14 ms·

BART slows rollout of new trains as it contends with more repairs than expected

58 points by luu 7y ago

hamandcheese 7y ago
> BART gets to withhold the last 5 percent payment for the $2.5 billion fleet until both sets of cars hit their maintenance targets Is it just me or does 5% not seem like nearly a large enough percent? If I only had to hit 20% of my expected performance in exchange for 95% of my pay... I would have a lot more hobbies.
- jlangenauer 7y ago
  You have to remember that of the $2.5 billion, almost all of that was spent on materials and labour building the new trains. 5% of the total cost as a performance guarantee will be a very significant, or perhaps even total part of the profit the supplier expects to make on these trains.
- yardie 7y ago
  Most of these large capital contracts leave very little money for profit upfront. That comes from long term maintenance. If they are the lowest bidder they are probably losing money even at 95% payout.
  - richk449 7y ago
    Perhaps, but it sounds like they are set to make a killing on maintenance.
  - adrianmonk 7y ago
    While true, once you reach a certain point, that's all water under the bridge, and the only question that remains is how motivating it is to pursue that last 5%.
    - yardie 7y ago
      I’m not sure about civil projects. I’m mildly familiar with commercial construction projects. Those have milestones and due dates built in. And if those are missed the GC doesn’t get paid until they are met. If dates are missed they can incur penalties. This is done to ensure the GC doesn’t pull resources off to another project.
      - adrianmonk 7y ago
        I guess it would all depend on the rules or how the contract is written. Certainly taking care to have the right incentives in place is a good idea, though I'm not sure it's always practiced.
pilif 7y ago
The Swiss national train company has their own share of issues with trains built by Bombardier. After years of delays, what was finally delivered is horribly unreliable and passengers also don't like the shaking feeling when they do run. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SBB_RABe_502 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SBB_RABe_502 Two examples doesn't make a trend, but seeing how similar the issues are, maybe there is some systemic issue plaguing them.
- _jon9 7y ago
  On my commute I have been twice the witness of a broken door refusing to close on all new trains built by Bombardier not even 6 months old
- the_mitsuhiko 7y ago
  Different Bombardier, different factories, different gauges, different trains, different problems. Very little these two things have in common other than the name.
- jplayer01 7y ago
  Bombardier produced the new IC2 trains in Germany. There were a lot of issues (including the carriages rocking from side to side which made people sick) and things breaking repeatedly. Seems like Bombardier's MO.
- ancientworldnow 7y ago
  NYC has also had problems with Bombadier and banned them from bidding on new contracts. Ongoing deliveries from them have been frozen until their problems are fixed (bad welds being the most dangerous but reliability overall being terrible).
- slavik81 7y ago
  Kind of off-topic, but Bombardier was running a really terrible ad on TV in Canada a few years back. It featured a couple of tourists in Europe asking a lady to take a photo for them. She purposefully waited until a train blocked the shot, so they got a photo of the train instead of the view they wanted. She then shows them the sabotaged photo and says something like, "I made that train! It's Bombardier." I think the point of the ad was that they're an important exporter that creates good jobs and that earns international recognition. It was clearly designed for strengthening political support from the provincial and federal governments, not for selling trains. To me, though, it just made them seem like selfish assholes. I wish I could find the ad, but Google just returns a mountain of news reports and marketing videos.
trebligdivad 7y ago
Manchester's Metrolink uses Bombardier M5000's ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_M5000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_M5000 ) that seem to have worked OK. But I do wonder - is there anyone other than Bombardier who makes tram/underground vehicles these days?
- varjag 7y ago
  Swiss Stadler makes really nice ones, and certainly China has to have own production.
- OldHand2018 7y ago
