Commuters who are newly (again) reliant on BART to get to a physical office had a bear of a morning Tuesday after an unauthorized person wandering the tracks between Embarcadero and Montgomery stations caused a major delay.

This appears not to have been a medical-emergency, jumper situation, but rather a person who just got down on the tracks for unknown reasons. The delay was first reported around 8:50 a.m., as KPIX reports. BART said the situation was resolved as of 9:10 a.m. and BART police "safely removed a person from the trackway between Montgomery and Embarcadero."

It's not clear if the SFPD subsequently made an arrest.

Ridership is still much lower than the pre-pandemic period, however it has beeen steadily rising in the last two months as more and more people are being called back into offices in downtown SF and on the Peninsula.

Still, enough people are back to riding BART to work that we saw a spate of Twitter complaint videos and tweets this morning about being late to work.

Today's delays came just the New York City subway system experienced a major drama and possible tragedy, with an active shooter who wounded at least five people inside a train car in Brooklyn, and also set off an incendiary device or canister that filled the train with smoke and injured a dozen others. A suspect, wearing a gas mask and orange safety vest, remains on the loose.

Other public transit systems around the country, including BART, were on alert this morning for copycat or connected incidents, but none have occurred.

According to BART's latest ridership data, weekday ridership is hovering between 28% and 32% of pre-pandemic normal, but on the weekends, ridership is back to 50% to 60% of what it was previously.

Photo: Anagha Varrier