The California Public Utilities Commission on Wednesday night authorized BART to put train cars from its new Fleet of the Future into service, and passengers may be able to ride them as soon as Friday afternoon.
BART officials said they have one of the oldest big-city fleets of public transit trains in the nation, and will begin to replace their old trains with quieter and more comfortable new ones.
The milestone was delayed in November when the new trains failed a safety inspection but the CPUC.
After that, BART officials hoped to put the new trains into service by mid-December, but it took roughly another month to reach the start date.
BART officials said they've made roughly 2,900 modifications to the trains, completed nearly 400 tests and put their train operators and technicians through roughly 20,000 hours of training so far.
