Benny Grush/Staff

Although BART management and labor unions failed to reach an agreement Thursday night, union leadership agreed to extend talks through the weekend, narrowly averting what would have been this year’s second BART strike.

In early August, San Francisco County Superior Court granted Gov. Jerry Brown’s request for a 60-day “cooling-off” period that barred BART employees from striking. This expired at the end of Thursday. If the two sides had failed to reach an agreement by then, BART employees could have gone on strike Friday, disrupting more than 400,000 daily commuters.

Talks between BART and labor unions are set to resume at 10 a.m. Friday. If an agreement is not reached this weekend, the unions could strike as early as Monday.

Negotiations earlier this week were stalled by various stumbling blocks as the parties sought to come to a consensus and avoid a repeat of the summer’s BART strike, which lasted from July 1 to 5.

On Tuesday night, unions and BART management were “very close” to an agreement, according to Des Patten, a spokesperson from Service Employees International Union Local 1021. However, negotiations fell through after BART management said there had been a miscommunication.

“That was an unfortunate situation,” Patten said. “We just told them, ‘You were at this point, and that’s where we expected you to be’ and what we were ready to talk about.”

One of the main points of contention during recent negotiations was an offer from BART to increase pay by 10 percent over four years, which unions said was insufficient.

“There’s no such thing as a 10 percent raise, because you first subtract the amount of money that will be used to pay for the pension, and then you subtract the amount that will be paid for medical,” Patten said. The service employees union also made “significant changes” to its wage offer during negotiations, he added.

On Thursday afternoon, BART spokesperson Jim Allison said BART management planned to present a new offer that was “greater than that 10 percent over four years.”

Previously, the two sides unofficially agreed on a plan to reimburse employees 72 cents for every $1 they contribute toward their pensions. The unions and BART management entered Thursday’s negotiations with this agreement tentatively in place, Allison said.

Another major issue discussed this week was safety measures in the workplace for BART employees, such as insufficient lighting and overgrown brush along tracks.

“Some areas of the tunnels are extremely dark, and you can’t see very well — it’s a danger for employees,” Patten said. “If something goes wrong and (patrons) have to evacuate the train, it’s very dark, and people could stumble and fall.”

Throughout this week, the two sides made progress on smaller, nonmonetary issues, including work regulations, according to Patten.

News editor Megan Messerly contributed to this report.

Contact Jessie Lau at jlau@dailycal.org.

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Alicia Trost/Courtesy

This week, BART is showcasing a scale wooden replica of a preliminary design for new train cars that it plans to begin rolling out in 2017.

Passengers at Oakland’s MacArthur station are able to look inside at “the fleet of the future” and give design feedback. The public display, open from 2 to 7 p.m. until Friday, also includes a prototype of new digital displays that will alert passengers of approaching stops and train delays.

BART has been planning to redesign its 41-year-old trains since 2009, when it first requested remodeling proposals from several train car suppliers. BART currently uses the same train model it used when it first started in 1972.

“The fact of the matter is that we have the oldest railcars in the country right now,” said Jim Allison, deputy chief communications officer for BART. “It’s becoming harder to keep them running and harder to find the parts to fix them when necessary.”

Among the new changes are an additional door per car — from two to three — about 10 percent more standing room, interior bike racks, additional handrails and remodeled seats made of vinyl.

BART also hopes that the new cars will help it keep up with increasing passenger traffic, which is expected to increase from about 400,000 a day to about 500,000 a day in 2018. Traffic is expected to continue increasing partially due to planned service expansions in Silicon Valley.

But funding for the new cars is still tentative. Allison said that BART has an ultimate goal of buying 1,000 new train cars, replacing the 669 now in use and adding more, but funding has only been secured for 410 cars.

Some funds may come from fare increases that will take effect in January, but a settlement with BART labor unions over employee wages, currently being negotiated, could reduce funds for the new trains.

Reactions to the new design, developed by Bombardier Transportation, have been mostly positive.

“The engineering must reflect what the people want and how they’ll use it,” said Bob Lockhart, a retired BART employee who stopped by the exhibit. Lockhart said he noticed improved levels of brightness, space and general passenger accommodation.

Several BART employees were also stationed on-site to receive feedback from visitors.

“I think it’s great they’re letting us see all of this,” said Bethany Dean, a frequent BART passenger from Oakland who was also at the exhibit. “We can tell them our honest opinions about the changes, and it seems like they’re taking it all into consideration.”

This week, BART is showcasing a scale wooden replica of a preliminary design for new train cars that it plans to begin rolling out in 2017.

Passengers at Oakland’s MacArthur station are able to look inside at “the fleet of the future” and give design feedback. The public display, open from 2 to 7 p.m. until Friday, also includes a prototype of new digital displays that will alert passengers of approaching stops and train delays.

BART has been planning to redesign its 41-year-old trains since 2009, when it first requested remodeling proposals from several train car suppliers. BART currently uses the same train model it used when it first started in 1972.

“The fact of the matter is that we have the oldest railcars in the country right now,” said Jim Allison, deputy chief communications officer for BART. “It’s becoming harder to keep them running and harder to find the parts to fix them when necessary.”

Among the new changes are an additional door per car — from two to three — about 10 percent more standing room, interior bike racks, additional handrails and remodeled seats made of vinyl.

BART also hopes that the new cars will help it keep up with increasing passenger traffic, which is expected to increase from about 400,000 a day to about 500,000 a day in 2018. Traffic is expected to continue increasing partially due to planned service expansions in Silicon Valley.

But funding for the new cars is still tentative. Allison said that BART has an ultimate goal of buying 1,000 new train cars, replacing the 669 now in use and adding more, but funding has only been secured for 410 cars.

Some funds may come from fare increases that will take effect in January, but a settlement with BART labor unions over employee wages, currently being negotiated, could reduce funds for the new trains.

Reactions to the new design, developed by Bombardier Transportation, have been mostly positive.

“The engineering must reflect what the people want and how they’ll use it,” said Bob Lockhart, a retired BART employee who stopped by the exhibit. Lockhart said he noticed improved levels of brightness, space and general passenger accommodation.

Several BART employees were also stationed on-site to receive feedback from visitors.

“I think it’s great they’re letting us see all of this,” said Bethany Dean, a frequent BART passenger from Oakland who was also at the exhibit. “We can tell them our honest opinions about the changes, and it seems like they’re taking it all into consideration.”

The design phase will ultimately conclude in 2015 after another public display is held for Bombardier’s final model. If everything stays on track, all BART trains will be replaced with the new models by 2023.

Contact Andrew Dickey at adickey@dailycal.org.

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Sophia Elia/Staff

Public transportation officials plan to boost services within and to San Francisco this weekend to accommodate the more than a million people estimated to head into the city for a myriad of events.

MUNI and BART will both increase hours and train capacity starting Friday to account for events including the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, Litquake, Giants playoff games and the Castro Street Fair.

“BART is significantly boosting its passenger carrying capacity for what promises to be an epic Bay Area weekend of events,” states a press release issued by BART spokesperson Jim Allison.

Continuing throughout the weekend, BART will add “up to a dozen special event trains and longer trains all day long each day,” the release states.

Paul Rose, a spokesman for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, said it is taking similar steps to expand service, adding metro service and shuttles going straight to the Embarcadero for the Giants games and having 100 additional taxicabs on the streets.

Rose said travelers need to be aware of transit options this weekend in particular due to traffic concerns.

“Have a plan in place, and ultimately leave your cars at home,” Rose said. “If more people can use public transport, walk, ride a bike or take a taxi, then there will be more room on the roads, and you will decrease the chance of long delays.”

This weekend is expected to max out the city’s capacity of 33,000 hotel rooms — with some of the overflow expected to spill over into the East Bay, South Bay and the Peninsula.

At a City Hall event on Tuesday, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee called this weekend “a chance to show off our city,” and city officials expect the weekend events to bring hundreds of millions of dollars to the city.

UC Berkeley freshman Avery Hellman is performing at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park with her band, “The Go to Hell Man Clan,” and said the city congestion meant she would have to leave campus early, around 9 a.m., to ensure that she gets to the festival on time.

“I need to make sure there is space on the bus to get me from BART to the festival,” Hellman said.

She also said that, even though transportation to the event may be difficult, there will be more of an issue for people getting home since many of this weekend’s events have different starting times but end around the same point.

