• A small plane crashed around 2:30 pm Friday about 13 miles east of San Jose in a remote mountainous area near Mount Hamilton; one person confirmed dead. [KGO]
• Jorge Antonio Silva, 41, of Richmond was convicted Thursday of sexually abusing three girls during different time periods between 2006 and 2017; a sentencing hearing is scheduled for November 21. [Bay Area News Group]
• With the tariffs in full effect, prices on the following items are expected to continue rising: coffee, bananas, watches, women’s dresses, audio equipment, household furniture, and motor vehicle parts. [KPIX]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

A longtime BART fan fantasy is coming to life, as a second Transbay Tube gets its first proposed public renderings, though there are a couple proposals, and it probably won’t be operating until 2040 at the earliest.

The Bay Area public transit-industrial complex is really feeling its oats these days, with the Van Ness BRT bus lanes finally completed and delivering on its promise of faster trips, and the long-delayed Central Subway getting a soft opening date in less than two months. You kind of get the feeling that some of these “We were promised jetpacks” regional transit projects can, in fact, eventually produce jetpacks.

Another swing-for-the-fences project that has been discussed for nearly ten years is a proposed second Transbay Tube, which is currently being discussed under the umbrella of a larger regionally connected rail service providing easy trips between Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Oakland, Stockton, and Sacramento. That rail service is Amtrak’s Capitol Corridor, which is trying to rebrand as Link21, and the Chronicle reports that at Wednesday's Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Board meeting, they unveiled the first renderings of a second Transbay Tube.    

In the interest of sensationalizing this issue and getting everybody worked up, we’ll go straight to the transit porn, and bury the important underlying context much deeper in this post.

Oh baby! Above we see the two proposed second Transbay Tube renderings, from the board meeting slides, so let’s look at both in detail.

The first one shows the new Transbay Tube in blue. It goes from a theoretical, proposed Alameda BART station, then underwater beneath the Bay to an also theoretical and proposed Mission Bay BART station, and eventually ending at the Salesforce Transit Center, which as you know has all manner of grand schemes to eventually integrate Caltrain, high-speed rail, and every other transit service they can. So why not BART too?

The second proposal also has a proposed Alameda BART station, and the new tube would go straight from there to the Salesforce Transit Center. (Fun fact: The Salesforce Transit Center naming rights deal only goes until the year 2042, so it might be called something else by the time this whole thing gets built.)

“It’s exciting to see it become a more concrete project,” BART Board Director Rebecca Saltzman told the Chronicle. “We’ve been talking about it, but I think a lot of people don’t wrap their head around that this is so impactful to the whole megaregion and not just the East Bay and San Francisco.”

Okay, about that important underlying context that we buried. You’ll notice Director Saltzman uses the term “megaregion.” That’s because this isn’t really a BART project, it’s a rail project, with the concept of the Bay Area expanded into a 21-county “megaregion” (hence the name Link21) that goes as far south as Santa Cruz, and eastward beyond Sacramento and into Placer County. All of the major cities therein would be connected via rail, in ways that are not entirely determined yet.

And this is all theoretical, none of the plans are final, and we’re still merely in the proposal phase. Moreover, the price tag is currently estimated at $29 billion just for the second Transbay Tube (and that dollar amount will surely go higher), and a target completion date of 2040 (and you know it will take longer). But these are still exciting ideas, and if you’re a real transit nerd, here are 57 pages of supporting materials that explain the proposals in detail.

Related: Second Transbay Tube Takes Another Step Toward Reality, With a Goal of Completion in 2040 [SFist]

Image: CapitolCorridor.org

After jitney service Chariot abruptly shut down its San Francisco service last week, speculation ran rampant on the cause of the closure. But now we know the reason: Multiple drivers with the company weren't properly licensed to shuttle passengers, an issue the company says it's resolved, resuming service today.

It was just last Thursday that Chariot announced that they were shutting down service in SF, saying in a statement posted to Twitter that "Chariot is in full compliance with all regulations" but it had "received an order from a regulator to temporarily suspend service."

“We are committed to always providing our riders with safe and reliable service," the company said, "and we comply with regulatory orders even when we disagree with them."

