Police believe someone intentionally set a fire that extensively damaged the elevator on the afternoon of March 12, BART spokesman Jim Allison wrote in an email. “It’s a pretty rotten arrangement to have to do that,” he said.īART officials apologized for the closure and said crews are working to get the elevator back in service. Rather than wait for another train to take them to an accessible station, Erick Mikiten rode the North Berkeley stop’s escalator in his wheelchair to reach the exit. If a BART station was closed for all riders for more than a month, McGoldrick said, “all hell would break loose.”Īrchitect Erick Mikiten discovered the elevator was out of service when he and his wife, Planning Commission Chair Elisa Mikiten, took BART home from the airport after a trip to Seattle. The closure means the station is effectively off-limits for riders who rely on the elevator, such as Mark McGoldrick, a North Berkeley resident who uses a wheelchair and is frustrated by what he said feels like a lack of urgency to fix the lift from an agency that has long faced scrutiny over the state of its elevators.

Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLightĪ fire earlier this month is expected to keep the lone elevator at the North Berkeley BART station out of service until late April, transit officials say. Riders who can’t navigate its stairs or escalator rely on a single elevator, which is in the midst of a nearly six-week closure.

Passengers walk through the North Berkeley BART station.

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