A BART station agent who took pity on an impoverished teen was fired yesterday, on his 66th birthday. Jim Stanek admits that he gave a 16-year-old boy $300 in paid BART tickets because he was having trouble paying for his commute to school. The tickets — collected from commuters who lost tickets and then bought these after exiting Stanek's station at Daly City and handed them over — had piled up in his booth, and he thought they'd be thrown away. more ›

Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer and former Friday Night Lights actor Michael B. Jordan are in talks to star in Fruitvale, an independent flick about the 2009 New Year's Eve killing of Oscar Grant by BART officer Johannes Mehserle, which polarized the Bay Area and shed light on police brutality in Oakland. "If deals go through, Jordan will play Grant, the 22-year-old man who crosses paths with friends and enemies, family and strangers on his last day. Spencer would play his tough and protective mother," notes Hollywood Reporter. more ›

A fellow named Michael, who may or may not be officially affiliated with the Occupy movement, jumped down onto the BART tracks at 24th Street Station yesterday afternoon and was almost hit by a Daly City-bound train. As Mission Local reports, people on the platform waved their arms at the BART driver who managed to halt the train as it entered the station, stopping only a few feet from Michael, who was wearing a shirt that said "Viva la Revolucion." It's unclear whether or not he was intoxicated. more ›

Is it really so hard to fix an escalator? In the world of BART, apparently, it is. At least one two escalators are currently out of service at Embarcadero Station, and SFist has noted that one regularly broken escalator at the 7th and Market entrance to Civic Center Station has now been out of service and blocked off for at least four months, with stacks of replacement stair treads lying in their cardboard boxes waiting to be installed for the last six weeks. And we're not alone in noticing the pattern — broken BART escalators is now a trending topic on Reddit. more ›

Ever wonder how your BART seat sausage* gets made? Well, wonder no longer with this hi-def, time-lapse video, in which an entire BART car goes from completely barren to something you actually might not mind taking to work in the mornings, all in under 45 seconds. more ›

Good news for carless South Bay residents: the Feds pulled through and approved $900 million in funds to finally show BART the way to San Jose. With the funds now guaranteed from the Federal Transit Administration the first leg of the project from Fremont to the northeast side of San Jose will break ground in April and is scheduled to be completed in 2016. more ›

A little before 7 p.m. on Monday, a man died after walking on the BART tracks at the MacArthur station. A Richmond-bound train plowed into the unidentified man, killing him instantly. According to Oakland Tribune, "He fell at the far end of the platform, and officials found no witnesses other than the train operator during the early hours of the investigation." more ›

While we're aware that women get inappropriately hit on and outright harassed on buses and in the streets of San Francisco, we're taking this new, semi-sensational piece by the Bay Citizen with a grain of salt. They assert that sex crimes on Muni, BART, and other forms of transit are going unreported left and right. The reason for their theory, however, seems to be some data pertaining to other urban areas, and the testimony of one academic who says that the reported numbers are "surprisingly low given the ridership [numbers]" on mass transit around the Bay. more ›

Thanks to this weekend's scheduled closure on the East Span of the Bay Bridge, BART will be running trains at all hours for three days over the upcoming long holiday weekend. While the trains will be limited to only the major stops and hourly departures, there ought to be enough service to get you home after late-night drinking in Downtown Oakland or Walnut Creek (which we hear has a pretty rowdy bar scene these days). more ›

As you may know, BART is getting set to lay out an enormous amount of cash on a new fleet of 775 rail cars, and the price tag keeps going up. Matier & Ross prick up their ears today at hearing that not only will the new cars cost something like $5 million apiece, but all that money will be spent in foreign countries. Of the five companies that bid for the work, none of them are located in the U.S., and the three finalists are in South Korea, France, and Canada. more ›

The family of Charles Hill, the "wobbly drunk" homeless man shot and killed by BART police last July has filed a civil suit against BART seeking monetary damages for the incident. According to the Examiner's report on the filing, Oakland attorney John Burris will be representing Hill's next of kin. Burris, anti-BART PD readers might remember, successfully secured nearly $3 million in damages for Oscar Grant's mother and daughter in the wrongful death case that followed the trial of BART police officer Johannes Mehserle. more ›