It appears that the order that Chariot suggests they disagree with wasn't spurred by bad brakes or ADA violations, as some have reasonably speculated. Instead, we learn days after the initial suspension, the company "had an unknown number of improperly licensed drivers during three separate safety inspections," the Chron reports.

CHP Sergeant Robert Nacke tells the Chron that “drivers to have a specific license: either a class B or a class C with passenger endorsement" to drive the 15-person vans Ford-owned Chariot uses. But during three random checks over the past year, CHP inspectors found drivers working for the service that didn't have those licenses.

According to the Ex:

The CHP inspections of Chariot’s vehicles on the road in Napa in October 2016, as well as inspections of Chariot’s 95 Minna St. bus yard in March and August 2017, all found violations, according to inspection records obtained by the Examiner.

CHP inspected 20 vehicles and found one violation in 2016, according to an inspection document, and gave Chariot an “unsatisfactory rating.”

In the March inspection, the CHP found two violations out of 20 inspections.

In August, however, the CHP found its most drivers without licenses to date, as five of the drivers inspected were without Class B licenses, according to inspection documents.

Though “Our inspectors brought it to their attention and said you have to make sure your drivers have the proper training and skills,” Nacke tells the Chron, as the problem persisted "the CHP was obligated to submit a formal recommendation to the CPUC," triggering the shutdown.

“The CPUC has a responsibility to suspend a carrier’s operating permit for failure to maintain a vehicle in safe operating mode, other violations related to transportation safety, and/or failure to comply with the DMV’s employee Pull Notice Program,” CPUC spokesperson Christopher Chow tells the Chron.

The distinction between the licenses is important, the Ex says:

Commercial Class B licenses show training has been attained in driving vehicles more than 26,000 pounds, or a three-axle vehicle weighing over 6,000 pounds, farm labor vehicles, or — crucially in this case — buses.

A Class C license is the one most everyday commuters carry in their wallets, allowing drivers behind the wheels of sedans and similar sized vehicles.

As the CHP only reviews a sample of the vehicles, there's the "possibility of more drivers without proper licenses," the Ex reports.

Instead of addressing those issues with the public, Chariot instead appeared to launch a petition directed at the SFMTA, which had no role in the suspension.

Reactions were swift:

But though the company tweeted the campaign amid its announcements of the shut down, it is perhaps unrelated: just days before the CPUC stepped in, the SFMTA said they're planning on more-fully regulating the company. It's not immediately clear why the company might be suggesting to riders that requirements to "provide wheelchair accessible vehicles and to submit operating data to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency" means the city might not "keep [them] as a transit option in SF."

(Chariot spokesperson Erin Simpson contacted SFist to say that "Chariot launched that petition in advance of the SFMTA meeting," which was held on 10/17. Follow-up questions to Simpson on why Chariot again opted to share the petition amid numerous tweets on the unrelated shutdown as well as ignore tweeted questions asking if the shutdown and SFMTA action were related were not responded to at publication time. Nor were my questions on why Chariot doesn't check drivers for valid licenses! I'll update with her response when it arrives.)

In any case, the service is up and running as of this afternoon. According to a Chariot spokesperson who contacted SFist, the below email was sent to passengers in San Francisco this morning, and the company "will resume the afternoon commute service as regularly scheduled."

We're happy to share that effective Monday afternoon, service will be back on and running as regularly scheduled. We've resolved the situation and do not expect any future interruptions. Thank you so much for your patience, and for all your support during this time.

From our brand new and monthly-serviced vehicles, to our employee drivers who undergo extensive training, we take our commitment to safety very seriously and know you trust us daily with your commute. We passed all inspections on Friday as expected and continue to be in compliance with all regulations.

Thanks again for being a loyal Chariot rider and helping us become the best way to commute in SF. See you on the road this afternoon!

Ali Vahabzadeh
CEO, Chariot

Previously: Private Shuttle Service Chariot Temporarily Shuts Down

It’s been a bumpy ride for the tech-loving private shuttle service Chariot, which arrived three years ago to make “transportation better only for some people” in the words of Muni Diaries. Chariot has since paid shills to evangelize at bus shelters and caught hell for blocking Muni stops, but they got acquired by Ford Motors which surely fulfilled their founders’ endgame. But that hasn’t fulfilled the SFMTA’s desire to see these private buses better regulated, to which end the transit authority passed a few new rules Tuesday governing the emerging new jitney transit scene, according to the Examiner.

