WALNUT CREEK, Calif. (KGO) — Lots of follow-up questions this week focused on BART. What caused the massive systemwide outage on Friday, and how can it be prevented from happening again?
On Monday, commuters are still talking about it. As one commuter put it: “Have I lost faith in BART? No. It’s concerning though.”
On Friday morning at 3:15 a.m., a technology upgrade triggered a cascading failure across the whole BART system, shutting it down across the entire Bay Area for the morning commute. It impacted riders on their way to work, to classes, to flights.
Train service wasn’t fully restored until 11:45 a.m. Its the second full-system outage in four months caused by a technology issue.
MORE: Full BART service resumes after hours-long systemwide shutdown due to computer equipment problem
Full BART service is expected to resume after a nearly seven-hour systemwide shutdown halted trains Friday morning due to a computer equipment problem, leaving commuters frustrated.
ABC7 News reached out to BART General Manager Bob Powers who was out of town last week. The response?
The general manager is not available for interviews.
BART went onto say, “we don’t plan on doing interviews until Thursday when we will give an update to the board.”
But there was no shortage of board members who wanted to chime in.
“As a BART director, on behalf of BART, I definitely want to apologize to all of our customers,” said Victor Flores, BART director.
MORE: BART director speaks on systemwide failure that impacted Bay Area morning commute
BART Board of Director of District 9 Edward Wright speaks after hours-long systemwide failure that impacted Bay Area Friday morning commute.
BART director Barnali Ghosh said her phone has been ringing. “It’s a real reminder of how many people rely on BART to get around, and how disruptive it can be to peoples’ lives,” she said.
“It’s unacceptable, it’s inexcusable to have a shutdown of this magnitude,” said board member Elizabeth Ames.
Board members vowed to investigate the failure in response to riders’ questions.
Over the weekend, BART issued a statement saying network engineers were performing a cutover to a new network switch at the Montgomery station.
Ames said, “Are we going to do the forensic analysis that we need to do to find out what went wrong. Is it the equipment, is it the switch that got replaced or is it the activation of the system with the new equipment?”
Ghosh warned “it only takes one incident, one time of being let down when they go to something important like a doctor’s appointment for people to feel like we can’t rely on this system.”
Flores said, “It makes me very concerned about future upgrades. As a public agency, we absolutely have a responsibility to make sure we are delivering for all our customers, not only fare riders but the taxpayers.”
BART has much at stake going into Thursday’s Board of Directors meeting as they try to rebuild ridership numbers and seek additional funding with a state loan and a ballot measure.
Copyright © 2025 KGO-TV. All Rights Reserved.
Duncan Meyers, founder of BDJOBSTODAY, shares expert career advice, job market insights, and practical tips to help professionals grow and succeed in their careers.
