up to this year's apple event, including a significant change to its signature device. plus, help is still reaching the hardest hit parts of morocco days after an earthquake disaster. the devastation and the likelihood a quake of that size may happen here. but first,

major changes to public transportation in the bay area and what it means for the future of mass transit. i am christine zee. we got a great conversation for you today. three of them, in fact. you're watching getting answers on abc7 every day we talk with experts about issues important to the bay area and you just in the last two hours caltrain announced fare increases starting in 2025. the announcement comes just as bart implements big changes to try to improve its service with ridership still far from pre-pandemic levels. joining us live now is john goodwin, assistant director of communications at the metropolitan transportation commission. john, nice to see you. >> good to see you, too, kristin. good afternoon. good afternoon. >> lots of changes for us to talk about. let's start with bart. since its service is many times more riders in the bay area, let's go ahead and show the key changes on a graphic here and maybe you can elaborate for us and explain the thinking . so we have the 20 minute maximum wait time. the pittsburg

bay point line will now be every ten minutes and then nine trains per hour to and from sfo. so, john, walk us through what each of these is about. >> okay. so the 20 minute maximum. wait, wait time is designed. waits more than 20 minutes for a train as it as it was until this weekend. and you could at some times of the day wait up to 30 minutes for a train. so this this cuts that by a third the every ten minute frequency for the yellow line by far bart's busiest line. i wrote a yellow line train into san francisco this morning and all of the trains are what they call the fleet of the future. so it's the new trains. the brighter trains, the more comfortable trains, the

quieter trains. again, it's just it's part of an effort by all bay area transit agencies to transform the service, make it more attractive, not only bring back the riders who were riding before the pandemic, but make transit more attractive to new riders as well. yeah a couple other things, john, worth noting . >> i think one is to set up a more consistent bart schedule so that other transit agencies can plan around that. better to set up transfers better and make that easier and then the other thing is i think bart is shortening its trains, right? is that an effort to save money or improve service somehow? >> well, it's both. they're there are shorter trains and that is that allows bart to use exclusively its new cars, its fleet of the future. so all those old 1970s era cars or be

will be retired unless they're needed for special service. so by not having to use the old cars, they can save millions of dollars each year on maintenance costs. so it's both and customer facing got it. >> okay. now let's talk about caltrain. this afternoon, the board approved a fare hike, but i know it comes in stages and it won't begin until 2025. can you walk us walk us through it? well i don't you know, i'll just i'll just mention them. >> tsay are not responsible for. >> yeah, i'll just mention the structure and maybe you can walk me through some of the rationale because it's $0.25 in 2025, another $0.25 in 2027. and then zone upgrades will also kick in for 2025 cent increase in 2026. i wanted to ask you, what is the

rationale for raising fares there? is it also to raise money . >> well, of course it's to raise money. that's that's an easy question and i appreciate it. the fact is that that system's like caltrain, like bart, like muni, that that built their business model on carrying a lot of people to and from downtown san francisco are not carrying the passenger loads that they were before the pandemic that has created a what some of the agencies refer to as a fiscal cliff because as bart and caltrain in particular, slosser had among the highest farebox recovery rates of any transit agencies in the country back in 2019. now the world has changed a lot since 2019 and it has created an enormous fiscal

problems for a lot of our transit agencies. bart and caltrain both among them. >> right. i understand that they're both still at less than 50% of pre-pandemic ridership levels. so talk about how you think some of these changes may be a better adaptation for this post-pandemic world in terms of how people work and play. they well, sure. >> you know, think that the modifications that bart has made to its schedule very much reflect the changing nature of bay area travel. now we at mtc in conjunction with several of our partners this fall, will be looking to go a little deeper on that there's going to be a real big survey, um, so look for it, you know, end of the month into october here in your mailbox and tell your neighbors to be on the on the lookout. we're hopeful that we can get out. a lot of