  >anyone other than Bombardier who makes tram/underground vehicles these days? See this link [1] for a summary of the current situation (start about halfway down). It doesn't look great. Nippon/Sharyo is going to be at a disadvantage in bidding because their Amtrak contracts with California and Illinois were cancelled due to the prototype cars failing safety tests. It looks like Siemens will play a part in the replacement for those, which perhaps may convince them to try out transit cars in the USA. Competition would be good. What we have now is CRRC Sifang America (a Chinese state-owned company) has built a factory in Illinois and has orders from Chicago and Boston. The first prototypes are expected this year. We will see if they can deliver. [1] http://www.chicago-l.org/trains/roster/7000.html http://www.chicago-l.org/trains/roster/7000.html
- the_mitsuhiko 7y ago
  Siemens for instance.
- SamPatt 7y ago
  Alstom did only a few years ago, I assume they're still in that business today but not sure.
  - SECProto 7y ago
    Yeah, Alstom is supplying for the Ottawa LRT [1]. They've been plagued by their own issues. [1] https://www.alstom.com/our-solutions/rolling-stock/citadis-spirit-versatile-passenger-transportation-north-america https://www.alstom.com/our-solutions/rolling-stock/citadis-s... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom_Citadis_Spirit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom_Citadis_Spirit
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tialaramex 7y ago
Change Control for trains is fun, because there's lots of safety testing it can take a lot of time for a change which is either purely cosmetic or fixes something that has a well-understood workaround to actually make it to production. Several years ago the main type of train I use, Class 444 Desiro got a firmware upgrade to teach it Selective Door Operation. Meaning now it knows this platform is 8 carriages long, this is a ten carriage train, so disable the doors in the rear two carriages and make an announcement automatically. Nice. But the firmware upgrade messed up the clock. So for example maybe it's about lunch time, the train displays 12:05 but is it actually 12:05? Nah, might be 13:20 or 11:50. After several months they fixed the clock, but now it is only shown intermittently. So when it says 12:05 that's definitely 12:05 but it might not remember to show the time for five minutes which is little help. They took months to ship firmware with a fixed clock. The SDO change also resulted in the computer becoming convinced in certain places that, as it annunciates, ""There is a fault with the door system, this is being attended to. Please do not operate any emergency equipment". There isn't a fault. But since "Ignore spurious door message" is a workaround there is no hurry to qualify a new firmware release that fixes it.
- greeneggs 7y ago
  The Los Angeles Metro solved the clock problem by showing the day of the week (Monday, Tuesday, …) in a large font, with the time hidden away in a tiny font [1]. The time is usually wrong, but nobody can read it anyway. It's been like this for years; that photo is from 2016. Since the trains don't run on a schedule, I guess it doesn't matter. [1] See the top photo here https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/design-and-architecture/everything-you-need-to-know-to-ride-the-expo-line https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/design-and-architecture/e...
- userbinator 7y ago
  But the firmware upgrade messed up the clock. I'd be very curious to see what causes things like this, and especially the code... but then again, maybe seeing the code will just put me off ever riding in one.
mc32 7y ago
I thought BaRT had technology from either Siemens or Daimler but that was wrong. Their rolling stock has been provided by a variety of manufacturers[1]. One thing that makes things expensive for BaRT is the choice of non-standard gauge they are bound by. That’s not going to change. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Area_Rapid_Transit_rolling_stock https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Area_Rapid_Transit_rolli...
- Eopia 7y ago
  Daimler's rail division was acquired by Bombardier IIRC
pmoriarty 7y ago
About 20 to 25 years ago, I took a trip from the US (where I'd lived most of my life) to travel around Europe by train, and I was immensely impressed by its far superior train system. The best trains of all the countries I visited were in Sweden, which had trains which were so modern that they seemed like something out of the future, even compared to the best trains I'd seen in the US by that time, Amtrak trains. The new BART trains that are only now rolling out remind me a lot of the Swedish trains I saw more than 20 years ago, except that the BART trains have flat panel screens in them that I doubt those Swedish trains had back then, but the Swedish trains had doors that would silently and easily slide open when you held your hands up to them -- that was something that had greatly impressed me back then, because all the trains I'd been to before had really heavy doors that you'd have to struggle with to open by hand, while on the Swedish trains you just held your hand up and the doors would glide open like on the spacecraft on Star Trek. The whole experience had left me embarrassed for the US, which I'd seen as a technological leader up to that point. I came away from that trip with an impression that the US was very backwards in many ways. The train system and train differences were just one glaring example, but also politically and in many other ways the US was very backwards. Now finally these new BART trains rolling out, some NYC trains were also modernizing some about a decade ago, but I haven't been to Sweden or much of the rest of Europe in a long time, and I wonder how much further they've progressed.
