New Bay Area Rapid Transit fare gates generate $10 million annually

https://archive.is/l6GKo

From the article:

BART’s new Plexiglass fare gates generate an estimated $10 million annually for the beleaguered transit agency, and have saved 961 hours in maintenance work, according to staff reports.

The revenue gains and time savings stem from a years-long effort to modernize the system and clamp down on rampant fare evasion. Officials at BART spent years testing designs for a perfect barrier to protect station areas and platforms from street conditions outside, while effectively forcing people to pay. After discarding concepts for double-decker and shark fin gates, as well as an “Iron Maiden” model with revolving bars that join like interlocking teeth, the agency found success with the current institutional-looking saloon-door stiles.

Now installed at all 50 stations, these gates are “a symbol of the new BART,” General Manager Bob Powers said. Charts presented in advance of Thursday’s board of directors workshop show that stations in downtown San Francisco benefited the most from “hardened” infrastructure, indicating a reduction of 110 hours in maintenance work at Embarcadero in the last six months. Crews who repair equipment at Daly City reaped 109 hours of saved time, while 75 hours were saved at Balboa Park and 57 at 16th and Mission.

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Powers and other leaders are touting their success at a moment when BART needs every win it can get. Faced with a looming deficit of $400 million a year, BART has warned of an all-out nuclear scenario if voters defeat a sales tax measure to bail the rail agency out in November. Without that economic life raft, BART will undergo a death in three phases, management warn.

Staff at the agency would close ten stations as soon as next January, with another five on the kill list in July. Within two years, BART could activate “Phase 3” a move to shut down service altogether.