The Tightest Transfer on BART
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- čas přidán 22. 09. 2023
- BART's new schedule has put more emphasis on timed transfers, but there is one that is particularly tight and unnatural. Is it practical though?
[1] www.bart.gov/news/articles/20...
#railfans #oakland #sanfrancisco #bayarea #bart #transit
Like the end scene with the surprise legacy train 😆
I wish Bart did more to promote these different kind of transfers anytime we try to plan a schedule and timing on their website. Anytime I need to take a train from SF to Fremont at night, it always recommends taking the blue line then transfer at Bayfair for the next Orange train. Sometimes though i'll board a red train to 12th street, then take the Orange train. That way I can get out the orange train earlier before it would arrive to Bayfair and before all the SF crowds waiting at Bayfair would board and it would still be back to Fremont at pretty much the same time as the blue to orange transfer. (hope that made sense 😅)
But yeah for this particular video I can imagine this kind of transfer is tough for those who are not as mobile for whatever reason
Island Platforms are definitely called for, especially where more than one line uses the station.
I was wondering before the schedule change if West Oakland could be an official transfer station for the blue and red lines. Looks like I'm correct lol.
And yeah do more of these types of videos it's awesome!
I'm pretty sure in the old schedule it was possible to save time with a WO change on weekends (but in the southbound direction)
Actually been awaiting the next Qtrat video for days, top tier transfer content 💯
The orange line is my favorite Bart line
One other reason why there is such a weird hole in the Blue line schedule in general is that they are trying to make room for that new Purple line (Richmond to Dublin) that they started planning before the pandemic.
Once they slide in that new line into the almost perfect Purple line-shaped hole, a lot more of these transfers will become viable.
Do you know if those plans still involve rerouting the Orange Line to Antioch? I don't imagine they'd be able to feasibly run 9 tph on the MacArthur to Pittsburg stretch, or maybe it just becomes 3 lines that go to Berkeley/Richmond...
@@tomo-tawa-linja It's really hard to tell exactly how they would do it. The original plan for the Purple line plan was that the Orange line would switch to Antioch to make room for the Purple line on the Richmond stretch. Instead of that they reduced the overall per-line frequencies to from 15 to 20 minutes and added what is basically a "second Yellow line".
At this point moving the Orange line makes little sense. They'd have to do exactly what they said that they want to avoid with this new schedule - move trains around. This new 10 minute prevailing frequency service plan is supposed to allow them to just slide new trains in without changing the schedules for the existing trains.
I think that going from 15 to 20 minutes per line allows them to just add the Purple line without moving anything but the timing on the Red and Orange a tad. I also think that they will switch the Red line and the Purple line in the schedule. Because right now the Red line trains meet up with the Yellow at MacArthur and have to wait for almost 2 minutes to let them pass. It's a pointless cross-platform transfer that is already sort of timed for no reason. I'm assuming that this is where the Purple line will go, and the Red line will switch into the empty slot instead.
I am just guessing based on the giant hole in the schedule and their previous communications about the Purple line though. BART is only throwing hints for now, not really saying anything definitive probably until they have enough new cars for this.
The purple line is such a great line that should definitely be added sooner rather than later. I know plenty of people that have family in the tri valley and they live in Berkeley or Albany area.
Have you been following the link21 program that would bring rail from lathrop to Dublin pleasant Bart?
They want to use hydrogen powered, and standard gauge rail. Ideally Bart could convert the blue line to standard gauge to connect to sfo, and maybe even Caltrains. There is a blog the reports on calhsr that did a story on this. I’ll try to link it
@@kuyshina It's not really possible to convert BART lines to standard gauge. You can switch out the rails but the viaducts and tunnels are simply not built for heavy rail. BART trains, while being the largest in the country are also somehow insanely light. It's technically classified as a form of "light rail." (not light rail but actual light weight rail, as in physically light trains.) You can't really slide in standard rolling stock into such a custom system and expect to get anywhere near the performance that the optimized custom system had.
Even if you somehow re-gauge the entire Blue line all the way to Castro Valley staation, you still won't be able to run regular mainline trains on any of BART's elevated sections. They're waaaaaaaaay too heavy. This means that even if you overhaul the Blue line all the way to Castro Valley you won't be able to join BART's elevated right of way and will have to extend that line somewhere else past that station.
I keep hearing about this plan about re-gauging various parts of BART, but there are no advantages to be had here. It's tantamount to spending a whole lot of money to lose frequency and capacity after the rebuild. The best thing that they can do in this vein is to extend Valley Link over the Niles subdivision to the Union City BART station. This is what some of the ACE trains will do in a few years too so there already will be a transfer station there with all the necessary facilities. And this is also where a potential Dumbarton rail line would connect to BART for a transfer.
