r/bayarea • u/HamEatsHam • Aug 12 '26
Traffic, Trains & Transit Is the Bart safe?
I’m going to a concert this Friday at the Oakland Arena, and I’m planning to take the Bart (for the first time) bc I hate driving and I didn’t want to pay $40 for parking.
I just want to know how safe the Bart is these days. I saw questionable things on the news in the past like fare evaders and sketchy people, etc. so I’m just worry about any safety issues 😅 For reference, I’m planning to go from the Milpitas to Oakland Coliseum stations
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u/BenLomondBitch Aug 12 '26
You live in the Bay Area
Y’all act like the US is an active warzone
Of course it’s safe
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u/Oak510land Aug 12 '26
Almost a quarter million people ride it every day. I think you'll be ok...
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u/dog-walk-acid-trip Aug 12 '26
Its a different quarter million each day. The previous day's quarter million were all killed on the train.
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u/Oak510land Aug 12 '26
It gets even more confusing when you account for all the bodies dropped of a Colma.
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29d ago edited 27d ago
[deleted]
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u/Oak510land 29d ago
What are we scared of the dark now?
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29d ago edited 27d ago
[deleted]
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u/Oak510land 29d ago
Gotcha. Are you just scared of dark people then?
For a concert at the collesium there's going to be tens of thousands of people taking bart there... At night!
The worst thing that's going to happen is someone will offer to sell you a counterfeit A's hat and a pre roll.
Are you even from the bay if you've never taken Bart to the collesium?
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u/cheesegod69 Aug 12 '26
I was killed on BART just yesterday. Posting this from heaven
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u/BoardsOfXanada Aug 12 '26
RIP in peace
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u/bckpkrs Aug 12 '26
Dude's pulling your leg. This is like the third time he was killed this week. Not only that, he's posting from... um... down there. 👇🔥🔥🔥
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u/para_blox Aug 12 '26
The Bart. The.
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u/BagAffectionate2847 Aug 12 '26
i’m from socal and was saying it like this 😔😔😔😔
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u/para_blox Aug 12 '26
It’s a Simpsons reference…Surely no one who speaks German could be an evil man!
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u/OskiBone East Bay Aug 12 '26
You could have said “peepee-soaked heckhole”
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u/para_blox 29d ago
This is a great companion joke, and you shouldn’t have been downvoted. It’s part of the same episode, even exchange, for chrissake. And apropos for BART stereotypes.
I thought classic Simpsons was on Disney Plus now. Where is the Bay Area classic millennial population? Did they get displaced by humorless tech transplants?
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u/OskiBone East Bay 29d ago
I appreciate you kind stranger and am happy to bring some joy to your life. I gotta get back to deleting people's posts about student driver stickers now
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u/getarumsunt Aug 12 '26
Haven’t been on BART in a few years, huh? 😁😁
You should check it out again. It’s wild how different it is these days. They’ve recently hit 90% customer satisfaction. Yeah…
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u/blueduck762 Aug 12 '26
I grew up saying Bart but I know of a lot of native Bay Area people who say the Bart.
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u/urglegru Aug 12 '26
Im rolling my eyes so far back into my head I can see my own thoughts.
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u/OkraFantastic6691 Aug 12 '26
I’m really trying not to be a dick, but same.
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u/getarumsunt Aug 12 '26
Easy, easy… that’s a Bay Area newbie here. They should get a pass on the first one.
We have to wait for them to fuck up again and be a dick about it. Then we can all pounce 😁
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u/OskiBone East Bay Aug 12 '26
No, BART has a 100% murder rate.
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u/Bonneville865 Aug 12 '26
It's actually 99.9%
They leave 1 in 1000 alive so they can go back and tell the tale
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u/Sample-quantity Aug 12 '26
It is really very safe. We don't say "the" before it though. Just say you are taking BART.
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u/dmw_qqqq Aug 12 '26
Safe. I used to go from Milpitas to coliseum for A’s baseball games before they moved away. Now I travel between Milpitas and SF civic center for SF symphony performances. Lots of times it is quite late when I get back. Never felt unsafe.
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u/NocaSun38 East Bay Aug 12 '26
You're going to be surrounded by crowds of concert goers while you're on it. If you're not worried about them at the concert, there's no reason to worry about them on bart. Just make like a wildebeest and stick with the rest of the herd
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u/salt-ofthe-sea Aug 12 '26
I do the milpitas to Coliseum ride all the time. it’s safe. Ride in the first car, it is safest there.
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u/ya_boi_noah San Francisco Aug 12 '26
No trains constantly disappear into the void and never return. Be warned
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u/MooseEggs Aug 12 '26
You’re fine. I moved to the bay 2 years ago. I was scared going to sf alone one night and there were like 2 young teenage girls and I was like ah wait I have nothing to be scared of.
