The Oakland Wye is an underground rapid transitflyingwye junction in downtown Oakland, California which serves the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. Trains can switch between the northbound Richmond or Pittsburg/Bay Point lines, the westbound San Francisco lines, and the southbound Fremont or Dublin/Pleasanton lines. The Oakland Wye is the center of the BART system, and is a speed bottleneck for the whole system because the vast majority of BART trains pass through it.
Design
The original operating speed through most of the Oakland Wye was intended to be. Design problems led BART operations to impose a administrative speed limit on most tracks. Although the design has since been corrected, the speed restrictions remain as a cautionary measure. The track turning north from West Oakland station through 12th Street/Oakland City Center is the only track with a higher operating speed of through the Wye. Bypasses that would connect and with the Transbay Tube directly have been proposed to create express service, avoid systemwide delays if glitches occur in the Wye, and potentially provide an infill station at Jack London Square. Other infill stations or more frequent service may be provided in urban core areas if a turnback is built in the Oakland Wye.
History
Incidents
In February 2000, automatic train controls failed due to an electrical short, and trains proceeding through the Oakland Wye were forced to operate in manual and slow to when switching tracks. Crews were dispatched to manually switch trains between tracks in the Wye, resulting in long delays during the morning commute. In February 2009, two northbound trains from West Oakland and Lake Merritt sideswiped in the Wye while heading north towards 12th Street/Oakland City Center. Both trains partially derailed. The automatic train control system should have prevented the collision, but one train was operating in manual mode. After the trains were cleared from the tracks early the next day, BART released a statement noting the train operating in manual had proceeded past a wait point, and the NTSB provided an investigator to assist. In January 2017, a westbound ten-car train arriving at West Oakland stopped partially outside the station, with only the first seven cars on the platform. The resulting backup delayed all train traffic entering the Transbay Tube from the East Bay, and forced commuters to take alternative means to their jobs, including ferries, buses, and ridesharing services.
