bright side, I've seen a few movies at the Embarcadero I would not have seen otherwise due to BART snafus.
And we're paying our annual 5% fare increase for the privilege too.
I witnessed this little drama too. Screaming mentally ill dude stepped on my foot. And, when the train finally did arrive the driver yelled at us for actually wanting to get on the damn thing. Why did I go back to work today???
citi_zen: They aren't patrolling the parking lots looking for thieves, they're looking for expensive things left out in the open in cars. So we have them to thank for my woogums teddy bear surviving my trip to Serramonte.