Today is the 8th day I have been doing my new commute on the ferry & BART. And in that time BART has shut down completely three times. Tonight was the latest shutdown, caused by another “computer glitch.”

In addition to what was almost an hour delay leaving San Bruno, they also managed to change the destination of the train I was on from a Dublin train to a Baypoint train, having told everybody wanting stops on the Baypoint line to get off two or three stations earlier. Then, as we arrived at Embarcadero they opened the doors of a
packed train, and immediately announced that they were closing them again; I just managed to squeeze through the train doors to get off as they closed on me. You would have thought that they could have worked out that when a train is packed, people might need a little longer to squeeze through the car and exit, but apparently that
is something else they don’t know.

Today is the third day in a row that they’ve had shutdowns, though this was the longest. Yesterday they apologised for the delay and promised the software had been removed. So much for that claim. And, of course, last week they shut the whole system down because of a bomb scare at one station. I have to say, they are proving to be the weak link in my commute.

Normally, after a series of poorly handled events like this, one might expect the CEO or chairperson to step down. But there is no such person at BART, only a board of nine directors
. Perhaps this lack of a leader is part of the problem with BART – there is no one person to take responsibility for the frequent failures. Or should all 9 board members resign?