- hyperbovine 7y ago
  It’s not really a fair comparison. In terms of where people actually live (the upper two thirds of Sweden is almost empty) its roughly comparable to Ohio: about ten million people clustered in 4 or 5 major cities within a few hours drive distance from each other. Of course it will be easier to provide superior rail service there. This is not so say that Ohio has its act together as far as public transit is concerned (ha), but getting that level of service to the US as a whole would be a totally different beast.
  - mhb 7y ago
    Is there any Ohio-sized area in the US that has a system comparable to the Swedish one?
moreira 7y ago
I think there’s a general feeling (propaganda?) that the US is a technological leader, but... there’s nothing to support that, especially when it comes to infrastructure. The US is really far behind other developed countries in a lot of ways but few people in the US notice because most Americans rarely ever look outside their culture bubble or see another country. There are big-ass tech companies, of course, but the country itself is not exactly a paragon of progress.
- qaq 7y ago
  I think you are oversimplifying the issue. There are cultural differences that influence things like that too. As priorities shift things can change. So in US you have people living in large houses driving large cars and on average having crappy public transport infra. In Europe you have people living in much more modest size houses mostly driving tiny cars and often having good public transport infra. For me European option is better cause I do not drive my wife much prefers the US option.
  - concerned_user 7y ago
    I think you are wrong here, what you said is mostly about how it is in big cities versus the rural areas, same thing is in Europe. You will not find a lot of mass transit in European countryside, sure there are buses and trains probably more abundant than in USA but be prepared to walk a few kilometers to the nearest station. Your point would make sense if USA had high-speed trains linking big cities but it doesn't, and the train routes that do exist experience all sorts of delays which makes people choose planes even for shorter distances under 500 km which would take ~2 hr on high speed train.
    - qaq 7y ago
      Where did I say that it's about rural areas vs big cities ? In most US metro areas majority of people of people live in houses. In US people either drive or fly. There is good infra for long range driving. This has nothing to do with large cities vs rural areas for the most part.
travisoneill1 7y ago
Why are they buying new trains instead of fixing the tracks? There are many places on the BART system where the track have not been replaced in so long that trains have to slow to a crawl for safety reasons. New trains don't solve that.
- nkoren 7y ago
  The need to do all of the above. The old trains are in appalling condition, and desperately need to be replaced, no doubt about it!
- bluejekyll 7y ago
  “In 2018, we replaced 22 miles of track, reprofiled 231.6 miles of track to reduce railway noise, overhauled a critical track section near the West Oakland and 12th Street Stations, and replaced five miles of 34.5 kV electrical cable system in downtown Oakland to provide reliable power for trains. All these improvements will collectively create a more reliable, quieter, smoother and safer experience for our riders.” https://www.bart.gov/better-bart https://www.bart.gov/better-bart
- curioussavage 7y ago
  I’m at the station now and literally just saw a notice about delays today because of track maintenance.
zeristor 7y ago
I’ve noticed Siemens’ trains out of London have quiet electric motors, whereas even the other new electric trains have noisy humming motors. I believe the AC motor wave forms maybe smoothed out, I was very impressed by it. To the UK train companies just not value it? To me it was an impressive quality improvement. It is a detriment to all the other trains I travel on.
erikpukinskis 7y ago
The one I rode the other day felt wobbly. If that’s the trade-off for not squealing it’s worth it though.
bradleybuda 7y ago
