BART is touting a recent survey of passengers that found over 80% of them fairly happy with their train service — a major improvement since passenger satisfaction began taking about six years ago.

Even before there was a pandemic that decimated BART ridership, people were riding the trains less due to perceptions about a lack of safety and other complaints. But things seem to be getting better after BART invested in its Safe & Clean Plan, post-pandemic.

Ridership has been steadily improving over the last year, BART says, with ridership up 9% over 2022. And BART riders are giving the thumbs up in a recent Passenger Experience Survey — 81% of them at least.

"It is the first time since the 2012 Customer Satisfaction Survey that BART has seen a Customer Satisfaction rate in the 80s," the agency writes. "Overall satisfaction hovered between 84 and 86 percent from 2004 through 2012, before hitting a low of 56% in 2018."

The next official Customer Satisfaction Survey will occur this fall, at which point BART hopes this trend continues — and the last one, conducted in 2022, showed a 67% satisfaction rate.

There are more BART police officers on stations and on trains, BART says, and over 20% of riders reported seeing this presence in the recent quarterly rider poll.

Also: "The percentage of riders saying they have experienced sexual harassment on BART has been declining since early 2023. In the latest quarter the percentage fell to 7%, which is down from a high of 10%."

Now if they can just get the new train cars to function in the rain, we'll be set.

BART's quarterly performance report, covering October to December, can be seen here, and was being presented at today's BART board meeting.

Previously: BART’s ‘Fleet of the Future’ Trains Still Glitchy as Heck Whenever It Rains, May Require Expensive Repairs

Photo: Ephraim Mayrena