While these fresh regulations do “require private transit to provide wheelchair accessible vehicles and to submit operating data to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency” per the Ex, they completely punt on the two biggest problems Chariot poses: the regular complaints about blocking crosswalks and Muni stops, and the problematic duplication of Muni lines that rather intentionally cannibalizes public transit ridership and slows down buses to even more sluggish speeds.

The SFMTA didn’t pass a proposal to ban Chariot routes that match Muni routes by 75 percent or more. They’re likely to revisit that ban, though surprisingly would consider grandfathering in current Chariot routes.

And as the Examiner points out, the regulation of Chariot may have the unintended consequence of bolstering business for the new Lyft Shuttle service. “Doug Bloch, political director of Teamsters Joint Council 7, which represents locals across the state, advised that Lyft’s bus service competes directly with Chariot, but is not regulated by the SFMTA — and that strict regulations for Chariot may benefit Lyft,” Rodriguez writes.

Lyft Shuttle is similarly an app-based commute-hours transport service introduced in June which the Chronicle described as “essentially reinventing the concept of a bus” and Salon hailed as “pretty much a glorified city bus — with fewer poor people.”

The problems with those old-timey, legacy jitneys give us insight on why regulation of modern-day private transit is so important. Mission Local wrote a 2014 historical retrospective on the jitneys in which one-time driver Michele Di Pilla said, “The dealer would give us vans with 12 seats, and we arranged to have 20 seats.”

“We took out the van seats and put [in] bus seats that we bought from junkyards,” the jitney driver admitted.

Related: Private Shuttle Chariot's Latest Route Whisks NEMA Royalty To Caltrain For Free

Tech bros nationwide were served with comeuppance Wednesday, with widespread mockery of the glorified vending machine Bodega and Martin Shkreli’s ass getting sent back to jail. But techies were also taken to task here at startup central in San Francisco, where the Muni for those made of money, the “private bus service” known as Chariot, has now generated so many complaints that the Chronicle reports the SFMTA board will consider a fresh new batch of regulations aimed at keeping private transit vehicles out of Muni lanes — both literally and figuratively.

Chariot, which has been bought up by Ford Motor Company but still master the art of startup smarm, is the only privately owned mass transit service in town after the respective demises of uniquely named entities like Leap and Loup. Chariot is also the only privately owned mass transit service currently generating complaints about double parking, blocking driveways, and stopping in Muni stops, and have reportedly had 62 such complaints lodged against them in the last two years.

They would also be paying $240,000 of the total $250,000 cost for SFMTA to enforce these new regulations against them, should the board adopt said regulations. “Though Chariot is the only player on the market now, we developed the program to make sense as an overall framework,” SFMTA director of Taxis and Accessible Services Kate Toran told the Chronicle.

The proposed batch of regulations, which have not been passed but will be considered at the September 19 SFMTA board meeting, would not go into effect until 30 days later and include mandates to share vehicles’ GPS data, increase safety training, implement full ADA compliance, and to not duplicate Muni routes.

Even so, the new rules probably don’t go far enough to please the haters of techie-centric private shuttles. “This company is another one of these companies based on ‘We’re going to break the law, and go to city government to ask for forgiveness’,” SFMTA citizen advisory council member Sue Vaughan told the Examiner.

Related: Private Shuttle Chariot's Latest Route Whisks NEMA Royalty To Caltrain For Free

Madness at West Oakland #bart station. Hundreds of pissed off riders. #CaseOfTheMondays pic.twitter.com/wBc48JlDy6

— Eman (@Flipsican) March 27, 2017

An ongoing BART service interruption between San Francisco and the East Bay has Monday morning commuters stranded and frustrated.

"BART service has stopped between West Oakland and Embarcadero due to downed power lines in the West Oakland area," explains a service advisory from the transit agency. "West Oakland Station is closed."

Tweets from the agency indicate service could be interrupted for up to two hours.

Update: Just after 9:30 a.m., Transbay BART service was restored according to the transit agency. Delays still pervade the system as it recovers from the interruption.

According to the the Chronicle, a car that crashed into a power pole sent electrified wires crashing onto BART tracks.

