Thank you, Dan Walters, for your insightful column on Bay Area transit (9/18/25). As a proponent of public transportation and frequent rider on Caltrain and BART, it would be devastating to lose these services. However, ridership will not improve until stations’ uncleanliness and serious safety concerns, stemming from increased homelessness and drug use are resolved.
In particular, most of the BART stations and the Sequoia Caltrain station. I feel very safe riding Caltrain due to the numerous conductors on board constantly walking and observing potential safety concerns. I have yet to encounter a BART train operator in a passenger car or BART police officer in any station. Where are they? Why not have unarmed security roaming cars and stations to deter crime and provide comfort to riders? Caltrain conductors routinely check tickets and discipline fare evaders, but this doesn’t seem to be a routine practice on BART.
Bay Area transit will continue to run a deficit until these issues can be resolved and rides aren’t so scary. To the board at BART, take note of what is working at Caltrain and implement change now.
(1) comment
Thanks for your letter, Ms. Hawley, but union transit workers operating the system at 100% capacity with 50% demand don’t have time to worry about uncleanliness and serious safety concerns. In fact, BART may attempt to justify more tax measures to take more of your hard earned money to increase their number of employees to address your concerns. That’s likely to be the only change implemented – it’s all about money for workers, not user experience.
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