I travelled on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) for the first time last night. BART is a rail system that links cities in the East Bay with San Francisco. I used it to travel to the ball-game at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland. I wish to state the location of the stadium, as whilst it may sound obvious to you, the website for the forthcoming CONCACAF Gold Cup places the Oakland Coliseum in San Francisco. After breaking a losing streak on Monday, the A’s lost 5-3 to the Tigers with a rather limp performance.
The BART line is built on a broad gauge of 5ft 6in, making the compartments more spacious than traditional trains or London tube trains. The ticketing system was odd. I inserted by debit card into a machine and rather than the screen offering me a choice of destinations, there were a handful of on screen buttons: Buy Ticket ($20), Reduce by $1, Increase by $1, Reduce by 5c, and Increase by 5c. For a first timer this was confusing. I saw alongside the display a list of prices. The return to the Coliseum was $5.50, so I had to adjust the price down by pressing the reduce by $1 fourteen times until I had $6 on the ticket and then press the reduce by 5c until I had arrived at $5.50.
The trip itself was uneventful, with some of the route on raised tracks and the section through downtown Oakland running underground. The Coliseum station is connected by a raised walkway to the stadium and it is a very convenient way of getting to the game.
