An Open Letter to BART (p.s.--my vacation was great!):

7/19/2006


Dear BART,


Where to begin?

Maybe it was the hour & a half delay last night outside of Daly City for a shopping cart that had somehow made it onto the tracks on an elevated platform...

Or maybe it could be the fact I was not re-imbursed for this $5.60 ride, followed by having to take a $10 cab home because YOUR delay made it impossible for my ride to pick me up (some people work and have to sleep)...

Or maybe it's the fact I got to sit there after being on a turbulent airplane for two hours, getting verbally abused by drunk homeless people who tried to sell people in the train jewelry (probably stolen) and urinated on your precious upholstery.

Or maybe it's the fact that I'm pretty much useless at work today, since the delay made me get home at 1 a.m. instead of 11:30...an entire day of work lost, because BART didn't have a contingency plan or a shuttle service on call for such a crisis. It fails me completely why you guys couldn't send the train back to the station (the perilous one-minute journey) so we could get off and call cabs to get to another station and continue our ways home.

Or maybe it was last week, when I was told I had to move my car from the Rockridge station parking lot at 1 a.m. instead of being able to pick it up the next morning before 6 a.m...

Or maybe it was the bathrooms that were locked in the Macarthur station at 11:30 on a Tuesday night...despite the fact trains were still in service and the station was still open...thanks for that. I enjoyed having to hold it beyond human capacity...and you wonder why people urinate in your trains.

I ask for some sort of compensation for this. A fare card to cover the costs BART's problems have caused me in the last week. Something. Until then, this sub-par performance won't be tolerated by any free-minded individual that lives and works in the Bay Area. While you guys usually provide excellent, economical and timely service, the complete lack of caring or apology for the events of this past week (last night in particular) is utterly un-professional and frankly inexcusable.

You should be ashamed.

Sincerely,

Josh Lowensohn