San Francisco's commuter trains stopped for four hours by computer outage
SAN FRANCISCO, May 9 - A computer outage knocked out train service in the San Francisco Bay area for about four hours on Friday morning, causing headaches for some commuters in the high-tech capital.
The Bay Area Rapid Transit agency suspended train service systemwide around 5 a.m. PDT and resumed a little after 9 a.m. PDT. The network connects San Francisco, Oakland, both cities' airports, Berkeley and the East Bay area.
BART attributed the shutdown to an unspecified computer problem. Officials advised commuters to take buses, trams and ferries instead.
A prolonged pandemic-related slump in the number of people working in downtown San Francisco probably limited potential snarls.
BART train ridership has been less than half of what it was in 2019. Downtown San Francisco's commercial buildings have among the lowest occupancy rates in the nation for business property, and many people work from home on Fridays.
Google Maps showed car traffic into the city was about normal with no major delays.
The city transport service in San Francisco, called Muni, and its classic cable cars, mostly used by tourists, were running as usual.
The Bay Area is one of the largest metropolitan regions on the U.S. West Coast of the United States with a population of about 7 million.
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