A related really dumb thing is that in general, the signs in BART which indicate the time until the next train on a given line are not visible from outside the fare zone. This is especially relevant in parts of downtown SF, where you could take BART or Muni to go up or down market, and if there's a delay on one, you might quite reasonably want to switch to another. The added time to find the station agent and get an excursion fee waved is more than long enough to miss a muni train. (And needing to see an agent when _re-entering_ the system next time can make you miss a train again.)
I especially think that, if there's a service disruption, track maintenance, cancelled train, etc, BART should _automatically_ know not to apply an excursion fee, rather than hoping that most riders won't ask for a station agent to waive it.
another frustrating thing about the signs on the platform is how they spend almost the entire time not showing train times
It's almost always showing:
- Elevator updates
- PSAs
- Literally nothing!
Train times are shown for a few seconds at a time! Miss it, and prepare to watch text scroll slowly until the train times popup again for a few seconds. They're also announcing the exact same PSAs audibly, which is great and more accessible anyway.
I think you mean the signs are “only” visible in the fare zone. The canopy improvements project will add signs at the entrances showing times for the stations in SF soon: https://www.bart.gov/about/planning/sfentrances
I especially think that, if there's a service disruption, track maintenance, cancelled train, etc, BART should _automatically_ know not to apply an excursion fee, rather than hoping that most riders won't ask for a station agent to waive it.