Hope for late-night transit dawns; BART to roll out test project

A lone passenger waits for one of the last BART trains back to the East Bay at the 24th Street BART station in San Francisco on September 29th 2014. A lone passenger waits for one of the last BART trains back to the East Bay at the 24th Street BART station in San Francisco on September 29th 2014. Photo: Sam Wolson, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Sam Wolson, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 19 Caption Close Hope for late-night transit dawns; BART to roll out test project 1 / 19 Back to Gallery

Many an East Bay resident who labors or revels into the night in San Francisco has felt the panic of having to make a dash for the last BART train before it speeds into the Transbay Tube at 12:26 a.m. — and then figuring out how to get home if he or she didn’t run fast enough.

The dearth of late-night transportation around, and especially across, the bay is a long-standing problem that’s growing worse as the Bay Area population rises and the number of people depending on public transportation booms. Once BART shuts down for the night, options for getting home are limited.

So, facing an increasing demand for late-night transit service, regional transportation officials are taking a hard look at how to change that — and testing at least one plan to help people get around in the late-night and early morning hours.

BART plans to launch a test program, perhaps by December, that would expand the region’s skeletal overnight transbay bus service. The one-year test project would add service to central Contra Costa County from San Francisco and boost the number of buses running across the Bay Bridge and then heading north to Richmond or south to Fremont.

At the same time, a task force assembled by San Francisco leaders is exploring the situation and searching for short-term and longer-range solutions.

“The fact that BART shuts down so early on weekends, that Muni Metro shuts down so early, that Muni Owl lines are so unpredictable and useless to most people, and that cabs, until recently, were unreliable, poses a serious problem,” said Supervisor Scott Wiener, who held a hearing that led to the creation of the Late Night Transportation Working Group.

Proposals on the way

The 26-member group — with members from the hotel, restaurant and entertainment industries; taxi companies; ride services; transit agencies; citizens groups; and organized labor — has been meeting since June and expects to release a report including recommendations by year’s end.

About that time, BART plans to roll out its enhanced late-night bus service project, which aims to beef up the only way to get across the bay on transit now — AC Transit’s All Nighter buses to Richmond, Fremont and San Mateo County. The buses run infrequently from 1 to 5 a.m. while BART is closed.

BART’s $800,000 test project will extend service in the early-morning hours of Saturday and Sunday on the existing line from the current terminus near the Civic Center in San Francisco to the 24th and Mission BART Station, and add a new line that heads out Highway 24 through central Contra Costa County en route to the Pittsburg/Bay Point BART Station. Buses will stop at or near select stations, and operate in both directions.

Buses at all hours

The existing 800 line across the Bay Bridge to Oakland and then up San Pablo Avenue to Richmond, which often carries standing crowds, will run more often — every 20 minutes instead of every half hour. Southbound buses would run every 20 minutes to Bay Fair BART Station in San Leandro and every 40 minutes to the Fremont station. Except for the San Mateo route, which is operated by SamTrans, AC Transit will operate all of the service, including the buses into Contra Costa County, which is outside its service boundaries.

Robert Raburn, a BART director from Oakland who has campaigned for late-night service, said he had been skeptical of the bus plan but is convinced it will be robust enough to help fill the gap.

“I believe what’s on the table now will provide a valuable late-night service to our passengers that does not exist today,” he said at board meeting earlier this month.

BART administrators and engineers, under increasing pressure to provide some late-night service, have said it is difficult because of the way the system was built, its long service hours and the need for maintenance. Most of the system has just a single track in each direction, with limited crossover tracks, and needs to be shut down so that work on rails and train control systems can be performed during the roughly four hours when trains aren’t running.

On weekends, when BART opens later in the morning, that maintenance window is longer. BART officials in 2011 considered extending train service an additional hour on Saturday mornings and opening the system an hour later. But after completing a federally required equity study, the agency found that the schedule shift would have a disparate impact on low-income and minority passengers who depend on BART to get to early-morning jobs.

Calling for BART to run

William Dickenson, who runs the popular Facebook page Make BART Trains Run 24 Hours, was not impressed by the late-night bus plan. He said he’s convinced BART can make some sort of late-night service work, perhaps infrequent and serving only a few stations.

“I’ve talked to engineers who say it can be done,” he said. “I’ve talked to BART (maintenance) workers who say it can be done. I’ve talked to BART directors who say it can be done.”

Instead of expanding the system, Dickenson said, BART should install passing tracks, crossovers and signal systems that would allow the agency to run late-night trains.

At a recent Metropolitan Transportation Commission committee meeting, BART General Manager Grace Crunican said that in the long run, as BART gets more cars and replaces its train control system, the agency might be able to offer more overnight service.

“We do have a can-do attitude,” she said. “And it can be worked into the future.”

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com