BART riders face another Oakland track closure Labor Day weekend

FILE-- Commuters wait on the plaform as a train arrives at the 19th Street BART station in Oakland, Calif. on Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018. BART riders can expect laborious bay crossings this holiday weekend as the transit system again shuts down service between West Oakland station and the 19th Street and Lake Merritt stations. less FILE-- Commuters wait on the plaform as a train arrives at the 19th Street BART station in Oakland, Calif. on Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018. BART riders can expect laborious bay crossings this holiday weekend as the ... more Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 20 Caption Close BART riders face another Oakland track closure Labor Day weekend 1 / 20 Back to Gallery

BART riders must prepare for bus rides in the East Bay this holiday weekend as the transit system again shuts down service between West Oakland Station and the 19th Street and Lake Merritt stations.

The Labor Day weekend closure, the third in a series of four, will force travelers heading in either direction to take a 10- to 15-minute free bus ride to make their connections, according to the transit agency.

Travel on the Richmond-Fremont line will be unaffected by the closure. Service on Sunday and Labor Day on Monday will begin at 8 a.m.

Rides between the Oakland stations hit by the closure will halt at the end of regular service early Saturday morning and won’t resume until the first scheduled trains on Tuesday morning. AC Transit will run shuttles closing the gap.

Passengers using the Lake Merritt Station or 12th Street Station in downtown Oakland will need to take trains to the 19th Street stop to catch the shuttles to West Oakland Station. No stations will be closed.

BART scheduled the weekend closures to do major overhauls of the tracks and infrastructure between the stations as part of the Measure RR modernization program.

While commuters are hopping on buses, more than 100 workers will replace switches that move trains between stretches of track, thousands of feet of rail, railroad ties, cushioning pads and cover boards that protect the electric third rail.

The goal is to create a smoother, quieter and more efficient ride by upgrading the transit system’s infrastructure, some of which hasn’t been improved since BART started service in 1972.

BART will repeat the same shutdown once more over the Sept. 22-23 weekend. Though more weekend closures for track work are planned, that period will be the final closure in 2018, said Alicia Trost, a BART spokeswoman.

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan