San Francisco Bay Area commuters experienced major disruptions on Friday, September 5, 2025, as the entire BART system went down due to a computer network issue.
This severe outage prompted tens of thousands to search for alternate transportation options.
BART spokesperson Alicia Trost stated, "the outage started at around 5 a.m., after an overnight software upgrade that went wrong."
Trost further told that crews are currently working to resolve the issue.
BART, a critical transit lifeline with 175,000 weekday riders, advised passengers to switch to alternative transportation.
Due to the massive disruption, traffic across the Bay Bridge was disturbed for 45 minutes, while San Francisco Bay Ferry prepared to expand capacity but reported no major issues yet.
Some AC Transit buses skipped stops, and East Bay Casual Carpool spots were deserted.
Additionally, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency received warning of possible delays to Muni buses.
This massive outage marks the second major systemwide shutdown in four months.
Last Friday, the Transbay Tube was temporarily closed due to smoke from brakes.
In May, a severe power outage discontinued trains for several hours.
BART is still struggling to recover ridership from pre-pandemic highs of 400,000 daily riders.