The festival holds special significance for Hellman, whose grandfather actually established the event in 2001.

“It’s going to be a madly awesome weekend,” Hellman said.

Contact Shannon Carroll at scarroll@dailycal.org.

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Kevin Foote/File

Bay Area Rapid Transit’s staff recommended that its Board of Directors sign a $1.5 billion dollar contract for the next generation of trains at its board meeting Thursday.

BART will be replacing the current trains because they have been in continuous use since 1972 and are the oldest in America. BART officials deliberated over three companies’ bids for approximately a year and a half before finally selecting one company to recommend to the board, which will make its final decision on whether to sign the contract on May 10. Final recommendations were scored on the basis of both price and technical specifications of the trains, called Fleet of the Future, with price receiving the greatest weight during consideration, according to BART spokesperson Jim Allison.

Bombardier, a North American based company, won the bid due to high scores on the basis of both technical specifications and price, Allison said.

“Bombardier had the highest technical score, (making it) presumably the most reliable and safe vehicle, as well as the cheapest,” he said. “Those are compelling reasons to support that recommendation.”

A French company, Alstom, and South Korean company, Hyundai Rotem, also placed bids to build the new cars, both of which were not selected for recommendation to the board. Alstom built the original fleet of cars.

BART hopes to see 60 new cars in service by 2017, with a total of 775 cars by 2023, according to Allison.

“There will be three sets of doors per side versus the current two sets … bike racks in place for bikes and also a visual display of where you are in the system if you can’t hear the audio announcement,” said Bob Franklin, President of BART Board of Directors.

Whether or not BART board members approve the recommendation for Bombardier’s bid depends partly upon public opinion, according to Franklin, who also said that some concern had been voiced about the lack of American made content in the Bombardier bid.

Bombardier’s proposal calls for 66 percent American-made parts, while the second place bid submitted by Alston would have incorporated 95 percent of parts made in America, Franklin said.

Both Allison and Franklin said that if the board does not approve the bid, this delay will result in the reliability of BART service to be compromised in the future.

If a simple majority of the board votes against the contract, BART would start the bidding process all over again, which could take an additional 18 months and cost approximately $10 million, according to Allison.

“If we delay this contract it puts more pressure on the current vehicles which hurts Berkeley and all the cities that we currently serve,” Allison said.

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Ayon Kabir/Staff

In addition to its ongoing multibillion-dollar project to replace all its train cars, Bay Area Rapid Transit could soon see extended service hours and upgrades to existing cars.

In a meeting Thursday, BART’s Board of Directors reviewed the budget for fiscal year 2013 and — in expectation of an increase in ridership next year — proposed putting $45 million in operating funds toward the initiative to install a new fleet of cars, $2.4 million to pay for new seats and new floors in existing cars and approximately $600,000 to extend weeknight service on one of its lines.

BART is already involved in a $3.2 billion new rail car project called Fleet of the Future, which is an attempt to replace all of the transit agency’s 669 existing cars, most of which have been running since 1972.

The suggestions made Thursday would help support the Fleet of the Future project in the long term and provide short-term benefits like the upgrades to existing cars. The extra hour of  weeknight train service on the Daly City to Richmond line would push the closing time of the line from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.

“To build BART was a very expensive proposition,” said BART spokesperson Jim Allison. “ Now that we have it, we need to reinvest in it to make sure it keeps running.”

The transit agency is holding a town hall meeting May 24 so community members will have an opportunity to voice any concerns about the funding allocations. The board will return to vote on a budget for fiscal year 2013 on June 14.

According to a press release from BART, the agency’s $669.4 million operating budget is benefiting from a projected 3 percent increase in ridership in fiscal year 2013, which would bring weekday ridership to an all-time high of 376,000 for the year.

BART’s financial planning department anticipated the recession, resulting in a reduction in its workforce by 7 percent and a decrease in overall expenses, according to Allison. Now that the economy is recovering, the company will start to reinvest, he said.

Included in the items discussed Thursday is a plan to reinvest $15 million of funds from fiscal year 2012 into the State of Good Repair fund, a program designed to ensure that trains and infrastructure are maintained so the agency can continue to make repairs to train systems and rail cars.