folks, uh, to, to participate in what we call the bay area travel study so we can get a much finer grained look at where people are going, when they're going, why they're going. et cetera. not just on transit, but trips on foot by bike, car trips, plane trips. everywhere we go. um, and more details on that to come. but that's something that that just reflects, uh, the keen interest that we at mtc and our partners around the region have taken in, uh, customizing service to meet new needs as the travel, uh, as the travel demand and has changed so much. and then specifically with transit, all of the bay area transit agencies are engaged in what is called a transit transformation

plan, which is basically be designed to, to, um, to, to better unite the two dozen plus different transit agencies that we have in the bay area and allow them to operate as a unified, coherent, rational, customer focused network. and it's not going to happen overnight, but those changes are underway and they have to do in broad categories making fare payment easier for and more intuitive. um upgrading and integrating, unifying the customer information mapping wayfinding real time arrival information, things like that. um making the, the services, uh , accessible services for disabled folks, seniors lower

income people making that more coordinated, more efficient and um and again it's all predicated on taking this bulk and ized, uh , mishmash of several dozen different transit agencies and planning and managing them as a single system. >> yeah, it certainly does need to go in that direction. so thanks for your work on that. as part of mtc. appreciate it. john >> happy to do it. all right. >> coming up, we're going to shift gears talking about that deadly 6.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked morocco and one bay area earthquake expert says it should be a warning to all of us here. he'll explain why and look at how our buildings might hold. up next on

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sadly, again, at least 2800 people dead and more than 2500 others injured after the largest earthquake to hit morocco in 120 years. it was a 6.8 magnitude earthquake, the same magnitude as the loma prieta quake of 1989. and it's raising questions about the bay area's readiness for another large quake. joining us live now is ross stein, stanford lecturer, usgs scientist, emeritus and co-founder of the quake risk app. temblor ross, thanks for joining us. >> thank you, kristen. >> let's just start here. how big is a 6.8 on the scales of seismologists.

>> well, we had a little smaller earthquake in 1994 in southern california. the northridge earthquake, and a little larger in 1989. the loma prieta earthquake and that's about the size of the 1838 hayward earthquake on the east bay. so these are earthquakes that we've experience in the recent past in california. and if we compare them to the great 1906 earthquake, it's about 1/30 the size so considerably smaller. >> got it. but okay, so the loma prieta quake was a 6.9, right? >> yes. okay so let's just compare our risk for another quake of that size, 6.9, 6.8. i know that's a huge difference in terms of the power generated, but in that same range and compare to morocco's, how does our fault system set us up here for big ones compared to morocco ? >> well, the incredible thing is that the rate of earthquakes in

the bay area, earthquakes of this size is 100 times higher than it is in morocco. and what i mean by that is, if we were to replay this experiment at a hundred times, just watching the high atlas mountains of morocco and watching the bay area, 999 times out of 100, the earthquake would strike the bay area and only once would it strike morocco. so this enormous difference in our earthquake rate is, is a result of the fact that in morocco earthquakes occur because as africa and arabia are in a slow mo crash into europe, into southern europe. whereas where we live, we're right on a plate boundary that is moving much faster, 50 times faster, and the plates are moving past each other, but they do kind of a bump and grind in the process. got it. >> so really it is much more likely for us to get something of that size than morocco. nonetheless, it happened there.

and when you look at the devastation there, i think, oh my gosh, what made the situation so unimaginably bad in terms of buildings collapsing there and making rescues difficult. >> well, unfortunately, we're kind of reliving the experience we had in february in turkey and for different reasons, both countries are very vulnerable to earthquakes. and the principal problem is home built buildings , buildings basically built out of mud and stone without any reinforced forcing the rebar that that holds buildings together. and so these in some cases ancient home built buildings crumble easily. and what's tragic here is people build this way because it protects them from the climate, from the enormous heat, these thick stone walls keep the building inside cool. but then that entombs people in an earthquake. so solving one problem, which is kind of an

