Cal/OSHA May Fine BART $200K Over Live Track Safety Incident

Cal/OSHA is weighing fines of more than $200,000 against BART over a November 2024 incident in which managers allowed crews to work on a live track inside the Berkeley-Orinda Hills tunnel without proper safety clearance. No one was injured, but the near-miss is now at the center of a bitter dispute between the transit agency and its own workers over who bears responsibility.

The incident involved a crew replacing a 40-foot section of corroded track next to the tunnel’s 1,000-volt third rail. According to worker Tony Velasquez, who spoke to NBC Bay Area about what happened that day, he followed standard BART protocol by requesting “safe clearance” from operations before work began. When operations told him there was a delay in granting that clearance, Velasquez said he told his crew to hold.

“I told everybody on the job site that we don’t have safe clearance, so no work,” Velasquez said.

Two workers then left with a pair of BART managers who had arrived at the site. The job proceeded without clearance. According to Cal/OSHA’s citation, one manager believed crews were permitted to do track work without clearance, and another said he allowed the job to continue after workers told him they were “fine” with proceeding.

Velasquez described management’s attitude afterward as dismissive. One manager shrugged when asked what happened. Another told Velasquez the clearance wasn’t necessary. Velasquez said he saw the blame-shifting coming from the start.

“I knew that day when all that stuff happened, it was going to be a bad night and I knew that they were going to try to wash their hands and put the blame on us,” he said.

BART’s response to the Cal/OSHA citation does exactly that. In its appeal, the agency argues the situation resulted from the “independent action” of unnamed employees. The agency also told NBC Bay Area that the citations involve an incident that “did not result in an accident or anyone being injured.”

That framing deserves scrutiny. A crew working feet from an energized 1,000-volt third rail without confirmed deactivation is not a minor paperwork lapse. The fact that no one died does not retroactively make the decision to proceed without clearance acceptable. BART knows this better than most. In 2013, two BART engineers were struck and killed by a train being operated by a trainee during a labor dispute. That incident drew national attention and led to significant safety reforms, reforms the agency now appears to be undermining through management conduct and legal maneuvering.

The money BART is spending to fight Cal/OSHA citations tells its own story. The agency has allocated more than $500,000 in legal resources to challenge worker safety enforcement actions dating back to 2019. BART’s governing board recently approved another $150,000 to continue that fight. That is half a million dollars spent resisting a state agency whose entire job is to make sure workers come home alive.

Velasquez’s account places two BART managers physically inside the tunnel when the unauthorized work began. The appeal’s claim that employees acted independently conflicts directly with that version of events. Cal/OSHA’s investigation will presumably sort out the factual record, but BART’s public posture of shifting blame onto workers while spending hundreds of thousands of dollars challenging oversight is a pattern, not an isolated response.

Bay Area riders expect BART to keep trains moving. BART’s workforce expects the agency to keep them safe. Right now, the agency seems more invested in defeating Cal/OSHA in administrative proceedings than in honestly accounting for what happened inside that tunnel on a November night and making sure it doesn’t happen again.

The fine, if imposed, would be more than $200,000. BART will almost certainly appeal it. The legal tab will grow. And somewhere in the Berkeley-Orinda Hills tunnel, the third rail will keep running at 1,000 volts, indifferent to whoever decides to work next to it without clearance.