BART to add night service!

Next month, Bay Area transit agencies will begin testing coordinated overnight bus service that by January will serve most BART stations and much of the region during the dark and early hours when the transit agency's trains are idle.

Transit advocates expect the new "All-Nighter" service to be popular, especially among the clubgoing crowd.

"For a whole segment of the population in their 20s and 30s, this is the most popular thing in decades,'' said Stuart Cohen, head of the Transportation and Land Use Coalition, a transit advocacy group. "Everybody who hears about this, their eyes light up.''

The service, which combines new lines with existing Muni, AC Transit and SamTrans late-night or "owl" bus routes, is the product of regional Measure 2, approved by voters last year, which raised bridge tolls by $1 to pay for transit and highway projects.

It intends to make it possible for people who depend on transit to get home -- or at least back to their neighborhood BART stations -- when BART is not running. The service will cost about $1.8 million per year -- the amount allotted by the ballot measure.

BART shuts down nightly sometime after midnight -- times vary by station -- and opens again about 4:30 a.m. Transit agency officials say they need the daily shutdown to maintain the system, and that keeping the system open 24 hours for a relatively small number of riders would be too costly.

The service will skip a handful of BART stations -- most notably the North Concord/Martinez and Pittsburg/Bay Point stops in eastern Contra Costa County.

That bothers BART Director Joel Keller of Pittsburg, who represents the area that long considered itself slighted by BART's failure to build its original system into eastern Contra Costa.

"There is a problem with a region of the Bay Area paying for a service (through toll revenues) that they don't really get to see,'' he said. "This is a continuation of our problem out in eastern Contra Costa County."

The area wasn't included because of the high cost and problems scheduling a bus from Concord into Pittsburg, said Carter Mau, a BART planner who helped coordinate the service.

The late-night buses will also skip the Castro Valley, Glen Park, Daly City, Colma, South San Francisco and San Bruno stations for similar reasons.

The system will link 19 bus routes operated by five transit agencies at three transfer points, where buses will meet at designated times. It will include new service in the East Bay, including routes in central Contra Costa and the Tri-Valley, which lack round-the-clock service.
Plan for all-night transit links

MUNI

Ten existing routes in San Francisco run round-the-clock serving all BART stations but Glen Park.

SAMTRANS

One existing late-night route leaving First and Mission streets in San Francisco, serving San Francisco International Airport and Millbrae BART stations. No service to Daly City, South San Francisco, Colma or San Bruno stations.

AC TRANSIT

Six routes, including one leaving San Francisco Civic Center and five leaving downtown Oakland. Buses serve all BART stations along the Richmond-Fremont line as well as Rockridge stations.

COUNTY CONNECTION

One route from downtown Oakland via Highway 24 to Orinda and Lafayette stations, then other stations on Pittsburg/Bay Point line as far as Concord.

WHEELS

(Livermore-Amador Valley Transit Authority): One route between Bay Fair station and Dublin/Pleasanton station via Interstate 580. No service to Castro Valley station.

TRANSFER POINTS

14th Street and Broadway in downtown Oakland (all AC Transit routes and County Connection route meet); Van Ness Avenue and Market Street, San Francisco (three Muni routes meet AC Transit route); Bay Fair BART (AC Transit route meets Wheels route).