At around 9:20 a.m., the power lines were removed and tracks were being inspected.

The resulting electrical problems were the second issue of the morning, halting trains completely after they were delayed by a trespasser on tracks near San Leandro's Bay Fair Station.

The situation left travelers looking for other means of transit. AC Transit was honoring BART tickets, but Uber and Lyft prices were surging, and ferry lines were growing.

Even after the restoration of service was announced, some skeptical riders demanded proof.

A renegade car that entered a Muni tunnel last month at Duboce and Church Streets — well-lit "DO NOT ENTER" sign be damned — will face a fine of $55,000 to pay for the ensuing havoc to the transit system, the SFMTA and the City Attorney's Office tell the Examiner. That sum is the largest claim against a driver entering a Muni tunnel, an all-too-frequent occurrence, in at least a decade according to the City Attorney's office, which is filing the claim with the driver's insurance company.

The SFMTA explained the disruption to the N-Judah and J-Church lines on February 27th and the 28th was caused by "a subway track switch that was nearly destroyed by a motorist who drove recklessly into the tunnel." A track switch guides trains from one track to another, and with the switch non-functional, no inbound J or N trains could enter the Market Street subway via the Portal at Duboce, the SFMTA wrote. The car entered the tunnel at around 12:30 a.m. despite warning signs and raised bumps to prevent vehicles from doing so.

"We plan to recover staff overtime and other costs from the person at fault for the incident," an SFMTA spokesperson said at the time of the incident, and so, it seems, they do. SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose told the Ex that the $55,000 fine “covers the cost of additional shuttles used on three different days, repairs to the switch and its surrounding infrastructure, the cost of overtime, the cost of ambassadors, and the cost to adjust service.”

San Francisco once received $50,000 after litigation for a car that entered the same tunnel and caused damage in 2012. But this is the first time a motorist has entered the subway portal here since the lit "Do Not Enter" sign was put in place three years ago, per the SFMTA. Still, others such as this driver, have entered the Sunset tunnel at Duboce in an attempt to take a shortcut to Cole Valley,

Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated the incident took place in the Sunset Muni tunnel when in fact it occurred in the Duboce Muni tunnel.

Related: North Face Tells Customers Not To Wander Around Muni Tunnels In Video Showing Customer Doing Just That

Certain larger-than-life phenomena like San Francisco's fog or Fenway Park's left field wall demand personification, names like Karl and The Green Monster, respectively. Along those lines, Oakland's California Highway Patrol took a moment to alert drivers to the presence of a massive sinkhole on a southbound lane of state Highway 13 so large they nicknamed it "Steve." Cute.

On Monday, Oakland CHP wrote on its Facebook page, previously devoted to less lighthearted warnings, that "Steve was born this morning, at about 5:20 AM, on southbound SR-13 just north of Broadway Terrace in Oakland. Steve is approximately 5 feet in diameter and about 10 feet deep."

Steve soon grew, and grew and grew, eventually measuring 10-20 feet in depth.The sinkhole was likely the byproduct of a ruptured pipe and the heavy volume of recent rainfall in the region, Caltrans told Bay City New service.

"Steve the sinkhole started out as a little guy, but has grown quite a bit in the time he has been with us!" CHP wrote later on Monday. "Luckily, Caltrans District 4 is hoping to have him back to being plain old Andy asphalt by tomorrow evening's commute." A short, happy life.

If your wheel was devoured by Steve or one of the other potholes, sinkholes, or miscellaneous gaping maws in our roads that have recently threatened to swallow vehicles, there is recourse, the Chronicle explains: Drivers can file a damage claim against Caltrans, for example. As the agency tells CBS5, “If you feel that you have lost money or property as a result of any action or inaction by Caltrans and your claim is for $10,000 or less, you can file your claim directly with Caltrans.” To do so, drivers need to obtain two repair estimates and then wait for 45 days of processing before they'll get a response to their claim.

While Oakland CHP's comedic approach to road damage got people to pay attention, it's been difficult for the agency to shift its tone back to serious matters. "We know we've been having some fun online recently with Steve the sinkhole," CHP wrote to its Facebook page last night, "but we need to take a serious turn and are asking for your help finding a vehicle which fled a fatal collision scene." Not cute.

