A new report by BART and its police department finds that crime is down overall on the BART system, with the most significant decrease happening in property crimes. Also, fare evasion citations are down.

BART's latest report on crimes occurring on the transit system finds some significant year-over-year declines in most categories. Violent crime is down 36% over all, with 2024 seeing 203 violent crimes overall by this point in the year, and just 130 reported so far this year. Those include 92 aggravated assaults (up from 73 at this point last year), however robberies are way down, with just 37 reported in the first seven months of 2025, compared to 126 in the same period last year.

Property crime overall, which includes the categories of burglary, larceny, auto theft and arson, fell from 1,091 for the first seven months of 2024 to 547 this year, an almost 50% drop.

Vehicle burglaries in BART parking lots are down by more than half, with 21 reported in July 2025 compared to 58 in July 2024.

BART leadership also notes that cellphone robberies have dropped precipitously, possibly thanks to the success of the Safe and Clean Plan. Only one cellphone robbery was reported in July 2025, and zero were reported in June, despite busy trains during Pride Week. During the same two months last year, there were 9 cellphone robberies and 34 additional thefts of electronics.

Likely thanks to the installation of more of the taller, more evasion-proof — but not totally evasion-proof — fare gates, there were far fewer fare evasion citations issued in July 2025 (169) compared to July 2024 (326). And the number of fare evasion calls to dispatch last month (683) is signicantly down from July 2024 (1,096). Still, the average number of fare evasion calls each month does not seem to be going down.

"BART PD’s highly visible safety presence is making it possible for officers to get to incidents more quickly," BART says in a release. "The average emergency response time for July was 4 minutes, 21 seconds. That’s well below BART PD’s goal of five minutes and one of the fastest response times for any law enforcement agency in the Bay Area."

What has your experience been on BART in recent months, dear readers? Does all this track?

Photo by Emma