A woman reported being attacked by 3 to 4 men on the Oakland BART Coliseum/Oakland Airport station platform this morning during the morning commute, reports KRON 4 Morning News. She received medical treatment for her injuries. No arrests have been made. more ›

Despite not being able to remove their collective heads from their tushes to figure out late-night service on a regular basis, BART has managed to make one good decision for New Year's Eve this year. They'll be running trains until 3 a.m. in order to ferry the various drunken revelers of a bridge-n-tunnel sort to their respective points east after last call at DNA/Mezzanine/The Hustler Club. more ›

Before you take off for the holidays, remember that come New Year's Eve, you can ride Muni for free. For free? For free. Muni travel, including cable cars, is free of charge from 8 p.m. New Year's Eve until 6 a.m. New Year's Day. And who in their sane mind would want to ride Muni on New Year's Eve? Not us. Because we don't like harrowing train and/or bus rides. But many of you will have to rely on San Francisco's semi-reliable public transportation, so... have at it. more ›

After taking a lot of crap this year for shutting off cellphones and shooting a guy, the BART Police force is looking to make good this holiday season. In a press release, by way of SFAppeal, BART announces their plans to step up foot patrols around downtown San Francisco and offer escorted walks home from the West Oakland and San Leandro stations. more ›

In the ongoing Depression Era-esque epidemic of stolen metal, at least one copper thief has been brought down. After nearly running over a suspect with a train last week, BART announced yesterday that they had tracked down their guy, one Dennis McGuire of Noe Valley, to his home on 24th Street. After serving him with a search warrant BART cops turned up lengths of copper cable they believe was stolen from the agency along with a copper thievery kit consisting of a machete, large bolt-cutters, a tree pruner, gloves and a small amount of illegal drugs. more ›

Right after BART officials admitted Tuesday that they have a problem with metal thieves yanking wire off the system's tracks, yet another incident of copper theft was reported. This time, thieves ripped out two 20-foot sections of thick, electrified cables around 4 a.m. Tuesday morning. Yesterday's theft prompted BART to come clean about a copper theft that set the transit agency back a year on a multi-million dollar project that would have reduced delays and sped up train service systemwide. more ›

Well, this is fun. Muni Diaries brings our attention to a Bruce Lee look-alike caught rapping freestyle whilst riding a BART train the other day. Also, he has no shirt on thus showing off an admittedly taut and lovely body. Delightful. more ›

Around 3:20 p.m. Sunday afternoon BART closed the 24th Street Mission Station after a man reportedly laid down on the tracks in front of an SFO-bound train. Trains continued to run, but the 24th Street station was closed for nearly two hours as the agency rerouted trains to a single track around the scene of the incident. more ›

So, the BART board had a meeting last night. They all said "hooray" to a contract to provide new vinyl seats to replace those nasty-ass blue wool seats that carry the lice and contagions of yesteryear in their folds. "We're getting rid of the diseased seats," said BART director Lynette Sweet, except the contract will only be for 200 rail cars, starting with just 100 of them — like everything else around here, we have to make sure that everyone likes them before the other 100 get installed. As for the design of the new seat cushions, we're a little scared: It's called "Water, Waves and Wine." "It features the bay, wine and the cascading Alamere Falls at Point Reyes. The seats will be jade — the color of the bay in the late evening, according to the designers — with pinot noir accents in a linear pattern inspired by the waterfall and waves." more ›

A 25-year-old woman walking on Oak Road near Treat Boulevard was grabbed by a man on Wednesday afternoon. The man, it seems, had been following her. As soon as she turned around, he released his grip and scrammed. more ›

With BART fares scheduled to go up next July, the transit agency is mulling over a couple new proposals that could help take the sting out of local riders' Clipper Card balances. Among the possible new perks BART board President Bob Franklin detailed to the Examiner: Allowing for free rides after a rider racks up 40 trips in a month, 15% discounts for Clipper Card users and increasing the youth discount age to 17. more ›