Passenger Bus, Rail and Motorcoach Industry News

California Assembly Bill 716, which took effect last year, allows BART to issue a “prohibition order” against anyone who commits certain offenses on the transit district’s property, such as violence against employees or passengers, defacing property or urinating in public.

When using the QuickPlanner website or mobile site, the trip plan will show an icon with three heads, two heads or one head — indicating “heavy crowding expected,” “moderate crowding expected” or “light crowding expected.”

The contract has a maximum value of $20 million.

The Clipper Card fare payment system will be used once the Warm Springs Extension opens in 2015.

Developed by University of California, Berkeley seismologists, it sends alerts over the Internet to the transit system and other end users, such as Google.

Ridership, in its first year of service in 1972, totaled 15,000 trips per weekday. Last month, ridership reached 384,000 trips per weekday, the busiest in BART's history.

Agency will receive 150 more railcars valued at approximately $266 million. The order represents the exercise of an option under a contract signed on June 14.

The incident occurred at approximately 2:15 a.m. when a blaze in a building under construction near the West Oakland Station damaged electrical and communications systems on the elevated BART tracks and forced the transit agency to cancel Transbay service just hours before the start of the morning commute.

The contract includes a first option order for 150 cars that BART intends to order later this month and additional options which, if exercised, would bring the total number of cars ordered to 775 and the total value of the order to approximately $1.5 billion.

Station agent Jim Stanek gave $300 in train passes with unused balances to a needy teenager. He thought the tickets were going to be discarded. The agency says the leftover balances go toward BART’s general fund.