> “I don’t know everything these new trains can do — they probably have artificial intelligence or something — but I know they’re better than these buckets of steel we’re sitting in,” said Board President Bevan Dufty. Maybe this guy shouldn’t be president of the BART board? I mean, lots of other people quoted in the article seem to know what they do.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  The role of a President is NOT to set strategy or even understand it. That’s a CEO. The role of President is to gladhand and otherwise maintain relationships necessary for the partners to feel safe continuing their contracts. That kind of “aw, shucks” mentality is very useful for this.
- inferiorhuman 7y ago
  Great quote considering the trains are made of aluminum.
samstave 7y ago
Man, i wish they had included isb power or power outlets on the new cars.
- vpribish 7y ago
  shh! in this timeline, isb power doesn't come into use until 2026. study the damn opsec dossier, sam.
- ggreer 7y ago
  If they did, those spots on the cars would be constantly occupied by homeless people.
  - samstave 7y ago
    They should have the entire window bank’s row of sill filled with countless usb ports. A fucking ford f150 has like 6. A bart train car (an electric train) should have like 50 - in Silicon fucking Valley) - and/or a giant induction charger in the middle. Dont give me crap about the homeless - give that to the city. We are silicon freaking valley and if you hVe never been to any other country with public transport we look like freaking idiots. Sweden, japan, Singapore, china, all have severely more advanced transport systems than we. Bart is a pos embarrassment.
throwaway_17426 7y ago
Is anyone else concerned about the surveillance in the new BART trains? It looks like there are 7-9 small CCTV cameras in each car. This means that there is nowhere inside the vehicle where you have private space to enter a password, or check your work email, or pull out a laptop to do some programming. For people who spend 60 minutes (or more) commuting, this is obnoxious. Also, this is another step toward pervasive surveillance in the public sphere. Default-on all-angles video recording normalizes what infrastructure operators (and their third-party contractors) are allowed to learn about you, your work, and your life.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  It's a public space. I don't expect privacy, and I appreciate that criminals can't either. The password issue you raise has some merit though.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  I think realistically that level of surveillance is going to be needed to keep people safe and accountable on public transport somewhere like the Bay Area where people are very vulnerable.
  - scolby33 7y ago
    How are people in the Bay Area any more vulnerable than people anywhere else? I agree with the GP; this feels like oversurveillance and scares me.
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      I mean people are vulnerable inside a sealed train carriage in a dense urban area with a lot of issues and crime. San Francisco is a leading low level crime location in the nation and there are assaults and robberies on the BART system. > For people who spend 60 minutes (or more) commuting, this is obnoxious. I’m sure it’s merely obnoxious for you - but it’s there for people more vulnerable than you who get assaulted.
    - 7y ago
spenrose 7y ago
Most of BART’s challenges stem from 180 software packages and 30 microprocessors that make up each Bombardier vehicle. Each is a complex symphony of systems that communicate over an Ethernet backbone. A bug in one line of code could shut the whole thing down, requiring a rigorous safety review process that may take months before engineers can reinstall the software."
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  That may explain why New Jersey Transit's Bombardier cars are so temperamental.
- fnord77 7y ago
  let me guess... $11/hour software engineers
- jgibson 7y ago
  Not that this makes the Bombardier problem trivial, but that seems fairly simple compared to most cars on the road today, which have over 100 micros. Software can be done well in complicated systems if you have the expertise, design, time and money to get it right.
- wiseleo 7y ago
  Makes you ask just one question: why? Why is the architecture not controlled by a redundant master system and a bunch of microcontrollers that act as glorified relays.
BurningFrog 7y ago
Of course, these "unexpected" delays were expected by everyone with any experience in Bay Area public projects.
BurningFrog 7y ago
(Article is from May 11)
curioussavage 7y ago
I really hate the new cars. Yay more standing room but now everywhere you stand you are awkwardly in the way. So happy I’m moving out of the bay and won’t have to ride them more than once or twice a year anymore.

