Here's why BART board president blames San Francisco for safety issues on trains
It comes as the system dealt with major delays and concerns in recent weeks over safety.
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Wednesday night BART's board president blamed the City and County of San Francisco for the transit agency's safety issues on trains.
It comes as the system dealt with major delays Tuesday and concerns in recent weeks over safety.
Video from Tuesday shows crowds of people getting onto BART trains Tuesday at San Francisco's Embarcadero station.
Then in the East Bay, shoulder-to-shoulder crowds at the Pleasant Hill Bart Station as riders tried to get home.
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Many of those delays due to downed trees on tracks.
"It was insane! The platforms were overly crowded and it took me an hour and a half to get home," said BART rider Nicole Jaeger.
Jaeger was traveling from San Francisco to Hayward Tuesday and says while she understands that weather issues happen, she's now dealing with BART delays and cancellations on a regular basis.
BART board director Janice Li spoke at Manny's Community Space in San Francisco Wednesday night but didn't address either issue. She did talk quite a bit about what she calls a lack of investment in the system.
"That lack of investment has built up over time to the point where it's so expensive to run our systems and maintain our systems. We are trying to do more with less," said Li.
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Riders tell us that security is a major concern. They have seen Crisis Intervention Teams of late, but Li essentially says that the issues plaguing San Francisco are bleeding onto BART.
"Our effectiveness of these programs is really, really limited by honestly the City and County of San Francisco's inability to have real solutions and real exits from homelessness and to really deal with the addiction crisis that we have here and until the City and County of San Francisco can get it together in finding those solutions we will inevitably see those things happen on BART," said Li.
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Jaeger and at least three other people who reached out to us Wednesday say unhoused individuals are often taking up a full row of seats during commute hours and sometimes doing drugs while on board.
"You pray that you don't get sick or you don't die because you don't know what they're using or what they're smoking on the train. Whether it's crack, whether it's meth, whether it's heroin because you just don't know," said Jaeger.
In a tweet this week those with BART say "Starting next week, BART police will be increasing presence on trains." They say an additional 8-18 officers per shift will join the 10 officers currently patrolling at any time.
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