Why doesn BART run 24 hours?
Here at BART we are frequently asked why the trains don’t run all night, or at least late enough to get partiers from the clubs of San Francisco back home around the Bay Area after last call. We thought we’d take a minute to explain some of the history and background behind that question. Right now there’s a gap of about four hours between when the last trains of the day leave, usually around midnight, and when the first trains of the day start up, around 4 a.m. on weekdays. (Those are end-of-the-line times; last-train times from individual stations may be later. For example, the latest SFO to Pittsburg/Bay Point train on a Saturday night leaves Embarcadero Station at 25 minutes past midnight, actually Sunday morning. Check the schedule for details.) That short window of time without service is used for essential nightly track maintenance. Unlike some public transit systems with multiple sets of tracks on the same routes, BART doesn’t have the duplication that would allow us to run tra
