Commuters across the San Francisco Bay Area faced another morning of disruption on February 26, 2026, when Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) service between Oakland and San Francisco ground to a halt for nearly an hour. The culprit this time? A network engineering problem that, as it turns out, was traced to a decade-old router part at BART’s Lake Merritt data center—a piece of equipment that had already been scheduled for replacement later this year, according to BART spokesperson Alicia Trost (as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle).
The trouble started just after 8 a.m., with BART operators announcing over intercoms that service between West Oakland and 24th Street Mission stations—essentially the vital Transbay Tube link—was suspended. Hundreds of commuters found themselves stranded on platforms, scrambling for alternatives as the agency urged everyone to seek other means of transportation. At Fruitvale Station, lines for buses stretched long as riders waited for a way across the Bay. Others, like Trevor McCullough at El Cerrito Station, gave up and opted to work from home, wheeling their bikes back out into the morning chill. "I’m just going to work from home," he said, echoing the exasperation of many who had already endured multiple technical delays that week.
Service was restored around 9 a.m., but BART warned that residual delays would ripple through the system for hours. Muni, San Francisco’s municipal transit agency, stepped up with free rides through the downtown corridor, and San Francisco Bay Ferry added an extra trip to help ease the pressure. Still, the impact was keenly felt. Some riders reported delays as long as two hours, while others coordinated impromptu carpools or ride-shares outside stations. "I’ll take another 50 minutes to get to the city, which is normally a 40-minute round trip," said Lafayette commuter Ali Bergman, who described this as her third technical delay in a week. "I already consider it expensive and headache-inducing."
This was the second time in less than a week that BART’s Transbay Tube had been forced to shut down. The previous incident, which began just after 4 p.m. on Sunday, was even more dramatic: an RV fire at a homeless encampment near West Oakland station burned through key communication cables on the elevated track, causing a “loss of communication” that left trains unable to pass through the tube for hours. Revelers returning from Oakland’s Black Joy Parade found themselves stranded, as BART scrambled to provide buses across the Bay Bridge between the Salesforce Transit Center and East Bay stops including Downtown Berkeley, MacArthur, Fruitvale, and El Cerrito. According to BART, trains were forced to turn around at Embarcadero and West Oakland to avoid the tunnel entirely.
While BART officials have not confirmed whether the two outages are directly connected, the proximity of the incidents—and the fact that both involved aging infrastructure—has left many riders and transit advocates deeply frustrated. As Chris Phillipi, a regular BART rider, put it to NBC Bay Area: "Over the last week, we have had two incidents that have impacted our riders, and nobody wants to see that. We have to own it when the system doesn’t measure up." Another commuter, Eric Carter, didn’t mince words about the confusion and disappointment: "Immediately, I was like, 'Oh, this is public transportation at its finest, which is not right.' And it makes me wonder because there's so many challenges with funding and all this stuff. Like, is this all coming together to make it just a mess?"
Indeed, the timing could hardly be worse for BART. The agency is facing a structural budget deficit that could balloon to $400 million annually, with a current projection of at least $350 million in the red. In response, BART is banking on a proposed regional sales tax measure set for the November ballot. The stakes are high: if voters reject the measure, BART has warned it may be forced to shutter up to 15 stations by July 2027 and could potentially cease operations altogether within two years. The BART board voted Thursday to give riders a six-month extension under the latest proposal, but the warning is clear.
These recent breakdowns are just the latest in a series of service interruptions plaguing the system over the past year. According to studies by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, two separate BART network glitches last year caused Bay Bridge travel times to swell by about nine minutes, with additional pile-ups on Interstates 80 and 580. Every outage, large or small, has a human toll—forcing people to scour for alternate routes, crowd onto buses and ferries, or brave already-jammed freeways. On Thursday, some BART staff tried to keep spirits up and information flowing. At Lafayette station, a station agent repeatedly stopped people from entering the fare gates, shouting, “No train to San Francisco! The tube is closed!” as would-be riders milled about, checking their phones for updates.
BART’s troubles are not unique in the world of public transit, but the frequency and severity of recent incidents have put the agency’s long-term viability in sharp focus. The malfunctioning router at the heart of Thursday’s outage had reached the end of its useful life—a sobering reminder of the challenges facing transit systems with aging infrastructure and limited funding. BART spokesperson Michelle Robertson emphasized the agency’s rapid response and the support from partner agencies, noting that "Muni provided free rides through the downtown San Francisco corridor, and San Francisco Bay Ferry added an extra trip." Still, for riders, the experience was anything but seamless.
As the Bay Area looks ahead to November’s crucial tax measure vote, the question is whether voters will have enough faith in BART’s ability to deliver reliable service—or whether continued disruptions will push more people to abandon public transit altogether. The agency’s leadership and transit advocates argue that investment is the only way forward, but the recent spate of outages has made their case harder to sell. For now, BART’s future hangs in the balance, with every service interruption serving as both a wake-up call and a plea for support.
For Bay Area commuters, the hope is simple: that the next time they board a train, it’ll actually get them where they need to go—on time and without another morning of chaos.