BART’s Board of Directors voted Thursday to reinstate a face mask requirement on BART trains effective immediately.
The board’s vote to reinstitute the face mask requirement is now in effect until and inclusive Oct. 1, unless BART directors decide to extend the mandate further.
The temporary amendment to the transit district’s Code of Conduct requires riders to wear face masks that fully cover a person’s nose and mouth in paid areas of the system with limited exceptions. This requirement applies to trains and all portions of stations beyond the fare gates. Children ages 2 and under, as well as individuals with medical conditions that prevent them from wearing masks, are exempt from the mandate.
At its Sept. 22 meeting, the BART board will place an action item on its agenda to determine if the mandate should be extended.
A BART spokesperson said Thursday free face masks are available at station agent booths and from all safety staff for those who need one. BART police will continue its education-based enforcement of the mask requirement by offering free masks to anyone who needs one before taking any enforcement action, which could include a citation of up to $75, or being ejected from the paid area.
A $75.00 fine?
How many fines were given out for people eating on the trains??? I’m going to file a FOIA request.
Such a JOKE wannabe transit company.
No one tells me what to do. Let’s see the BART police try to make me put a mask on.
Please, please go and show us all.
Well, LA just gave up on indoor masking, doesn’t BART look dumb,
And here we go again.
Be real.
Can’t get ejected from the paid area if you don’t pay. The more you know…
With Monkeypox slime all over the seats masks aren’t gonna do a damn thing. Oh wait this is for Covid? Well same goes masks are useless.
Please mask up while on Bart. Help stop the spread and save a life, it could be your neighbor or relative.
I have never worn the mask. I’m protecting your grandma from tyranny. The COVID HOAX is all about control. Some people really love the boot on their neck.
Remember this was all to keep the hospitals from overflowing. fauci and birx lied about everything. What science could these idiots be using?
If masks work, then granny should be fine if she wears hers, right?
This astounds me that anyone can be this obtuse and stuck in 2020. Omicron is unstoppable, and has been since January. Everyone has either already had it, or soon will. Masking hasn’t stopped it anywhere it has been implemented, save perhaps very controlled places like hospitals with correct PPE materiel and procedures, along with positive pressure over-pressure HAVAC systems. Being confined in a train car with someone who has omicron means you are likely to catch it, no matter what you do. Further, a person spends like an hour a day on BART, and then 22 hours a day elsewhere unmasked. What’s the point even if it did work? Which it doesn’t.
This neuroticism is only found in heavily blue areas like here. The rest of the country has accepted the reality and moved on. Why are people like you so deep in this cult?
Oh please stop it. The mask craze really needs to end. If someone wants to wear one then by all means they can wear one….Save a life by wearing a mask?!? Not so.
Trauma, I suggest reading this article on SFGate: https://www.sfgate.com/coronavirus/article/bay-area-mask-mandate-results-17271294.php which shows how Alameda County faired in comparison to the Bay Area as a whole when they were the only County with a mandate. Long story short: masks aren’t all that effective.
Masks have never been effective. They’re like trying to stop a mosquito with a chain link fence. It’s all for the psychological effect to keep the public restrained (unless you realize it). There have been papers published by psychiatrists about this. The result is we now have a public which many are suffering a form of PTSD.
Some of us grew up in the “duck and cover” era of the cold war and we were taught what propaganda is so we recognized this from the start. They had hoped that either we would be dead by now or have dementia so we wouldn’t remember what we learned in the 1950s.
BTW, masks are good for keeping toxic smoke away when we have bad wildfire smoke. I have N95 masks for that and they were uncomfortable to wear during some of the bad smoke back in 2018 we had. We call complained about going for walks wearing them.
Why do y’all keep feeding the troll? She must need the attention, be it positive or negative…. sad.
@Jeff Zimmerman. Though your point may be a good one throwing in the whore comment just tarnishes the sentiment.
The popular term used for MSM reporters is “pressitutes”. 😉
Dead body found on Bart and they are forcing riders to wear masks..? Sounds like there priorities are all messed up
I guess all those folks who said “leave him alone, let him sleep” are feeling kinda dumb now.
BART should focus on deep cleaning the urine smelling, disease infested , dead homeless people who OD’d overnight seats instead of trying to penalize regular riders going to work/home etc. BART obviously sold out to the BS a long time ago. Wonder how much extra they go for their bonus for pushing the BS. Theyll lose in the end.
When is the last time you ride?
@Chuq – Civil disobedience not just about getting to “avoid laws we decide are tyrannical.” The substance of BART’s mask mandate is not, on its face, unduly burdensome or tyrannical.