58 points by luu 7y ago

> BART gets to withhold the last 5 percent payment for the $2.5 billion fleet until both sets of cars hit their maintenance targets Is it just me or does 5% not seem like nearly a large enough percent? If I only had to hit 20% of my expected performance in exchange for 95% of my pay... I would have a lot more hobbies.

jlangenauer 7y ago
You have to remember that of the $2.5 billion, almost all of that was spent on materials and labour building the new trains. 5% of the total cost as a performance guarantee will be a very significant, or perhaps even total part of the profit the supplier expects to make on these trains.
yardie 7y ago
Most of these large capital contracts leave very little money for profit upfront. That comes from long term maintenance. If they are the lowest bidder they are probably losing money even at 95% payout.
- richk449 7y ago
  Perhaps, but it sounds like they are set to make a killing on maintenance.
- adrianmonk 7y ago
  While true, once you reach a certain point, that's all water under the bridge, and the only question that remains is how motivating it is to pursue that last 5%.
  - yardie 7y ago
    I’m not sure about civil projects. I’m mildly familiar with commercial construction projects. Those have milestones and due dates built in. And if those are missed the GC doesn’t get paid until they are met. If dates are missed they can incur penalties. This is done to ensure the GC doesn’t pull resources off to another project.
    - adrianmonk 7y ago
      I guess it would all depend on the rules or how the contract is written. Certainly taking care to have the right incentives in place is a good idea, though I'm not sure it's always practiced.

pilif 7y ago

The Swiss national train company has their own share of issues with trains built by Bombardier. After years of delays, what was finally delivered is horribly unreliable and passengers also don't like the shaking feeling when they do run. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SBB_RABe_502 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SBB_RABe_502 Two examples doesn't make a trend, but seeing how similar the issues are, maybe there is some systemic issue plaguing them.

_jon9 7y ago
On my commute I have been twice the witness of a broken door refusing to close on all new trains built by Bombardier not even 6 months old
the_mitsuhiko 7y ago
Different Bombardier, different factories, different gauges, different trains, different problems. Very little these two things have in common other than the name.
jplayer01 7y ago
Bombardier produced the new IC2 trains in Germany. There were a lot of issues (including the carriages rocking from side to side which made people sick) and things breaking repeatedly. Seems like Bombardier's MO.
ancientworldnow 7y ago
NYC has also had problems with Bombadier and banned them from bidding on new contracts. Ongoing deliveries from them have been frozen until their problems are fixed (bad welds being the most dangerous but reliability overall being terrible).
slavik81 7y ago
Kind of off-topic, but Bombardier was running a really terrible ad on TV in Canada a few years back. It featured a couple of tourists in Europe asking a lady to take a photo for them. She purposefully waited until a train blocked the shot, so they got a photo of the train instead of the view they wanted. She then shows them the sabotaged photo and says something like, "I made that train! It's Bombardier." I think the point of the ad was that they're an important exporter that creates good jobs and that earns international recognition. It was clearly designed for strengthening political support from the provincial and federal governments, not for selling trains. To me, though, it just made them seem like selfish assholes. I wish I could find the ad, but Google just returns a mountain of news reports and marketing videos.

trebligdivad 7y ago

Manchester's Metrolink uses Bombardier M5000's ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_M5000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_M5000 ) that seem to have worked OK. But I do wonder - is there anyone other than Bombardier who makes tram/underground vehicles these days?

