COVID: BART Upgrades Air Filters Amid Potential Winter Surge, Workers Eventually Returning
SAN LEANDRO (KPIX 5) – Amid talk of a possible holiday surge in COVID-19 cases, BART is taking steps to make passengers feel safe.
The agency is also thinking some more ridership growth might be around the corner, and they're hoping COVID fears don't stand in the way of that.
"You know, air being changed out every 70 seconds in a car is industry best practice," BART General Manager Bob Powers said at a briefing Tuesday.
To take it a step further, BART has now upgraded its air filters, a step beyond what is considered best practice.
"As you can see, the pleat design is a lot tighter," engineer Charles Franz explained to KPIX 5, holding both the old and new filters. "This is the old MERV-8 that we've changed out. The 8 only captures material as small as 3 microns. The new MERV-14, as small as 3/10ths of a micron."
Beyond the quality of the air filter, there's another reason passengers might feel comfortable on trains now.
"As long as you stay away from everyone and have your mask on all the time," said Mary, stepping off a BART train Tuesday.
"It's not crowded like it used to be," said Jiban Gurung. "Like before COVID, it was very crowded."
Weekday ridership is about 25% of pre-COVID levels, a number that has been very closely aligned with the slow return to office space in the Bay Area, and specifically in San Francisco.
"So it is going to take a while to get back to pre-COVID numbers," Powers said.
While BART can't do much about that, it is expecting more office returns in the coming months. The agency said it's standing by to lure drivers away from what we're seeing on roads and highways.
"So when folks are coming back in three days or four days, whatever they're cadence is, that they're taking public transit and not getting in their car," Powers said. "You've seen traffic. Traffic is at pre-COVID levels right now, right? Gas prices are going up."
