|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
BART’s Board of Directors received new details last week on a partial train derailment that occurred on New Year’s Day on the Antioch-bound yellow line, just north of the Orinda station.
Board members also heard an update on Jan. 11 on new gates designed to reduce fare evasion that are being tested at the West Oakland BART station ahead of plans to install them in eight additional stations.
The prototypes for the $90 million project were installed late last month but are still getting updates, such as reducing a slight lag between when a card is swiped and when the gates open.
Nine people suffered minor injuries in the train derailment on Jan. 1. An investigation by BART found that the derailment occurred when a train had to be manually switched to a new track by its operator at a track interlocking but ended up on the wrong track.
The switch had to be made manually because of a computer system failure that prevented it from being made automatically, BART assistant general manager of operations Shane Edwards told the board.
The train operator was told to reverse course southward, past the interlocking, to re-attempt the switch, but as the train was moving in that direction, the operator of another train noticed smoke coming from that train.
After being alerted by radio about the smoke, the operator reported a warning light had come on and was told to investigate. The operator left the driver’s area and walked through the train and saw that passengers were self-evacuating because of a partial derailment of two of the cars. The driver swept the train and told all passengers to evacuate, said Fred Edwards, BART’s assistant chief transportation officer, in a presentation to the board.
Gina Galetti, a BART deputy police chief, said most of the injuries were likely caused during the derailment, not during the evacuation.
A fire that started on the tracks after the derailment was caused by a layer of metallic grease-like substance on the tracks and was extinguished by firefighters from the Moraga-Orinda Fire District.
The partial derailment is also being investigated by the California Public Utilities Commission and the National Transportation Safety Board.
The new, redesigned fare gates have been a priority for the board since 2019, director Liz Ames said.
The first set of gates was installed at the West Oakland station in late December and is being analyzed for how many people pass through, how much fare is collected, and the gates’ functionality.
Director Debora Allen said the new design would reduce fare evasion, but the gates will not stop it completely without being complemented by human beings, primarily station agents and BART police officers.
“We’re not going to stop a hundred percent of it, but I expect we go a long way with this project to reducing the fare evasion substantially,” Allen said.
The gates are manufactured by South Korean company Straffic Co. Ltd. They will next be installed at Civic Center, Montgomery, Powell Street, 24th Street Mission, SFO, Fruitvale, Richmond, and Antioch stations.
There are still a few tweaks to make to the gates, including reducing a delay of about 1.3 seconds from when a card is swiped to when the gates open and installing an audible component for visually impaired customers.
A first-of-its kind physical lock is designed to prevent the gates from being pushed open. The gates are designed to automatically open if there is a power outage.
The next BART board meeting will be Jan. 25 at 9 a.m. on the first floor at 2150 Webster St. in Oakland.