However, the BART Board’s imposition of a mask mandate is a pernicious story of PROCEDURAL tyranny. The BART Board derives it’s legislative authority from the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District Act (the “BART Act”), codified at Cal. PUC Code § 28500, et seq., which include specific enumerated powers “do any and all things necessary TO CARRY OUT THE PURPOSES OF [THE BART ACT].” Cal. PUC Code § 28763 (emphasis added). The “purposes of the BART Act” do not include unilaterally regulating public health policy. The California Health and Safety Code and Government Code delegate public health policy to duly established health departments at the state and county level.
The BART Board thus lacks the authority to issue public health fiats. As such, the BART mask mandate is unlikely to withstand judicial scrutiny if BART PD attempts to enforce it by issuing a citation or arresting alleged violators for refusing an officer’s order to comply.
Specifically, the BART Board
BART Act: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayexpandedbranch.xhtml?tocCode=PUC&division=10.&title=&part=2.&chapter=&article=
Way to lower your ridership even more. People should make their own decisions about these things. We only have ONE life, if people want to spend theirs fearful and masked, I have no basis to stop them. But they will never guilt or shame me into doing the same. T
What a joke! Bart doesn’t enforce anything. Police only show up after an incident is over.
People who ride Bart could write volumes about all sanitary issues, behavioral problems, and social trauma that goes along with taking BART. Masks might actually help protect health on BART.
The most pathetic part is that they couldn’t even remember to hold a vote before the old mandate expired on July 18th.
So they had “Mask Strongly Recommended” signs printed up and posted.
Stupid fools. This time they put a calendar reminder in their phones for Sept 22.
While at the BART station last night, I saw mask wearing from about 50% of the riders. I also watched at least 3 dozen people jump the turnstyles. How about writing some tickets for that as well?
Masks? That’s light weight stuff. If you need to ride this train ride through hell, you really need a full body hazmat suit and separate air supply along with self protection gear. Let’s see, Covid, monkey pox along with the new variant baboon pox, flu, urine, poop, saliva, scabies. Heck I even read a report of someone rubbing the seats and hand holding spots with poison oak leaves.
Sounds like the Bart Board got a scare.
One would believe that the Bart Police would have better things to do.
So $75 for not wearing a mask but I can do the following and not be fined/prosecuted:
-Jump the barriers and ride for free.
-do drugs in the opens
-assault people without fear
-eat/drink and be merry.
Definitely sounds like the BART board has their priorities in the correct order.
They did have an incident with a cop harassing some dude for illegally eating a sandwich on the platform, a few years back. You forgot to mention the freedom to defecate on the train. Otherwise, spot on.
THREE DOCTORS From the Same Hospital “Die Suddenly” in the Same Week After Hospital Mandates Fourth COVID Shot –
https://tinyurl.com/43rsn65z
Looks like I won’t be riding BART now. But I didn’t ride BART before this, so it won’t be much of a change.
The beat reason to wear a mask on BART….it stinks!
Riders should delight in wearing masks.Dart a a cage for Monkey Pox/
The stench should make one want to add a clothes pin on their nose. JUST DO IT!
It’s a new wor.ld of unidentifiable creatures roaming around.
BART appears to be “Lost In A Masquerade”. This mandate will cause tempers to flare, reduce ridership and revenue, and undermine what little confidence people still have in this money pit.
What an absolute joke, look how progressive we are, wheeeeeee! The idiots on the BART BOD are hell bent on running it into the ground.
Well, at least Debora Allen has redeemed herself this time around and voted NO…citing lack of staff presentation on mask efficacy and the fact that this is basically unenforceable. She shall get my vote in November to replace Mitchoff in the Board of Supervisors race.
I told you they wouldn’t stop. Anyone wearing a mask is contributing to the tyranny and considered and enemy of freedom.
People who ride Bart could write volumes about all sanitary issues, behavioral problems, and social trauma that goes along with taking BART. Masks might actually help protect health on BART.
Will they be lifted two weeks before elections?
BART PD won’t/doesn’t enforce the fare evasion laws.You think they’ll actually stop a train if someone doesn’t have a mask?
The only way I’ll ride BART these days is in a hazmat suit. And yes, I’ve ridden it for too many years – haven’t ridden it since 2019 and have no desire.
Of course, BART will complain that, due to low ridership, they’ll have to raise fares, raise parking fees and raise taxes on your property tax bill. Then they’ll throw more money at overpaid managers and janitors.
Nope.
And they think the HSR will be a “success?”
HAW!