BART trains to get longer under $1.6 billion budget plan

Bart trains wait for passengers to board at West Oakland bart station in Oakland, California on Thursday, February 26, 2015. Bart trains wait for passengers to board at West Oakland bart station in Oakland, California on Thursday, February 26, 2015. Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close BART trains to get longer under $1.6 billion budget plan 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

BART will end its much-detested three-car trains and add extra service to the Pittsburg/Bay Point and Fremont lines under a new $1.6 billion budget approved on Thursday.

The budget, unanimously OKd by the board of directors at its regular meeting in Oakland, also provides for longer trains on the Dublin/Pleasanton line and an hour of extra weeknight service on the Millbrae to Richmond line.

“With these new investments, we’ll squeeze more capacity out of our existing railcars and keep trains and stations cleaner,” BART board President Tom Blalock said.

The budget includes funds to add maintenance shifts, repair a half-dozen badly damaged cars and hire 35 extra custodians to clean stations and trains. The scheduling and maintenance improvements will begin in September.

An additional train will be added to the Fremont line when the line is extended to its new end point in Warm Springs. That long-awaited station is now expected to open early next year, a BART spokeswoman said. And three-car trains — long the bane of midday BART riders on the Fremont-Richmond line — will morph into four-car trains.

The new budget also includes funding for a dozen additional police and community service officers and $20 million for replacement of worn rails. The board approved the purchase of a $1.6 million maintenance train to move 800-foot-long sections of new rails into position for installation.

“We still have a lot of work to do to get this railroad back to where we were 40 years ago,” Blalock said.

Some of the funds to pay for the improvements will come from a 3.4 percent fare increase that will take effect Jan. 1. The budget assumes an average weekday ridership of 430,000 trips, up from the current average of 422,000 trips.

The board was also told that the first “pilot” car of its new 775-car train fleet is expected to arrive in November, about six months behind schedule. The first production vehicle will arrive in early 2017. The delivery was delayed because of what BART said were “welding difficulties” and “heat rise on electrical components.”

The BART board will also continue to study whether to allow developers to rent as apartments rather than to sell as condos about 100 housing units opposite the Pleasant Hill/Contra Costa Centre Station. Neighbors told the board they favor having the units sold rather than rented, but developers said the market for condos had turned soft.

The new budget for the fiscal year starting in July also includes $250,000 to engineer a new Embarcadero Station elevator, $100,000 to build a pedestrian bridge at the under-construction Warm Springs station, and $715,000 to address a need near and dear to every BART passenger — “pigeon abatement.”