San Francisco's train system is hit by network failure
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The rail systems spokesperson Alicia Trost told NBC Bay Area that the control center was unable to power up the system after its daily overnight shutdown. An image of the Embarcadero BART station shows the entranceway has been taped off and a sign placed in front that reads: 'No train service.'
Gates leading into many of the 50 stations have also been shut. The system spans 131.4 miles of track throughout California, connecting San Francisco and the East Bay to other parts of the Bay Area. BART serves more than 165,000 daily riders and more than 50 million annually.
Trost told NBC that network outages do occur as the system is over 50 years old. 'The good news is we're in the process of replacing it, and we have the funding to do so because of Measure RR, and the federal government has made investments into our infrastructure,' she continued.
'But it's awful news that the Bay Area can't rely on BART as of this moment. We don't have an ETA as to when the trains will go because part of that is identifying the location of the problem.' Justin Levias, from Richmond, told KTVU FOX that he works overnight and relies on BART to get home, but was forced to pay $50 to take an uber.
Levias is just one of thousands of commuters who are frustrated about the system outage. Many commuters were unaware of the issue when they arrived at a BART station, only to be told that they needed to find another mode of transportation. Olivia Liu arrived at a station, finding the metal gate was down and locked.
She told NBC that there is no alternative for her to get to work and an Uber would be too expensive. At the Pleasant Hill Station, signs on the platform that provide train times are now completely dark. 'What's the issue is our train control computer cannot turn on properly, so that the staff in the control center can see everything, and that's obviously not safe,' Trost said.
'So we're not going to run service until all those things happen.' The San Francisco Bay Ferry said it is operating larger ferries to accommodate stranded commuters. 'Take the ferry from Vallejo, Oakland, Richmond or Alameda or take transbay buses,' it shared on X. The last systemwide shutdown across all 50 stations occurred in 2019, when a similar computer issue disrupted service for several hours.
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