Big news coming out of BART today as officials at the rail line discuss the preliminaries of BART Metro, a multibillion-dollar expansion to be complete by 2025 that hopes to accommodate 50 percent more passengers each day. The plans being studied include new express trains that will skip less popular stops along certain routes, and ten-car trains that will be able to split into two five-car trains and go off in different directions.

Other ways of increasing BART's capacity will be to run more ten-car trains overall, increasing night and weekend service, and increasing the frequency of trains at rush hour to one every 12 minutes, instead of the current 15-minute gaps. However funding for these service increases still does not exist, and any big changes are at least a few years off.

The extensions to Antioch and San Jose's Berryessa area are set to be complete by 2025, and any new plans will require new taxes to be voted on.

As for all-night BART service, that remains something they absolutely can not, and will not wrap their heads around, since they insist that the early-morning hours are essential for track maintenance.

[Mercury-News]

Previously: BART Approves New Vinyl Seats, Still Can't Wrap Its Collective Head Around Late-Night Service
BART Still Pussy-Footing Around the Late-Night Thing