I really hope that we can all switch our advocacy to that plan rather then trying to push for things that are basically technically impossible, like converting BART lines to standard gauge. BART is a subway/metro system. It should have a completely segregated system from standard rail. That's how subways/metros always work and that's how they reach peak throughput and efficiency. Mixing in standard rail can only hurt a subway system.
I wonder if the purple line ideas have been scrapped, considering we're seeing MUCH lower ridership post-pandemic, and they're even reducing the total number of cars per train, I can't imagine they throw in a new line just for the sake of adding more service where it may not be needed i.e. a transfer is much more viable option for them.
I've noticed that the stop at the West Oakland station has been a bit longer than normal stops, so I think they definitely are taking into account potential transfers, but yeah the split platform is just a horrible design there for it, I guess it was cheaper to have the tracks closer together rather than having them split around a platform because it's elevated? That said there are so many ways BART could make this easier, first and foremost is have station platform signs still showing when the next trains are, maybe make it smaller and have a extra bright or flashing for the current train, but if you could just peek your head out to see when the next train is that would be great I mean I guess you could use a cell phone to do it too if the arrival times were actually accurate. And those in car screens could be better used to give train information too, it seems relatively simple thing to do but "hey they got their contract no need to hustle with those software changes!"
That said if you are going to the north then yeah West Oakland is the way to go because you have the red and yellow lines coming out of the transbay tube where as on the East bay side only the orange line goes north, and depending how far north you go maybe either red or yellow may be the way to go. I go from SF to Lake Merrit so there's 2 potential trains for me to take (blue or green) and waiting is never longer than 8 or 9 minutes.
It would be cool if they lined up both trains at Oakland West and opened the "inside doors" allowing transfer passengers to step directly from one train onto the other.
Haha
The trains aren't right next to each other there's two pieces of third rail in between them
I recently had to make this exact transfer, and I was pretty surprised to see that as the most efficient route via the Trip Planner for sure, but I like it! I feel for anyone who might not be able to make it down and back up as quickly, though...
west oakland thats the home for the cleaver slasher
Love this video, glad I'm not the only one in the Bay Area who makes BART Videos.
Btw, there is another Transfer option that isn't exactly official to BART.
During weekends when the Green Line isn't in service, instead of taking the Blue Line to Bay Fair, you can take the Red or Yellow line to 19th or Oakland City Center/12th Street Station and transfer to an Orange Line from there.
And one of the more obvious ones, for passengers wanting to board the Blue or Green line from the Red or Yellow line between SFO/Millbrae and Colma, instead of transferring at Balboa Park, you can wait or board the train at Daly City, where it terminates.
They may not be official, but they've been saying that they want to push them to commuters as options when their preferred line isn't running. I will admit they're probably not doing enough - would have liked to see more station options.
Haha this new schedule has also made me do transfers to sf via the orange line from Fremont to yellow line in Oakland 12th 😂. I always forget I have to go down the stairs whenever I do that transfer.
The real solution ofc is just run more trains 😅
That transfer isn't going to work if you have to use the elevator, so I'm glad there's still the bayfair transfer.
This is very true, I completely forgot to mention it in the video and that's my fault.
yeah, I'm mobility limited, so the elevator is a must
I made this exact transfer when I had my bike on me. I took the elevator down and there was someone getting off the elevator right as I was getting off the train and I tried to take the elevator up to the other platform but then I heard the train arriving and I climbed the stairs with my bike
I got off at Downtown Berkeley and the orange line train I would have gotten was scheduled to arrive in 6 min when I arrived
I wondering if this would work if say i had a bike and wanted to use the elevator
You're complaining about a 17 minute wait on the BART? I've always had to wait 20-30 minutes transferring from yellow to blue for SFO from/to Dublin/Pleasanton. This was before COVID. They also had this weird Sunday map where I was forced to stay on yellow until Richmond before being able to transfer to blue line, adding 40 minutes.
i still don't really like the "oak airport" signs on the display screens. it's way too long of a name. they should mention the suggested transfer to oak airport when the train arrives.
I don't either, not least because it's not actually on the line, but I guess you have to when the wayfinding signs on the platforms don't have an icon for OAK. That would have been the much more reasonable solution.
That said, in Washington you'll see additional signage at platform level for IAD-bound trains but not DCA-bound ones...
The actual scheduled transfer is 00h02m18s, not one minute. Just say’n.
This transfer is not supposed to be a thing use the orange line it exists for a reason
Well then why is it on the official trip planner?
BART's official Trip Planner says otherwise, so you're pretty wrong there bud.
It is an official “opportunity “ transfer that does save time Dublin to Richmond. The door dwell was increased from 36 to 54 seconds for this new transfer.
second
Are you qtrat?
railfan bruh