annual problem makes makes this very rare. but very treacherous issue. much greater. >> all right. well this gets us to what about us, right? obviously, we know we're capable of something this size. we had a bigger one, 6.9in loma prieta in 1989. and of course, the 1906 great quake of san francisco. that was, what, a 7.9, something like that, about a79. >> that's right. >> so, ross, looking at our building, how do they compare? yeah, how do you feel about us going into our future? >> so first, i'm not an engineer . i'm a geophysicist. but i think it's widely understood and quite clear that our buildings are vastly more capable of handling the sudden motions of an earthquake than we see in morocco or that we saw in turkey . and that's related to not just a strong building code, but inspection of those buildings. and most builders following those regulations. that's in

credibly good news for us, especially when you consider that we're going to be hit much more often than they are. so our buildings are stronger, but we do have an achilles heel. we have older buildings too, unreinforced brick buildings. some of the beauty of the bay area, in fact, are buildings that won't survive another earthquake. and so that's a reminder that our job is to continue to strengthen or r the buildings that could also be a collapse risk and could deprive people of life and sa >> can i just ask you, though, you know how we always have all these disclosure laws in california. do you know if we have an unreal forced masonry building, which we do have? are they required to have signs or notification sort of like those, you know, you know, cancer notification, carcinogen signs. in some jurisdictions? >> in some cities. buildings are inspected. and if they're viewed

by engineers to be a collapse risk, they must have a plaque by the front door that says earthquake warning. this building could be unsafe in an earthquake. and the message of today's earthquake and the february earthquake in turkey is don't go in those buildings. you don't have to stay there yourself. a potential catalyst atrophy those buildings. in fact, if we didn't go in them, the owners would have to strengthen them. and as long as we do go in them, the owner doesn't have the proper motivation to do the right thing . so in a sense, if we abide by those plaques, the whole economic process will favor building buildings properly and strengthening the ones that are weak. >> i see use capitalism to get this done. okay, ross, your temblor app allows people to, i think, input their zip code or address and then get a quick assessment of their risk. you know, can you talk about how does the risk differ within our

bay area region. >> well, it is not the same everywhere. you know, there are , for example, if we think of the two major faults in the bay area, fortunately much of the san andreas is not populated with the exception of pacifica and daly city in contrast, almost all of the hayward fault is densely populated with residential buildings. all those beautiful homes in the berkeley, oakland hills that sit above the fault and are lifted up with their great sunset views of the golden gate because of the fault and all the industrial areas, particularly that are west of the hayward fault in the bay muds and on. fortunately those bay meadows bay muds will shake very, very hard in an earthquake like in san francisco. so much of what is now the waterfront that didn't exist before the gold rush. this is just gold rush fill. much of the financial district is just sitting on top

of the rotting carcasses of gold rush ships. that is also an area that will shake very hard. so now we know the bad areas. we know the problem areas, and we need to be ready for them. and this earthquake is simply a reminder not to you know, freak out, but to say, hey, what can i do to make myself safer as we are all doing right now when it comes to wildfire, for example? well, you know, we think of a defensible space. let's think of a defensible home. all right. >> thank you so much, ross. we can chat forever, but unfortunately, out of time. usgs scientist emeritus and founder of the temblor app. thank you so much. by the way, folks, we know how to prepare for an earthquake here, but are you ready? get a kit. make a plan b informed if you need help, just check out abc7 news.com slash prepare cal. up next, apple fans, the wait is almost over. the company is annual event takes place tomorrow and the focus is set to be the new iphone 15. a tech

expert will join us with

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iphone 15. will it be worth the hype? and what other products might we see from apple? joining us live now with a preview is abrar al-wahidi cnet's culture reporter hey, abrar. >> hi. how are you? >> i'm doing fine. i know all the apple fans are pretty excited about this. so what do you know about the iphone 15? what will make the version stand out? what do we know? >> there are a lot. there are a lot of rumors. the biggest one being that these this line of iphones will potentially switch from lightning to usb-c charging . and what that means is that you can use the same charger for your iphone and your ipad and your macbook and also with android phones, which is a really big deal that you'd be able to use the same charger on both an iphone and an android. so it's highly likely that we'll