varjag 7y ago
Swiss Stadler makes really nice ones, and certainly China has to have own production.
OldHand2018 7y ago
>anyone other than Bombardier who makes tram/underground vehicles these days? See this link [1] for a summary of the current situation (start about halfway down). It doesn't look great. Nippon/Sharyo is going to be at a disadvantage in bidding because their Amtrak contracts with California and Illinois were cancelled due to the prototype cars failing safety tests. It looks like Siemens will play a part in the replacement for those, which perhaps may convince them to try out transit cars in the USA. Competition would be good. What we have now is CRRC Sifang America (a Chinese state-owned company) has built a factory in Illinois and has orders from Chicago and Boston. The first prototypes are expected this year. We will see if they can deliver. [1] http://www.chicago-l.org/trains/roster/7000.html http://www.chicago-l.org/trains/roster/7000.html
the_mitsuhiko 7y ago
Siemens for instance.
SamPatt 7y ago
Alstom did only a few years ago, I assume they're still in that business today but not sure.
- SECProto 7y ago
  Yeah, Alstom is supplying for the Ottawa LRT [1]. They've been plagued by their own issues. [1] https://www.alstom.com/our-solutions/rolling-stock/citadis-spirit-versatile-passenger-transportation-north-america https://www.alstom.com/our-solutions/rolling-stock/citadis-s... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom_Citadis_Spirit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom_Citadis_Spirit

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

tialaramex 7y ago

Change Control for trains is fun, because there's lots of safety testing it can take a lot of time for a change which is either purely cosmetic or fixes something that has a well-understood workaround to actually make it to production. Several years ago the main type of train I use, Class 444 Desiro got a firmware upgrade to teach it Selective Door Operation. Meaning now it knows this platform is 8 carriages long, this is a ten carriage train, so disable the doors in the rear two carriages and make an announcement automatically. Nice. But the firmware upgrade messed up the clock. So for example maybe it's about lunch time, the train displays 12:05 but is it actually 12:05? Nah, might be 13:20 or 11:50. After several months they fixed the clock, but now it is only shown intermittently. So when it says 12:05 that's definitely 12:05 but it might not remember to show the time for five minutes which is little help. They took months to ship firmware with a fixed clock. The SDO change also resulted in the computer becoming convinced in certain places that, as it annunciates, ""There is a fault with the door system, this is being attended to. Please do not operate any emergency equipment". There isn't a fault. But since "Ignore spurious door message" is a workaround there is no hurry to qualify a new firmware release that fixes it.

greeneggs 7y ago
The Los Angeles Metro solved the clock problem by showing the day of the week (Monday, Tuesday, …) in a large font, with the time hidden away in a tiny font [1]. The time is usually wrong, but nobody can read it anyway. It's been like this for years; that photo is from 2016. Since the trains don't run on a schedule, I guess it doesn't matter. [1] See the top photo here https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/design-and-architecture/everything-you-need-to-know-to-ride-the-expo-line https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/design-and-architecture/e...
userbinator 7y ago
But the firmware upgrade messed up the clock. I'd be very curious to see what causes things like this, and especially the code... but then again, maybe seeing the code will just put me off ever riding in one.

mc32 7y ago

I thought BaRT had technology from either Siemens or Daimler but that was wrong. Their rolling stock has been provided by a variety of manufacturers[1]. One thing that makes things expensive for BaRT is the choice of non-standard gauge they are bound by. That’s not going to change. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Area_Rapid_Transit_rolling_stock https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Area_Rapid_Transit_rolli...

Eopia 7y ago
Daimler's rail division was acquired by Bombardier IIRC

pmoriarty 7y ago

About 20 to 25 years ago, I took a trip from the US (where I'd lived most of my life) to travel around Europe by train, and I was immensely impressed by its far superior train system. The best trains of all the countries I visited were in Sweden, which had trains which were so modern that they seemed like something out of the future, even compared to the best trains I'd seen in the US by that time, Amtrak trains. The new BART trains that are only now rolling out remind me a lot of the Swedish trains I saw more than 20 years ago, except that the BART trains have flat panel screens in them that I doubt those Swedish trains had back then, but the Swedish trains had doors that would silently and easily slide open when you held your hands up to them -- that was something that had greatly impressed me back then, because all the trains I'd been to before had really heavy doors that you'd have to struggle with to open by hand, while on the Swedish trains you just held your hand up and the doors would glide open like on the spacecraft on Star Trek. The whole experience had left me embarrassed for the US, which I'd seen as a technological leader up to that point. I came away from that trip with an impression that the US was very backwards in many ways. The train system and train differences were just one glaring example, but also politically and in many other ways the US was very backwards. Now finally these new BART trains rolling out, some NYC trains were also modernizing some about a decade ago, but I haven't been to Sweden or much of the rest of Europe in a long time, and I wonder how much further they've progressed.

