The entire Bay Area Rapid Transit system melted down for several hours on Friday morning, leaving commuters in the San Francisco metropolitan region stranded and frustrated.
It was the second time in four months that BART trains were out of operation all at once. The trains resumed running just before noon Pacific time.
BART is currently undergoing a systemwide computer network upgrade involving routers and switches. Work on that project went awry overnight, and the transit system could not power up its system on Friday morning. BART discovered the breakdown at 4:30 a.m. and started warning commuters to find other ways to get to work.
A similar shutdown occurred on May 9 — also a Friday — and lasted for several hours.
The outages have occurred as BART faces a make-or-break moment for its survival, as the Bay Area’s remote work culture remains stronger than other cities’, five years after the Covid-19 lockdown. But BART still has less than half the passenger traffic it had before the pandemic, well below the national recovery rate for transit agencies, according to data from the American Public Transportation Association.
San Francisco’s downtown has lagged other cities in seeing a revival, and about a third of its office space remains empty. Fewer workers tend to commute on Fridays than during the middle of the workweek, but the system still carries 160,000 people on a typical Friday.
Darius Beatty, 30, was heading to his job at the clothing store H&M in the Pleasanton area when he was stranded at the MacArthur BART station in Oakland.
He said that after his car broke down, BART became his only way to get to work. He called his employer to let his colleagues know that he was stuck and was weighing whether to wait or go home.
“It takes me the whole hour to get to work,” Mr. Beatty said. “Uber would cost way too much, and I don’t get paid until later on today.”
Jochem Michgelsen, 25, who was visiting the Bay Area from New York, was stuck in the East Bay after spending Thursday night with friends. He was not sure how to get back to Daly City, south of San Francisco, where he is staying for most of his trip.
“It’s a long ride,” Mr. Michgelsen said. “I’m checking Uber rides now, but it’s going to be a tough one.”
Before the pandemic shutdown, BART relied more heavily on fares than government subsidies. But it has increasingly had to lean on public funds because of low ridership, and its emergency pandemic funds have nearly dried up.
It is one of several Bay Area transit agencies pushing for voter approval of a sales tax in 2026. The San Francisco ballot next year may also include a parcel tax to help fund Muni, the city’s local bus and cable car system, which is also struggling financially.
If the sales tax fails at the ballot, BART could be forced to make drastic changes, according to system officials. Ms. Trost said that BART is likely to cut two of its five lines, meaning longer waits and more transfers to reach the city. It would also end service at 9 p.m. and close nine stations, she said.
“That’s why we call it the death spiral,” Ms. Trost said, suggesting that such a rollback could discourage even more passengers from using the system.
Janice Li, a member of the BART board of directors, called the morning meltdown “unacceptable” and said that the transit system must now run smoothly if it wants voters to approve the tax to save it.
“We must respond with high-quality service and zero systemwide disruptions between now and November 2026 and beyond if we want riders to trust that this was just a momentary, albeit frustrating, blip,” she said.
Arguing that transit is a public service like schools and libraries, state legislators had proposed a $2 billion grant for BART and other transit agencies earlier this year.
Gov. Gavin Newsom instead agreed to float a $750 million loan with better terms than what the agencies could receive from outside financiers, as a way to tide them over until the sales tax measure. State leaders face a Tuesday deadline to finalize terms of the loan, but an agreement has not yet been made, which the governor’s office and legislators blamed each other for on Friday.
“The administration supports our local transit agencies and remains open to reviewing proposals as we finalize the remaining budget items,” said Daniel Villaseñor, a spokesman for the governor.
Ms. Trost said that the agency can survive until November 2026, but without the loan, BART would have a “big problem” until the potential sales tax revenues start flowing in spring 2027.
Scott Wiener, a state senator who represents San Francisco, said that Friday’s meltdown showed why it was so important to save BART.
“If BART and Muni unravel, which they will unless we act, traffic in the Bay Area will become unbearable,” he said. “It’ll have horrific impacts on our economy and people’s quality of life.”
Heather Knight is a reporter in San Francisco, leading The Times’s coverage of the Bay Area and Northern California.
Coral Murphy Marcos is a business reporter.
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