BART’s multimillion-dollar ‘big problem’ is fighting grime

BART is taking steps to spiff up its image — and its stations — with a multimillion-dollar “brightening project” targeting grime that’s piling up on the aging system.

BART has already begun erecting temporary 3½-foot-high “no trespassing” gates — at a cost of $400,000 — to keep homeless people from using the stairwells and escalators as overnight bathrooms at San Francisco’s Embarcadero, Montgomery Street, Powell Street and Civic Center stations.

Long term, BART is teaming up with the city to design and build permanent gated canopies at 27 BART and Muni station entrances along Market Street.

BART is also talking with the city about picking up half the $100,000-a-year salary for a new city Homeless Outreach Team manager to work with the transit system on getting campers out of BART stations and into shelters with services.

The BART Police Department already has a $111,000-a-year, civilian “crisis intervention and community outreach specialist” roaming the system to keep an eye on the homeless, and working to steer them into mental health, substance abuse and other programs when necessary.

[...] BART has hired 15 “special projects” workers — at a cost of $1.1 million a year — to scrub the four downtown San Francisco stations from top to bottom in six-week cycles.

BART also pays three maintenance companies to clean any station dirt that is seven feet or more off the floor — the job is considered too dangerous for the transit system’s employees — for $700,000 a year.

Mallett — who asked BART staff to brief the board Thursday on its grime-fighting efforts — says the task was made harder because cleaning wasn’t always a top priority during the recession.