hyperbovine 7y ago
It’s not really a fair comparison. In terms of where people actually live (the upper two thirds of Sweden is almost empty) its roughly comparable to Ohio: about ten million people clustered in 4 or 5 major cities within a few hours drive distance from each other. Of course it will be easier to provide superior rail service there. This is not so say that Ohio has its act together as far as public transit is concerned (ha), but getting that level of service to the US as a whole would be a totally different beast.
- mhb 7y ago
  Is there any Ohio-sized area in the US that has a system comparable to the Swedish one?

moreira 7y ago

I think there’s a general feeling (propaganda?) that the US is a technological leader, but... there’s nothing to support that, especially when it comes to infrastructure. The US is really far behind other developed countries in a lot of ways but few people in the US notice because most Americans rarely ever look outside their culture bubble or see another country. There are big-ass tech companies, of course, but the country itself is not exactly a paragon of progress.

qaq 7y ago
I think you are oversimplifying the issue. There are cultural differences that influence things like that too. As priorities shift things can change. So in US you have people living in large houses driving large cars and on average having crappy public transport infra. In Europe you have people living in much more modest size houses mostly driving tiny cars and often having good public transport infra. For me European option is better cause I do not drive my wife much prefers the US option.
- concerned_user 7y ago
  I think you are wrong here, what you said is mostly about how it is in big cities versus the rural areas, same thing is in Europe. You will not find a lot of mass transit in European countryside, sure there are buses and trains probably more abundant than in USA but be prepared to walk a few kilometers to the nearest station. Your point would make sense if USA had high-speed trains linking big cities but it doesn't, and the train routes that do exist experience all sorts of delays which makes people choose planes even for shorter distances under 500 km which would take ~2 hr on high speed train.
  - qaq 7y ago
    Where did I say that it's about rural areas vs big cities ? In most US metro areas majority of people of people live in houses. In US people either drive or fly. There is good infra for long range driving. This has nothing to do with large cities vs rural areas for the most part.

travisoneill1 7y ago

Why are they buying new trains instead of fixing the tracks? There are many places on the BART system where the track have not been replaced in so long that trains have to slow to a crawl for safety reasons. New trains don't solve that.

nkoren 7y ago
The need to do all of the above. The old trains are in appalling condition, and desperately need to be replaced, no doubt about it!
bluejekyll 7y ago
“In 2018, we replaced 22 miles of track, reprofiled 231.6 miles of track to reduce railway noise, overhauled a critical track section near the West Oakland and 12th Street Stations, and replaced five miles of 34.5 kV electrical cable system in downtown Oakland to provide reliable power for trains. All these improvements will collectively create a more reliable, quieter, smoother and safer experience for our riders.” https://www.bart.gov/better-bart https://www.bart.gov/better-bart
curioussavage 7y ago
I’m at the station now and literally just saw a notice about delays today because of track maintenance.

zeristor 7y ago

I’ve noticed Siemens’ trains out of London have quiet electric motors, whereas even the other new electric trains have noisy humming motors. I believe the AC motor wave forms maybe smoothed out, I was very impressed by it. To the UK train companies just not value it? To me it was an impressive quality improvement. It is a detriment to all the other trains I travel on.

erikpukinskis 7y ago

The one I rode the other day felt wobbly. If that’s the trade-off for not squealing it’s worth it though.