Related: January's Rains Were Some Of SF's Heaviest In 168 Years

Chinese bike-sharing startup Bluegogo may have to backpedal on its plans to expand to San Francisco. City officials are warning the company not to proceed without permits and perhaps to the detriment of infrastructure and in violation of local law.

The Chronicle confirms speculation that Bluegogo, which is expanding aggressively with more than 100,000 bikes in four cities so far, plans to make San Francisco its next conquest. In total, Bluegogo says it hopes to add 200,000 bikes to American cities this year.

Mashable explains that Bluegogo is one in a growing crop of bike share startups. Like two other major players — Mobike, which is backed by Tencent, and ofo, supported by Xiaomi — its bikes are "stationless." Because they're GPS-connected, they're located throughout a given city, via an app, from which you can both find and unlock them. Bluegogo is also cheaper than the average bike share: In Shenzhen, for example, use of a Bluegogo bike requires a $14 deposit and just 8 cents per half hour.

Bluegogo, which is headquartered in Beijing, is the newest of the three companies and a relative latecomer to the industry, making up for lost time with grand gestures. The company's 28-year old founder Tony Li claims Bluegogo produces 10,000 bikes a day at its own plant and with eight factories through manufacturing partnerships.

In what Forbes frames as a clash of East and West customs surrounding regulation, local officials are concerned that Bluegogo thinks it can just barge in to town and drop off thousands of bikes. According to the Chronicle, some in San Francisco are exchanging photos of Chinese bike-share bikes left piled up on sidewalks and streets. SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin and Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru sent Bluegogo a letter warning the company that the city "will not tolerate any business model that results in obstruction of the public right of way or poses a safety hazard," according to Bay City News.

Meanwhile, concerned Supervisor Aaron Peskin held an emergency press conference Wednesday morning and declared that Bluegogo's plans represent "the age old tech arrogance," as he told the Examiner. “There are dozens of laws that would apply to them, from public nuisance to littering,” he added to the Chronicle. “In the end, they are going to use the public commons for their financial gain at great cost to citizens of San Francisco. They can’t use San Francisco as an experiment lab, and our citizens aren’t guinea pigs.”

A letter to the mayor from San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Executive director Brian Wiedenmeier obtained by Bay City News also urges caution. "The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is deeply concerned about the impact of this planned launch on the accessibility of the public realm, as well as on the health and safety of all San Franciscans," Wiedenmeier writes. As opposed to the current system in San Francisco, which has specific docks for bikes and enforces safety and cleanliness standards, "Bluegogo's model would leave thousands of uninspected and unpermitted bicycles to be stored unattended for long periods of time on sidewalks, in parks and on our streets," worries Wiedenmeier.

A spokesperson for Bluegogo tells the Chronicle that reports on the company's plans so far have been “based on rumor, speculation and false facts." The tech company listing website AngelList does indicate that Bluegogo is hiring for several positions in San Francisco, and the company's vice president of US operations, Ilya Movshovich, revealed to the Chronicle that he has been in discussions with the SFMTA to get on the same page. Bluegogo only intends bikes to be placed where it is legal to park them, he says — but that's basically anywhere that isn't blocking sidewalks, driveways, or streets.

Another point of contention: San Francisco has entered into a 10-year agreement granting exclusive rights to use the public right of way for the purposes of bike sharing to our existing Bay Area Bike Share system. That launched in summer 2013 and in September 2016 the automaker Ford announced it would partner with the originators of the system, bike sharing company Motivate, to rebrand the system as Ford GoBike and expand the system's 700 bikes to 7,000 by 2018.

Related: Ford Is Buying SF-Based Shuttle Service Chariot; Also They're Taking Over Bay Area Bike Share

.@sfmta_muni J line isn't going anywhere pic.twitter.com/yYjmbmAJDA

— Diego Ongaro (@ongardie) January 11, 2017

Mother nature was busy trimming trees last night with heavy winds and rain. At around 7 p.m., not an hour after BART was dealing with storm-felled tree problems — two trains collided with a tree limb near Balboa Park — Muni was having its own struggles. A fallen tree near 19th Street on the edge of Dolores Park blocked the path of the J-Church train, but a collision with the tree was reportedly avoided.

