BART Approval Rating Plunges Despite Efforts To Clean Up, Improve System
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) -- The results of BART's biannual customer satisfaction survey are in, and they are not good. Barely half of BART riders are happy with their transit experience, most of the complaints focused on concerns over safety and cleanliness.
The survey found customer satisfaction plunged to 56 percent last year, compared to 69 percent from three years ago.
When it comes to BART's enforcement against fare cheats, satisfaction plummeted by nearly 20 percent. Feelings of personal security dipped 16 percent and comfort with police presence at BART stations went down nearly 15 percent.
"My analogy is it's kind of the report card I wouldn't rush home to show my parents," said Bevan Dufty, BART Board of Directors President.
"It's one of the reasons I take my shoes off when I come into my house," one rider said.
BART has been rolling out more officers and station attendants, especially at stations like Civic Center, the scene of last year's notorious video of drug users passed out along a corridor. However, despite recent evidence of some improvement at those stations, BART admits its reputation has been knocked off track.
"What the riders are concerned about, we're concerned about," Dufty said at Civic Center. "We want to make this system safer, more inviting, welcoming, help people who need help."
So that is one part of BART's struggle, a train system faced with mitigating the impact of social challenges form San Francisco's Tenderloin to Bay Point, but BART also faces challenges on a possibly larger scale, and that's rebuilding the aging core of the system.
"Look, BART needs to rebuild BART and that's going to have consequences," says Randy Rentschler of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. "Those consequences will include needing to change schedules so BART has work windows to do work they should've done years ago, but they really have to do it now."
That's exactly why BART is cutting back its start time in February, to allow for more ambitious equipment repairs and upgrades. Longer term, the system will ultimately need to be expanded with a second transbay tube and a new train control system, projects that will take years.
"We've been talking about them for a long time, we're going to continue to talk about them for a long time," says Rentschler. "BART has issued a bond and the bridge tolls went up, but that's just a fraction of the resources that BART needs to rebuild itself to prepare the Bay Area for the future."
For its part, BART says it's on a seven-year timetable for the initial system upgrade, and it understands riders want a better experience in the near term as well. "We have the everyday problems and experiences, and then we have the long-term of making that investment in BART," explains Dufty. "But I understand why riders are frustrated, And we're gonna work on it, we want to really we want to win back their confidence and support."
