BART restores service after computer glitch shuts down entire train system, stranding thousands

Thousands of commuters across the Bay Area found themselves stranded at train stations during the peak hours of Friday’s morning commute after a computer issue knocked out service to the region’s train system.

The massive shutdown of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) lasted more than four hours, the worst such public transit meltdown to hit the region in recent memory. It created a wave of traffic across the Bay Bridge, surging prices on rideshare apps and sending ferry companies scrambling to manage a crush of new passengers moving between San Francisco and Oakland for work and school.

BART trains, which typically begin running at 5 a.m., remained shuttered until just after 9 a.m. BART spokesperson Alicia Trost said the train’s control system “couldn’t power up correctly” early Friday, causing the systemwide closure.

“Without [the train control system], we can’t run trains safely,” Trost said in a statement. She said transit system operators were still working to understand the “root issue” of the control system glitch.

Commuters were stunned to find their local BART station gates shuttered, some wrapped in yellow caution tape. Many scrambled to make alternate arrangements, though few found options that weren’t drastically more expensive or time-consuming. BART’s heavy rail line, which connects five of the region’s most populous counties and ties together San Francisco with Oakland, is used by more than 150,000 commuters most weekday mornings, according to transit data.

One person on X posted that his Uber from Oakland to San Francisco International Airport was estimated to cost $85 around 7:30 a.m. after he realized the train wasn’t an option. Someone else commuting from Oakland into San Francisco posted on Facebook that she would definitely be late for work and might have to miss the day altogether, as she wasn’t going to pay $80 for a rideshare.

Just before 4:30 a.m. Friday — about a half hour before trains typically begin running — officials warned that all trains were “suspended systemwide until further notice,” BART officials shared in an early morning alert. Later, officials called it a “computer networking problem,” and urged riders to “seek alternate means of transportation.”

BART officials encouraged riders to find transportation alternatives on its site, which appeared to recommend nearby bus lines.

A host of the region’s transit agencies tried to come to the aid of commuters. The San Francisco Bay Ferry system put its largest ferries into service and urged people needing transport from Oakland, Alameda, Richmond and Vallejo to take them. AC Transit, the bus system for the East Bay, were transporting buses filled with passengers over the Bay Bridge into the Salesforce Transit Center. Caltrain, the commuter rail line that links San Francisco with the Santa Clara Valley, said it was providing “mutual aid” to BART, honoring valid tickets and passes.

But Friday’s major shutdown was only the latest challenge for BART, which, like all the Bay Area transit systems, has struggled to regain ridership since the COVID-19 pandemic. The system has also struggled to combat perceptions of a lack of safety and concerns about cleanliness, and is facing financial shortfalls as federal and state emergency funding is about to expire.

State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) said the train meltdown Friday only emphasizes how vital BART and public transit are to the region, and why such systems must receive the funds they require.

“Today’s BART’s shutdown — & the resulting traffic, transit & work disruptions — are another reminder of how essential BART & other transit systems are for the Bay Area,” Wiener wrote on social media site Bluesky. “BART & other systems face devastating service cuts if we don’t shore up their funding. ... We must act to save these systems.”

BART in January raised fares by 5.5% to keep pace with inflation, with the average fare now $4.72, up from $4.47. But that uptick is far from covering major budget shortfalls or helping the transit system prepare for long-term stability.

The system, however, has cited some recent wins, primarily in its efforts to increase ridership. After several recent improvements aimed at improving safety and cleanliness — including replacing some decades-old train cars, installing more robust fare gates and adding elevator and bathroom attendants — BART said violent crime on the transit system fell by 23% during the first three months of the year, compared to the prior year. There was a 17% decline in overall crime in 2024.

In 2024, BART reported 50.6 million passenger trips, up 5.3% from the prior year. But weekday BART station exits were still at less than half of what they were in 2019, the last calendar year before the pandemic.

Trost, the BART spokesperson, did not respond to questions about if the issue that occurred Friday had happened before or was likely to happen again.

But in March 2019, BART experienced a systemwide meltdown that also lasted several hours. The event was caused by a single network switch that failed, which led a cascading failure that broke the communications line between BART’s operations control center and its systems and devices in the field, according to BART. Trains didn’t reach full service that day until about 11 a.m.

Prior to 2019, the last major BART disruption occurred in March 2006. Then, an attempt to work on a backup system inadvertently resulted in a hardware failure, bringing all trains to a halt for an hour during the peak of a Wednesday evening commute. Officials in 2006 said later said they shouldn’t have been working on that system while trains were running with passengers.