Fair payment: To prevent BART fare evaders from jumping the fare gates, the transit agency last week began replacing the present fare gates within the Civic Center station concourse with latest ones. The latest gates are positioned on the north end of the concourse and are closest to the Seventh Street entrance. The project is predicted to take several weeks, but the corporate says they’re evasion-proof. The station's other two fare gates will remain open during installation work. Once the brand new gates are installed, BART will replace all remaining old fare gates on the station. In April, staff successfully installed a brand new fare gate on the elevator entrance on the Civic Center station platform.
Help is on the way in which: Drivers stranded on Bay Area highways receive help from the Highway Service Patrola free service provided by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. More than 100 drivers from 11 towing firms cover 25 precincts within the Bay Area. The teams help drivers with mechanical problems, flat tires, vehicles which have run out of gas, and people with overheated engines and dead batteries. They also assist police in clearing the scene. The teams are on the highways every weekday morning and evening during rush hours, and in select areas with heavy traffic on weekends. Last yr, the teams helped over 65,000 people, with a mean response time of lower than 12 minutes.
Cleantech collaboration: EV Maritime, a New Zealand electric ferry development and technology company, has been awarded the Angel Island/Tiburon Ferry to impress two existing vessels and construct a 3rd latest plug-in hybrid vessel. The hybrid vessel can be designed and constructed by EV Maritime, with electrical integration handled by Bay Area company ZeroMar. The ferries will operate between Tiburon and Angel Island, in addition to for personal charters, whale watching, and sunset cruises. Angel Island State Park is the biggest natural island in San Francisco Bay and a well-liked destination for mountain climbing, biking, and picnicking.
Rolling fun: The BARTmobile, It's the 700-pound, eight-seat fiberglass automotive with a smiling face on the front's birthday, and the agency is inviting the Bay Area to have a good time on the Orinda BART station on Saturday, July 27, between 1 and 4 p.m. For twenty years, the BARTmobile has been a staple at local events and parades. To have a good time the occasion, BART may have a DJ on site, offer carnival games, face painting, free cupcakes and kettle corn, and free rides on the BARTmobile. BART will host other events all year long, including Sound Tracks – free live music by local artists in non-fare areas of the stations.
Excitement about electrification: Starting August 11, Caltrain will offer limited weekend service with its latest electric trains. On September 21, Caltrain will implement a brand new schedule and offer all-electric service seven days every week north of San Jose's Diridon station. Over the roughly six weeks between those two dates, diesel trains can be regularly replaced with electric trains. With the support of state and federal funds, the Caltrain electrification project is replacing the whole aging diesel fleet with state-of-the-art electric trains, making it the primary diesel-to-electric conversion within the country in a generation. The express service allows commuters to travel between San Francisco and San Jose in under an hour and offers reliable Wi-Fi, restrooms, air-con and power sources. Caltrain says the brand new trains will improve service by 20% because they’ll speed up and decelerate much faster than diesel trains.
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