BART grapples with the opioid crisis as overdose deaths in system hit new high
The Bay Area's drug crisis is increasingly landing on the region's largest transit system.
Suspected overdose deaths on BART property this year have now climbed past the total for all of 2022 as the agency tries to respond to a problem that's expanding across the system.
"Where I grew up in Arizona, there was nothing to do but drugs," John said of his upbringing as he sat beneath Market Street.
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Sitting at the very end of the Civic Center platform just as the BART system prepared to shut down for the night, he is about to make their way back to the East Bay.
"I, currently, am homeless," he said. "I have a motorhome. My motorhome is parked in Castro Valley. I just came over here to score. It's cheaper over here. Incredibly cheap."
John is among those who come to San Francisco for the city's buyer-friendly drug market. Anyone who rides BART knows the drug crisis is coursing through the transit system.
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So far this year, 20 people have died on trains, in stations, or somewhere else on BART property. These presumed overdoses are referred to as "unattended deaths."
"I mean, there's so much of it.," John said of drugs and addiction. "I don't think they can do anything about it, you know?"
"Hello," was the gentle approach used by a BART crisis intervention specialists on a train moving through East Oakland as she tried to rouse an apparently sleeping rider.
One way BART is responding is with 19 of these specialists. They are part of an effort to deploy as many different uniformed bodies as possible, both to respond to people in trouble and as a deterrent to keep drugs out.
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"Police officers crisis intervention specialists," said BART Police Deputy Chief Ja'Son Scott. Transit Ambassadors. Fare inspectors. Community Service Officers. We've committed more of our personnel to our trains and our stations."
Not only are transit officials trying to get more people in more places, BART leadership is also hoping some of this can be mitigated with new fare gates. But managing the drug challenge is becoming an old problem.
BART passengers might remember back in 2018 when cell phone video of a Civic Center Station hallway lined with incapacitated drug users made national headlines and prompted emergency discussions between mayors, police agencies, and BART leaders.
Something that jumps out of that video: just about everyone in that hallway was using a needle. Finding a bit of tinfoil on the ground back then was the exception. While the problem hasn't gone away, it has changed, with fentanyl becoming the prevalent new drug that is vastly more lethal. Watching BART's drug challenge is really watching the evolution of the broader opioid crisis.
"I went from smoking heroin to shooting up heroin, and then the stuff came around," John explained. "The fentanyl epidemic hit, and it made everything 100 times worse."
Just as fentanyl has driven up overdose numbers in the cities BART passes through, it has done so within the system. But the deaths only tell part of the story. Every BART staff member passengers encounter while traveling is now equipped with Narcan.
They're using it every few days, sometimes several times in a single day, to revive passengers who might otherwise be the next fatality. It's happening everywhere. BART says its average response time for a reported overdose is about four minutes. But there are limits to what transit personnel can do.
"We can't be everywhere all the time," Scott said. "So we definitely depend on some of our riders to help us with these issues."
"Me myself, I've resuscitated people that I don't even know," John said. "Because I'm not gonna let somebody just die."
He says he is hoping to find a treatment option, reconnect with his family, and break the cycle.
"I've got kids," he explained. "I can't see them because of this. It's a sh--ty situation."
It is a cycle that has landed him -- and so many others -- in a similar situation, battling addiction in the most public of places, no matter where it takes them.
"I guess we're all just regular people and we all have somebody that loves us somewhere no matter if it's here anybody else." John said as he rode back to the East Bay. "I think everybody deep down wants help. Nobody wants this for themselves, you know what I mean?"