Cleaning up BART’s act

Buffeted by declining ridership and increasing complaints, BART officials are planning new strategies to clean up the regional transit system. Their plans include an overhaul of the system’s cleaning procedures, increasing police patrols at certain stations, and closing off parts of stations at night.

There’s a new poster campaign, in partnership with California College of the Arts students, to remind riders about basic etiquette.

BART is also working on how it can encourage homeless people to get out of the stations and into services.

The initiatives show that officials are listening.

Bay Area residents know how crucial BART is to our region: In 2016, more than two-thirds of voters in three separate counties agreed to pass a $3.5 billion bond measure to improve the system’s infrastructure.

Yet problems have steadily mounted for the last few years: urine-soaked station platforms, train reliability issues, and a rash of robberies.

As the system has grown less pleasant to use, it’s unsurprising that ridership has declined (by 4.3 percent in the past year).

Some of BART’s new plans were long overdue.

BART hadn’t made major changes to its cleaning protocols since the system opened in 1972. Officials’ plans on that front sound promising: There will finally be standardized cleaning procedures, worker assignments and regular inspections.

In another change, the vast majority of cleaning will take place during operating hours, meaning there will be more BART workers around when the riders are there. That change could improve safety.

Riders will certainly be happy to see more workers in the stations, and some studies suggest informal surveillance of this kind helps to reduce crime.

The presence and behavior of homeless people in the stations is another top rider complaint. Unfortunately, there are no easy fixes for it.

It’s a good idea to offer more outreach and services to homeless people in the system, but ultimately, combatting homelessness is not BART’s responsibility.

It’s the responsibility of the state and local governments to provide housing, health care, social workers and many, many other resources for homeless people. It’s the responsibility of every city in the Bay Area to do its part in terms of housing production.

The problems BART’s riders are seeing with homeless individuals on the transit system are just a symptom of a much larger complaint — and it’s one that needs a larger response.