San Francisco Officials To Stop Personally Cleaning Transit Station

On the eve of a City Hall hearing to take Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) to task for the filthy condition of 16th Street Mission station, BART has agreed to staff its stations with more janitors, according to an article on the San Francisco Examiner website.

The move was sparked by the actions of BART Director Bevan Dufty and Supervisor Hillary Ronen. For nearly six months, the two have personally cleaned the entrance to the Mission District transit station.

The new janitorial positions would likely be filled by the end of March, according to a BART spokesperson.

The new hires will fill 21 vacancies that previously were addressed by assigning overtime to cleaning staff. The new janitors will be allocated according to station ridership.

Dufty began cleaning the 16th Street station in October last year to draw attention to the condition of the station. Ronen joined in and, with rubber gloves, brooms and trash cans, she and Dufty cleaned the area just outside the station themselves for months, the article said.

Ronen said she will stop cleaning by the end of March when staffing up completed.

The 16th Street Mission Station previously had one dedicated janitor.  It is now getting a four-hour-long nightly power wash instead of its usual hour-long power wash.

“The first day, they did it for four hours the smell of urine was worse than ever,” she said in the article. “So much urine has seeped into the ground, power washing for four hours unearthed it. The stench was overpowering. It’s intense.”

Read the full article.