A study conducted in 2009 by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission for transit operators found that BART needs to invest $15 million over the next 25 years. To date, the transit agency  has identified resources for $7.5 million but will need to find other funding for the remaining $7.5 million deficit it could face.

“Every transit agency is facing these big capital shortfalls,” Allison said. “On Capitol Hill, supporters of mass transit are working to try to find a way that money is directed so that we can keep what we have in good working order.”

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Chris Chau and Jill Wong/Staff

The Bay Area Rapid Transit District will seek community input next month about upping ticket prices, an increase aimed at generating approximately $5 million in new revenue for the upcoming fiscal year.

BART has proposed three different models to implement the fee increases, which are set to take effect in July.

The first would increase fares by 1.4 percent across the board, which would be followed by a series of inflation-based increases that began in 2006. This method would continue a policy approved by the BART Board of Directors in 2003 that increases fares every other year to keep up with inflation, according to BART spokesperson Jim Allison.

Currently one-way BART fares, set with a mileage-based formula, range between a minimum of $1.75 to a maximum of $10.90. The proposed 1.4 percent increase would raise this price range to between approximately $1.75 and $11.05.

The second option being considered would only affect fares for transbay trips between the East Bay and San Francisco, increasing each fare by $0.10.  The third option would increase all fares by $0.05.

In every option, the proposed increase would apply equally to discounted fares for seniors and children who would continue to receive 62.5 percent cheaper rates.

The transit agency will hold five meetings between March 6 and March 19 in Oakland, Concord, San Francisco’s Mission District, Daly City and Richmond to allow community members to express the effects that the different increase models would have on their transit experiences.

“We’ll see what the budget looks like and how people view fare increases,” said BART Board of Directors President Bob Franklin. “We make decisions based on anticipated budget costs and people’s responses.”

Darius Rodriguez, a freshman at Berkeley City College, said he rides BART almost every day but might start using other forms of transit if BART prices are increased too much.

“Depending on how much rates are, I’ll find other options how to get here,” he said.

In part, the proposed fare increases are meant to help fund 775 new BART train cars, which are set to begin rolling out in 2014. Some of those cars will also be used for a new line connecting San Jose to the established transit system. According to Allison, the system currently has 59 of the original cars that were purchased between 1970 and 1974, 389 that were bought in a second round between 1984 and 1987 and 230 that were purchased between 1990 and 1992.

BART estimates the long-range cost of the replacement plan at $3 billion, the majority of which will be paid for by a combination of local, state and federal government spending. BART projects the transit agency will contribute 25 percent of the cost.

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About 1,150 customers were affected when an underground cable failed just before 4 p.m. near the intersection of Milvia Street and Allston Way, prompting BART authorities to close the station shortly after, according to PG&E spokesperson Tamar Sarkissian.

“It was black except for the light shining in from outside,” said Keyana Nicole, an employee at Peet’s Coffee & Tea, the only vendor in the station.

Nicole said Tuesday’s outage was the fourth this year.

Two hours after the power outage was reported, the number of customers without power had been reduced by 50 percent, Sarkissian said.

UC Berkeley freshman Waana Quraishi, who takes the train every Tuesday around 4 p.m., said the power outage delayed her travel time significantly, making her usual 30-minute trip two hours long.

At the time the outage was reported, the Berkeley Fire Department responded to a call to assist someone trapped in the elevator at the station.

“There was only one incident,” said Roy Aguilera, BART assistant chief transportation officer. “The person was almost down to the concourse level and was helped out. No one was hurt or transported.”

Jeanette Ortiz, a student at Berkeley City College, experienced a delay at the Oakland Coliseum BART station.

“The one for Richmond was 30 minutes late,” she said. “The people coming from San Francisco who don’t normally board got on at that stop.”

According to BART spokesperson Jim Allison, the trains did not stop suddenly when the power went out because they are equipped with transmitters that notify the operator of the lost signal and allow the operator to take over the train manually.

Commuters redirected to the North Berkeley and Ashby BART stations during the power outage were once again able to depart from the Downtown station when power was restored at 5:45 p.m.

The PG&E crew dispatched to the location where the equipment failure occurred completed repairs late Tuesday, restoring power to all customers by 9:25 p.m.

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