Currently, individual BART routes run on 15 minute headways during the weekdays, but on nights and weekends, headways increase to 20 minutes. Earlier this year, BART proposed decreasing headways to 15 minutes all the time, any day of the week. The money to pay for the additional maintenance, labor and operating costs came from a fund of $1.3 billion marked for transit, but which Governor Schwarzenegger — demonstrating his usual severe lack of vision when it comes to transportation issues — threatened to take away from transit agencies. To protest the governor’s pronouncement, BART officials left the costs associated with increased service in their budget. However, BART spokesman Linton Johnson announced today that starting January of 2008, trains will run every 15 minutes in any case, citing the fact BART has taken in more fare money than expected, because ridership has increased faster than expected.
Decreasing all headways to 15 minutes, which has long been one of BART’s unfulfilled goals, is an important move for a few reasons. Shorter headways will bring the BART system one step closer to being a true urban metro, shifting away from a commuter rail system that is primarily meant to shuttle downtown workers between the city and the suburbs. BART is currently in the midst of realizing that it must increasingly take on the role of a metro, and future long-term plans for the agency include another urban line, as well as the construction of infill stations along existing routes.
More practically, though, 15 minutes is sort of a magical number in the transit world. Most people can bear a wait of 15 minutes but will become increasingly annoyed at any wait longer than that. If riders know that the wait time for a train will be at most 15 minutes (and, in the core of the system, realistically much less than that), they will be much more likely to use BART frequently and spontaneously, without any need to consult a timetable. Shorter headways at night and on weekends should also encourage more people to ride BART for recreational trips, rather than just as a way to get to and from work.
I would argue that except in the core of the system, there probably is not currently a demand for the additional trains, but I am certainly not complaining about any increased transit service! This is definitely an important step in the right direction.
Transbay Blog 
This is a step in the right direction. I know I’ve just barely missed the train several times at night and sat around for 20 minutes to get back to the East Bay.
A better improvement would be running the trains later, at least on the weekends. I don’t think BART will ever be heavily used for nighttime recreational purposes, unless the system is open until bars and clubs close.
Posted by Becks | 30 September 2007, 10:15 pmDefinitely agreed. BART’s official maintenance excuses aside, I’m not convinced that they couldn’t run just a couple extra late night weekend trains (even hourly!), which would still allow plenty of time for maintenance. Seems like it might just come down to the money issue. Unfortunately, the 800 bus, even coming every half hour, will never have the appeal of late night BART trains.
Posted by Eric | 30 September 2007, 10:36 pmIf BART were to expand service and make it seem more like a metro, they should consider Geary and 19th Ave corridors being that MUNI hasn’t taken too much initiative to reestablish rail service along Geary.
Posted by JR | 9 October 2007, 2:29 amCertainly, Geary/19 Ave is a natural place to put a new line. Geary BRT would be rail-ready, but whether you’d actually get another Metro line there is another story. In any case, the ridership figures do justify building a BART line there, and much more so than any of these suburban extensions that are on the table.
But we’re moving in baby steps. Universal 15-minute headways are a good start.
Posted by Eric | 9 October 2007, 7:59 am