SAN FRANCISCO - SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU and wires) – BART riders had a challenging commute day Monday as the system suffered delays and shutdowns in the wake of equipment failure, suspect chase in a transit tunnel and a death at the Embarcadero station.
The latest incident began at around 1:25 p.m. when San Francisco fire spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge said the fire department received reports that a male standing on the BART platform jumped in front of an oncoming train.
He was killed when he was struck by a Dublin/Pleasanton train. The station was closed in both directions halting transit into San Francisco from the East Bay.
BART did offer limited single-track service through the Embarcadero station on the San Francisco International Airport-Pittsburg/Bay Point line, but all other lines that run through the station were turned around.
It was not known when the trains would return to normal service.
Less than two hours earlier, a man ran into an East Bay BART transit tunnel near Lake Merritt in an attempt to elude police.
He was eventually taken into custody, but not before he disrupted noon-time travel on the system’s East Bay line.
The incident began around 11:43 a.m. with police being called to the Lake Merritt Station in Oakland.
When officers arrived, they were told a man who attempted to steal a cellphone had jumped onto the tracks from the elevated platform and run into the tunnel.
The Fremont and the Dublin/Pleasanton lines were shut down to enable police to search for the man in the tunnel.
He was taken into custody a short time later and the station was reopened.
Riders on the line were already facing 20-minute delays because of an equipment problem at the South Hayward station, a dispatcher said.