bradleybuda 7y ago

> “I don’t know everything these new trains can do — they probably have artificial intelligence or something — but I know they’re better than these buckets of steel we’re sitting in,” said Board President Bevan Dufty. Maybe this guy shouldn’t be president of the BART board? I mean, lots of other people quoted in the article seem to know what they do.

erikpukinskis 7y ago
The role of a President is NOT to set strategy or even understand it. That’s a CEO. The role of President is to gladhand and otherwise maintain relationships necessary for the partners to feel safe continuing their contracts. That kind of “aw, shucks” mentality is very useful for this.
inferiorhuman 7y ago
Great quote considering the trains are made of aluminum.

samstave 7y ago

Man, i wish they had included isb power or power outlets on the new cars.

vpribish 7y ago
shh! in this timeline, isb power doesn't come into use until 2026. study the damn opsec dossier, sam.
ggreer 7y ago
If they did, those spots on the cars would be constantly occupied by homeless people.
- samstave 7y ago
  They should have the entire window bank’s row of sill filled with countless usb ports. A fucking ford f150 has like 6. A bart train car (an electric train) should have like 50 - in Silicon fucking Valley) - and/or a giant induction charger in the middle. Dont give me crap about the homeless - give that to the city. We are silicon freaking valley and if you hVe never been to any other country with public transport we look like freaking idiots. Sweden, japan, Singapore, china, all have severely more advanced transport systems than we. Bart is a pos embarrassment.

throwaway_17426 7y ago

Is anyone else concerned about the surveillance in the new BART trains? It looks like there are 7-9 small CCTV cameras in each car. This means that there is nowhere inside the vehicle where you have private space to enter a password, or check your work email, or pull out a laptop to do some programming. For people who spend 60 minutes (or more) commuting, this is obnoxious. Also, this is another step toward pervasive surveillance in the public sphere. Default-on all-angles video recording normalizes what infrastructure operators (and their third-party contractors) are allowed to learn about you, your work, and your life.

BurningFrog 7y ago
It's a public space. I don't expect privacy, and I appreciate that criminals can't either. The password issue you raise has some merit though.
chrisseaton 7y ago
I think realistically that level of surveillance is going to be needed to keep people safe and accountable on public transport somewhere like the Bay Area where people are very vulnerable.
- scolby33 7y ago
  How are people in the Bay Area any more vulnerable than people anywhere else? I agree with the GP; this feels like oversurveillance and scares me.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    I mean people are vulnerable inside a sealed train carriage in a dense urban area with a lot of issues and crime. San Francisco is a leading low level crime location in the nation and there are assaults and robberies on the BART system. > For people who spend 60 minutes (or more) commuting, this is obnoxious. I’m sure it’s merely obnoxious for you - but it’s there for people more vulnerable than you who get assaulted.
  - 7y ago

spenrose 7y ago

Most of BART’s challenges stem from 180 software packages and 30 microprocessors that make up each Bombardier vehicle. Each is a complex symphony of systems that communicate over an Ethernet backbone. A bug in one line of code could shut the whole thing down, requiring a rigorous safety review process that may take months before engineers can reinstall the software."

vonmoltke 7y ago
That may explain why New Jersey Transit's Bombardier cars are so temperamental.
fnord77 7y ago
let me guess... $11/hour software engineers
jgibson 7y ago
Not that this makes the Bombardier problem trivial, but that seems fairly simple compared to most cars on the road today, which have over 100 micros. Software can be done well in complicated systems if you have the expertise, design, time and money to get it right.
wiseleo 7y ago
Makes you ask just one question: why? Why is the architecture not controlled by a redundant master system and a bunch of microcontrollers that act as glorified relays.

BurningFrog 7y ago

Of course, these "unexpected" delays were expected by everyone with any experience in Bay Area public projects.

BurningFrog 7y ago

(Article is from May 11)

curioussavage 7y ago

I really hate the new cars. Yay more standing room but now everywhere you stand you are awkwardly in the way. So happy I’m moving out of the bay and won’t have to ride them more than once or twice a year anymore.