Transbay BART Back By 4 PM?

Updated 1:300 am

Bay City News - BART service between the East Bay and San Francisco will resume later than originally estimated this afternoon, Assistant General Manager Paul Oversier told the transit agency's board shortly after 12:30 p.m. 

BART now hopes to resume transbay service by 4 p.m.

The Transbay Tube remains shut down because of a three-alarm fire that burned at a construction site near the West Oakland BART station early this morning.

BART had initially planned to begin single-tracking trains between San Francisco and Oakland early this afternoon and then reopen both tracks for the evening commute.

However, Oversier said, "We've changed our game plan because there's a greater likelihood of having both tracks ready for the evening commute if both remain shut down for now, because single-tracking the trains interferes with the repair work." "Our goal is still to be open for the evening commute," he said.

Oversier warned, however, that once transbay service starts up again, BART still won't be able to operate at its normal level. He said he hopes to see it operate "at 60 percent or 70 percent or 80 percent of capacity."

"The biggest vulnerability is that one communication cable is pretty well fried," Oversier said.

BART won't know the extent of the problem until it restarts its electrical system at the West Oakland station and runs some tests, he said. "We won't fully understand the impact until we fire the system up," Oversier told directors.

He said it appears the fiber network is in "good shape" but that also can't be confirmed until tests are conducted.

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