BART officials say some relief is on the way to help alleviate crowded trains and improve service during rush hour by "squeezing" more capacity out of its aging fleet of rail cars.
The transit agency's board of directors Thursday unanimously approved a $1.57 billion budget that addresses some of the biggest complaints from riders in last year's customer satisfaction survey.
"They want cleaner trains, they want longer trains, they want to have more capacity. So, I think this goes a long way to address some of those concerns," said BART board member Joel Keller.
In all, BART officials say they plan to put 30 additional rail cars in service by hiring more workers to move "train cars from maintenance to passenger service at a faster pace."
To help fix train-control failures that the agency says account for one-fifth of late trains, BART plans to hire two new technicians. In addition, it will add more hours for on-call paramedics to deal with medical emergencies.