see that shift happen. we could see a new apple watch. so the apple watch series nine, which could have longer battery life, potentially new color. yeah. and we're kind of hoping to see if we'll get any updates on the vision pro, which is that mixed reality headset that apple debuted a few months ago would be really great. to get some more details on that. and then speaking of usb-c, we might see updated airpods which would have a usb-c compatible charging case because then again you'd be able to use that one charger across a range of apple devices, which would be really convenient. >> so they're going for utilitarian and convenience this time. gotcha what about the iphone pro max? i'm hearing something about the largest ever. what new features are we expecting? better pictures. here's what exactly that's kind of a big upgrade that a lot of people look for with a new iphone and the 15 pro max. >> there are rumors that it can have improved optical zoom, kind of twice as good as what we currently see on the 14 pro models. and what that means is

that when you use the zoom, you'll be able to get better details, better resolution, much better than when you're kind of just zooming in and you get something that looks a little bit blurry. so this would hopefully make that better. we could also see on the pro models, instead of the frame being made of stainless steel, it could be made of titanium, which would make the phones a little bit lighter, which is also kind of a really nice perk because sometimes the phones can feel a little hefty. >> yeah, okay, that's sounding really good because i recently went to a concert and realized my phone is lagging behind everybody else's because everybody else has better shots of the performer on stage. how about the price? what do we know about the prices on these items ? >> that's a little bit less fun to think about, but there is potentially going to be a price increase on the pro models. so the 15 pro could be about $100 cheaper and the 15 pro max could be about $200 cheaper. so you're looking at like thousand $100 starting price for the pro and then 1200 for the pro max. and that's just i mean, it's been a while since apple's upped the price on its starting price on

its phone. so it's kind of time for that to happen. and they're going to say, hey, this is the best phone we've ever made. if you want to get all these perks, you're going to have to pay a little bit more. and apple fans are probably going to do it. >> i am reminded why of why i'm still using the 11. okay. you mentioned the pricing. so i want to shift gears a little bit. now that we've talked about what we might expect tomorrow and the gadgets looking more broadly at apple, will apple continue its dominance? you saw that new york times article write about how iphone is remain wildly popular. a lot of other phone makers are struggling right now. so what accounts for that? right. why is it that keeps their appeal going . >> the thing about apple is apple fans are very, very committed to the product. so if you already have an iphone or you're highly likely to stick to an iphone when you upgrade and android kind of has that, but it's not as strong. and honestly, i'm somebody who switched from an android phone to an iphone a year ago. so even from personal experience, the

reason i switched and the reason why i think i'm going to stay on on apple is because of the ecosystem and the software and the fact that i don't get bullied for having green texts anymore. as we know, if you text somebody who doesn't have an iphone, those those those text bubbles turn green instead of blue and then people give them a really hard time. so, you know, it's kind of like a status thing almost. but it's also that apple has been a very reputable, dependable brand for so long and people don't really have much reason to leave that right. >> exactly, heidi. you always bring good stuff. thank you so much. we look forward to seeing what is coming out tomorrow. but i think you set us up. we know what we're looking for. appreciate it. >> thank you for having me. >> okay. a reminder, you can get our live newscasts. breaking news, weather and more with our abc7 bay area streaming tv app anytime. um, we'll take a

night with david muir was next and i'll see you back here at. tonight, several breaking stories as we come on the air. the storms sweeping through new york city and the northeast right now. the flooding concerns. also, the stunning images coming in just now. the american being saved, pulled out after being trapped 3,000 feet underground. and the fugitive murderer here in the northeast. the new image tonight of that fugitive on the run, looking very different. first tonight, the storms moving across new york and the northeast. a flood watch in effect from new york city up to massachusetts. thousands of flights delayed or