San Francisco’s special-interest group transit service, BART, stopped running early Saturday, halting all train traffic for several hours up front “limited service” was restored.
Bay Area Rapid Transit said Saturday that crews working overnight on BART’s uninterruptible power delivery ran into problems that impacted the power supply system and train control routing system. Without these sets, a BART statement said, it is unable to safely dispatch its trains for service.
“We are now open with limited service,” BART spokesperson Alicia Trost told CNBC via email relating to 9 a.m. local time.
The transit agency announced earlier it had multiple crews working to get the problem resolved, but for now, it arranged for bus workings to provide free trips for service between stations.
BART’s ridership on weekdays averages more than 430,000 and it fixes downtown San Francisco with the East Bay region cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Fremont and other communities. The transit procedure also provides trips to SFO, the San Francisco airport, for about 4 million people annually.
Some regular BART riders worrying to get to work Saturday vented their frustration about the outage, taking to Twitter and suggesting they would for to resort to ride share services such as Uber.
@SFBARTalert I had to call into work to let my employer know that #BART is shut down @Uber pls get me to work on time.
— gaperez ?? (@gaperez10) March 9, 2019
There also were commuters who pass by to use services such as Uber due to cost and decided to return home from planned trips after learning there the BART shutdown.
Today I tried to go to Portland- I took the bus to the BART station, but BART was closed, so I turned around and went home. I was NOT trying to pay for an Uber ?
— Mikaela (@mikaelawhy) March 9, 2019
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.