Report: BART ridership 'stagnant at best'

Oversier said customer on-time service and car equipment reliability were above BART's goals, as were most "passenger environment" indicators, such as vandalism, graffiti, station cleanliness and elevators in service.

But a continuing sore spot is announcements of train destinations, arrivals and transfer stations.

BART's goal was 87-percent compliance but operators only made announcements 76 percent of the time, according to the quarterly report.

Oversier promised directors that he will come back with a plan to address the problem in the next quarter.

Director Lynette Sweet of San Francisco said the poor performance in making announcements is "a negative trend" and it's important that it be turned around.

BART's average weekday ridership was 307,852, 1.9 percent below its goal of 313,818. But its overall ridership was only 0.5 percent below its goal because of what Oversier described as "very healthy growth" in ridership on weekends and in ridership on the new extension to the San Francisco International Airport.

Weekend ridership was 11 percent above BART's target and San Francisco airport extension ridership is up about 10 percent from the same time a year ago, he said.

Oversier said BART's overall ridership level is lower than it was at this time last year, which he said is "an indication the (economic) recovery is very slow."