- BART is an extremely filthy and dangerous transit system by any 1st world standard, and I say this as a lifelong transit rider.
This is hysteria. I have many coworkers who ride BART on a daily basis for 15+ years and not a single reported incident from any of them, other than stinky homeless people that very rarely ride during peak hours.
slightly depends on your entry/exit stations but I would regularly see crack/heroin use, defecation, deranged meth heads screaming and/or picking fights. I doubt I am alone in this.
Definitely not Hysteria. I have inhaled second-hand crack smoke walking up the stairs at Civic Center, watched a man defecate on a crowded train, and saw a person get stabbed in the past 5 years of riding BART. It's not this bad in NYC or LA and I couldn't even dream of seeing things like this in Europe or Asia.
Have you personally taken BART on a consistent enough basis? I took it two days a week for a significant length of time and calling it filthy is not hysteria at all.
Seconding a couple of other replies here: it is not hysteria. In the 20 years I've lived in the Bay Area, BART has gone from tolerable to completely revolting.
I don't ride it often and haven't seen any violent crimes, but I've seen police remove quite a few people. Last time we had to wait a while as the police asked the guy to pick up his own used needles.
I grew up in SF, now live in Toronto and spend a lot of time in NY. Pretending that Bart/MUNI arent on a completely different level than other major cities is ridiculous.