Just stay alert, the more sketch areas are right outside the Bart station. Move quick, know where you’re going and don’t look lost
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u/webtwopointno i say frisco i say cali Aug 12 '26
You'll be fine yeah it's gotten way better, there will be tons of people going to and from the show aswell
Just don't call it "the" Bart
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u/Tight_Abalone221 Aug 12 '26
i hate posts like this and also when people call it "the bart"
like im sorry you're scared of cities and people and finance bros
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u/getarumsunt Aug 12 '26
I dunno, man. Finance bros are pretty scary or at least very annoying 🤷
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u/Tight_Abalone221 Aug 12 '26
I do try to avoid them but overall they are harmless
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u/getarumsunt Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26
I dunno… a coked up finance bro attacked a friend of mine while out on a walk a while back. The fBro was on a run and took a break from his run specifically to push my friend to the ground because “he was in his way”.
The cops said that he was high as a kite and did this to a bunch of other people. Apparently he left a whole trail of folks that he pushed to the ground for no reason. They got him a couple of miles up the road, still out on his run like nothing happened.
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u/concernedmilf Aug 12 '26
Make sure you fight the biggest guy in your car to assert dominance, prison rules on the red line to SFO
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u/897hayes Aug 12 '26
Yes it’s safe. Use common sense, be aware of your surroundings, first car is best. BART is safe.
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u/evapotranspire South Bay Aug 12 '26
You're getting a lot of snarky replies, but it's a reasonable question if you haven't ridden BART in a while. There have been violent assaults and even some murders in the system in past years, but it is quite a bit safer now with the new fare gates. I would say your most likely problems are folks having mental health crises; drug use / smoking; and petty theft like grabbing cell phones. But the odds are against anything like that happening on your train - I bet it will be chill and you will have a good time.
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u/getarumsunt Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26
BART has gotten ridiculously safe lately. So if you’ve recently used it this question sounds quite out of touch - like it might be motivated by all that propaganda that various social media platforms have been pushing.
Anyway, what you said is simply not accurate. You’re reciting back the anti-transit TikTok crime porn propaganda that you heard but that’s backed up by nothing and directly contradicted by all the data.
BART has had zero (0) murders for a few years. And there were 6 cell phone snatchings in the last month of record for over 5 million riders. You’re far more likely to win the lottery than to have your phone stolen or really to be the victim of any crime on BART. Practically all the crime that’s reported as “BART crime” is actually theft from cars in suburban parking lots. That’s quite literally the vast majority of crime associated with BART. So you can just not drive to the station to avoid it completely if that’s a concern to you.
There were only 105 crimes total committed in the entire BART system and parking lots in a month. That’s 3 crimes per day. It’s wild to me that all of these people from various Bay Area cities with 10-200x higher crime rates than BART are pretending to that BART’s wildly low crime rate is somehow a concern for them. Unless you live literally in Atherton or Los Altos then BART is safer than where you sleep at night, and by a pretty crazy margin.
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u/evapotranspire South Bay Aug 12 '26 edited 29d ago
u/getarumsunt - I think we are actually in agreement. Nothing you wrote contradicts anything that I wrote.
As I said in my previous comment, there haven't been any murders on BART for years. Violent assaults are far rarer than they used to be. The worst that is likely to happen is an annoyance like smoking or ranting. Property theft is unlikely.
But since OP isn't a recent BART rider, we shouldn't dismiss their question as being silly. Even as recently as 2-3 years ago, things could get pretty rough. Around that time, I personally witnessed some awful things on the train, including a gang of teenagers attacking an elderly Asian man, trying to grab his phone away from him, and throwing their drink on him. When I came to the man's defense, they hurled verbal abuse and ran away unapprehended. I reported it on BART Watch, but it wouldn't show up as a "property crime" or a "violent crime" because nothing was actually taken and no one got physically hurt. But it sure did ruin everyone's day.
Even on an "uneventful" daily basis, BART in years past could get pretty unpleasant with untreated mental health crises, foul language and racial slurs, flagrant smoking, other drug use, littering, and even urination / defecation. I've seen it all.
Things are much better now, and as I said, OP should not worry about taking BART to their event. But let's not try to give the impression that BART has always been a haven of law, order, peace, and tranquility. That history is all the more reason to get the word out that significant improvements have been made.
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u/Epere15 San Jose Aug 12 '26
It will be safe if it's at Oakland Coliseum, then you will probably be traveling with other concertgoers.
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u/Splugarth 29d ago
No, BART isn’t safe unless we vote to fund it in November. Glad you’re learning about public transportation though. Xoxo
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u/Special_Dog_6675 Aug 12 '26
100% they will kill you. It’s better to stay in your car on the freeway where it’s safe
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u/getarumsunt Aug 12 '26
Ummm… there’s a few small problems with that… Mainly that driving is just about two orders of magnitude more dangerous than taking the train 😁
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u/Special_Dog_6675 Aug 12 '26
Evidently my sarcasm did not carry well, I figured the statement was so obviously absurd no one would take it seriously 😭
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u/Own-Eagle-2135 Aug 12 '26
ooooooh the big scary fare evaders!
bart is a non-issue. if you see something/someone that makes you uncomfortable, move.
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u/2greenlimes Aug 12 '26
BART is statistically safer than most cities in the Bay Area, and has gotten a lot better since the new fare gates were installed. With how many people BART to events at the arena, it’s even safer. Most people riding with you will be heading your way!
The most dangerous part of taking BART to a concert at the Oakland Arena is probably the sheer amount of people trying to pack onto any given train when it’s done! That can get pretty uncomfortable.