BART riders face major delays, HVAC issues this week

SAN LEANDRO, Calif. (KGO) -- Friday was another day and unfortunately another bump on BART's road to improving its relationship with riders. A problem with the train equipment caused major delays at Bay Fair and nearby BART stations.

"Instead of making automatic switches between our tracks that allow the trains to function on their proper routes, we have to crank them manually," Chris Filippi, a BART spokesperson, said. "It creates a very large backup."

Sky7 captured workers manually switching trains onto the Fremont and Dublin/Pleasanton lines for several hours. The issue was fixed before the afternoon rush. However, the hiccup rounded out a week of other problems, like no air conditioning on cars during record high temps.

"It was like in the 90s," a BART rider told ABC7 News earlier in the week. "We were perspiring actually."

"Realistically, some of our train cars are 20, 30, 40-years-old," Filippi said. "I mean think about driving a car that old? It takes a lot of love and care and takes a lot of maintenance, but even with that sometimes everything doesn't work."

This week, there were also concerns raised over the double stacked gates being tested to stop fare evaders. Some disabled riders and people with strollers find the new gates difficult.

"Like seriously, my baby could have gotten smashed up in there," Tynisha Wilker, a BART rider, said.

"I've been riding BART for over 40 years and overall it's good," Deborah Carter, a BART rider, said.

Deborah Carter wants people to know it's not all bad. She's looking forward to the big changes BART has planned. Its fleet of the future cars are already beginning to roll out.