The San Francisco Fire Department also issued a warning for the area, noting the downed tree.

According to one transit rider, those onboard the J disembarked at the scene, climbing the stairs up to the footbridge and the park (at what was once the 19th Street stop).

While this service interruption was particularly well documented, it's just one of many from last night, and Reddit this morning is littered with shots of fallen trees around the city.

Meanwhile, the aftermath in the region was serious generally, with San Anselmo evacuated, multiple landslides, and Guerneville still hopelessly flooded

Related: Update: BART Service Outage Between 24th St. And Colma After Two Trains Hit Tree Limb

24th Mission Street Station Chaos. #SFBART #BART #SF .@SFBART pic.twitter.com/b5tlV3lUXz

— Charlie (@PerKerry) January 11, 2017

Under heavy winds during rush hour this evening, a BART train struck a large tree limb near Balboa Park, interrupting service between 24th Street and Colma at around 6 p.m. BART reports that passengers from the train had to be rescued and there were no reported injuries. Service was still interrupted as of 7:15 p.m.

There was what looks like bedlam at 24th Street Station as passengers piled up on the platform.

One passenger aboard the BART train that hit the tree limb has tweeted out his tale.

A bad night for BART. Winds are still serious and this may continue.

And, on top of all this, some sort of police situation at Embarcadero Station was causing trains to have to bypass that station as of about 7:30 p.m.

Update: According to BART spokesperson Alicia Trost, via the Chronicle, the story is a bit more complicated.

Just outside Balboa Park Station, around 5:35 p.m., shortly after a switching problem had already slowed the commute, a tree limb fell toward the tracks and "glanced off the side of a downtown-bound train, Trost said, but the train continued into Balboa Park station. A train headed toward Daly City ran over the limb and stopped. BART sent a rescue train to take an estimated 400 to 500 passengers off of the disabled one."

Delays persist systemwide, and according to BART's homepage, service remains shut down between 24th Street and Daly City as of 9 p.m.

In short, a mess.

Predicted arrival times on NextMuni signs at transit stops and on NextMuni/NextBus apps are particularly daunting this week — 85 minutes for the N Judah? — and wildly, totally wrong. To blame is a glitch that's rendered as many as 40 percent of buses and Muni vehicles "invisible" to the NextMuni system: A bus or light rail train could arrive far sooner than indicated, but the problem, which emerged this week, is not expected to be resolved for several weeks.

Muni officials wrote to the SFMTA blog to explain the problem: NextMuni, which is a customized name for the third-party vehicle tracking system NextBus, relies on infrastructure installed in 2002 that only has 2G wireless network capacity. That outdated technology is being replaced nationwide by AT&T, Muni's provider. The issue, according to Muni, is that "The deactivation work that affects our vehicles started sooner than expected and outpaced our ongoing upgrade of all Muni vehicles to a new communications and monitoring system."

Put another way, "Muni vehicles that aren't yet upgraded aren't transmitting data to NextMuni to predict their arrival." As SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose tells SFBay, as many as 40 percent of Muni's fleet of vehicles, trains included, don't have the new, 3G communications systems in place.

Rose says his agency is "working aggressively" to resolve the problem, but as indicated in the official Muni blog post, it could take weeks to get all the Muni buses back onboard, so to speak.

It's more damaging news for the technical reputation of a transit agency that was hacked by a ransomware spammer after Thanksgiving, and hasn't exactly been a beacon of reliability over the years. Should we trust the expected wait time for this glitch to be fixed, or at this point, are all predictions off?

Related: Friday The 13th Will Mark The Arrival Of Muni's First New 'Fleet Of The Future' Train

That one time #BART was completely insane due to plateform 1 shutting down. pic.twitter.com/jwg6tQLhzk

— Keith Ellwood Baker (@KeithEllwood) January 6, 2017

A disabled train in West Oakland halted BART service for about an hour, the transit agency announced Friday morning at the height of the commute.

"There is a major delay system wide in all directions due to a disabled train at West Oakland. Please seek alternate means of transportation until further notice," read the alert sent by the transit agency at 8:03 a.m. Friday.

According to BART, the train conked out at 7:45 a.m. Friday, when, per the Chron, "BART workers said it was locked up for some unknown reason." (Not "locked up" as with a lock and key, one should assume, but in the colloquial sense meaning "unable to move.")

