Promises of late-night service on BART may have taken the backburner at the transit agency while they sort out a few bigger problems popping up and bring the new management up to speed, but new word from the the BART board says they haven't given up the dream of a last-call train to the East Bay. According to the Examiner, BART is now proposing to extend Friday night service by half an hour, putting the last Eastbound train out of Embarcadero station at 12:56 a.m.

The half-hour extension is a bit of a compromise: late riders will remember the last push to extend service by an hour wasn't feasible because it cut in to overnight track maintenance time and disproportionately affected low-income and minority riders. The new proposal will start Saturday morning service 20 minutes later to make up the time difference and the agency will be gathering feedback on the proposed changes this Saturday during the early morning hours at the downtown San Francisco stations.

The findings and the proposal go before the BART board on November 17th and if approved, you could be taking 1 a.m. trains to Oakland as early as February 2012.

[SFEx]