BART workers initially "thought the train could be returned to the station and taken out of service, but they could not move the train," CBS 5 reports.

KRON 4 reported that 'while trains are going into the East Bay, the system is at a standstill with no trains going from the East Bay to San Francisco."

According to the SF Business Times, BART managed to move the train by 8:40. But through service has resumed, "numerous delays and packed trains have slowed the commute into San Francisco."

A quick fix to the problem of fare evaders on BART has been shut down just as fast as it was implemented. That was a decision by the transit agency to bolt closed the swinging exit gates reserved for riders who use wheelchairs or are pushing strollers or bikes. While immediately effective in curbing fare evasion according to BART, fire inspectors were not delighted with the practice, citing a fire code violation and forcing the transit agency to unbolt over a dozen swinging doors as the Chronicle learned.

Beginning on November 2, BART shut 10 of 12 swinging gates at the Embarcadero station, and push as they might, would-be scofflaws couldn't get through. “What’s behind this is we know people are fare evading, and it’s extremely frustrating,” BART's spokesperson Alicia Trost told the Chronicle. “We want to show people we are doing everything we can to make sure we are getting every penny owed to us.”

Indeed, BART had recently to trim its budget based on a dip in ridership, the first decline in six years. "[Doubt] the ridership is down, those numbers are just paying customers," one SFist commenter mused. "BART and Muni have to be the worst policed transit systems in the country."

By BART's estimate, fare dodgers cost the agency millions in revenue every year. To arrive at that figure, the agency compares the number of entrants to its system with the number of those who exit. That comes up short by about 7,000 per day. But with the bolted exits, BART says data showed 5,000 more people exited at Embarcadero than had the day before, leading the agency to try to expand the measure to Montgomery Station — where the Fire Marshal soon fielded numerous complaints.

“We contacted BART, and we advised them they had to restore the gates to the original function,” SFFD spokesperson Lieutenant Jonathan Baxter told the Chronicle. "Unless they can provide the marshal with an exit analysis that shows the gates are not required for egress — or a way to get out — they have to be rectified,” he added.

That's, of course, what BART will try to do — this time without sneaking the idea past the Fire Marshal, so to speak.

Related: Should Muni Just Ignore People Who Sneak On Without Paying?

@mlroach @isaach We were doing sassy Twitter before it was a thing.

— Caltrain (@Caltrain) March 19, 2016

It being 2016, every #brand has come to the conclusion it needs to have a personality. That strategy, whereby non-human entities hawking toilet paper and toothpaste adopt snappy online slang for the purposes of social media marketing, can feel real gross and bad! But in certain cases, the disconnect between a brand and its "voice" on Twitter or Facebook can be oddly refreshing. That phenomenon was observed by some in the tone of BART's official Twitter account, which broke from its usual note of apology to essentially plead a case for BART improvement, keeping it real by expressing its own sense of frustration at the status quo. That, it seemed, was something riders found all too relatable, and the tweets were widely circulated.

Meanwhile, as Caltrain riders with Twitter habits have likely been long aware, the real Twitter laughs have been @Caltrain. It was a Reddit thread that brought the account to media attention this week, with the Chronicle quickly taking note of the "snappy" Twitter campaign. Some of the best @Caltrain tweets are so good because they take on the very culture of Caltrain, a service that can feel, especially on weekdays, like the train equivalent of a Google bus.

Other @Caltrain Tweets are so self-deprecating as to be charming, although some haters will surely point out that humor might serve as a distraction from real changes Caltrain ought to make.

Caltrain wants to perpetuate its style, or so it seems, further imbuing its brand with a personal touch by hiring another #socialmedia specialist. Do you have the chutzpah?

Finally, it should be said that not everyone is a fan of Caltrain — whether that's IRL or on Twitter. A particularly petulant disdain led someone to dedicate a whole account, @calrain_fail, which can often be seen feuding with Caltrain's official account. Though @caltrain_fail, a parody account of a sort, may be @caltrain's bête noir, perhaps the two accounts work better together: Contributing to a greater sense of accountability.

Related: Man Behind BART's Honest Tweets: 'Public Transit Has Always Been About Politics'