Posted by psmacintosh, a resident of the Danville neighborhood, on Jun 8, 2011 at 10:06 am

A. I looked all over the BART site, but couldn't find a location to take their "online survey." Has that option ended? (I do see a location to send you "comments" and ideas about the train cars.)

B. I'm wondering about the following types of questions and concerns:

1. Connected with the idea of having NARROWER seats, have there been questions on the surveys about having "MORE seats per row" as opposed to just having "more standing space in the aisles?" (not sure what my own position will be about 3 seats vs 2 seats)

2. Who is making the surveys, conducting the surveys and deciding the design of the mockup car? (Surveys can be so controlled and skewed by the makers of the surveys to get the answers that they want. Are the surveys designed by an independent company or by BART management? I'm glad to see the extensive general public period as that will tend to allow many sides and ideas to be presented.)

3. I think that personal space and public SECURITY is a highly important subject nowadays and I didn't read anything in the article about it.

Will there be multiple cameras in each car? How will the camera views be regulated (viewed) and responded to? Live viewing? Recorded viewing? Both?

What about "terrorist" concerns? What innovations will be made in this area? How will "left" bags be discovered and addressed? Will facial recognition methods be applied?

What about privacy right questions?

What features to deal with "rowdy" passengers and crime? What about noise levels and such issues?

How will passengers be able to "communicate" with staff while in the cars?

4. In addition to good interior signage, I'd like to see very clear communications inside the cars, both audio and visual, about up-coming stations. Probably the use of pre-taped announcements--in order to control the quality of the articulation, volume, timings, accents, standardization of the messages, etc.. But ENGLISH only in the audio is OK, fine, right, and appropriate, IMO!

5. What about luggage issues, in addition to bike issues?

6. What about "fat" people issues, in relationship to seat sizing and spacing concerns? Large/small body types? Pets?

7. What about good facilitation of the INTERNET while riding? Will there be good continuous connections along the routes? Are there guestions about issues related to the usage of mobile devices? (loud cell phone talkers, etc.)

Just some of the issues that come to mind, that I wonder how deeply BART is considering and integrating into its designs!

Posted by Jessica Lipsky, a resident of the Danville neighborhood, on Jun 8, 2011 at 3:31 pm

Those are all interesting questions PS, and I highly recommend contacting BART Spokesman Linton Johnson if you can get a hold of him (I've been very unsuccessful in that endeavor).

For further education on BART seats, check out this article: Web Link

Jessica Lipsky

Editor

Posted by Alamo, a resident of the Alamo neighborhood, on Jun 9, 2011 at 7:55 am

Who had the idea to put cloth seats on BART? They are disgusting. I don't care what size or what kind of seat you use, just DON'T use cloth covers. Every time I take BART I get the willies about sitting on those seats.... and..... carpet on the train? Come on!

Posted by Willy, a resident of the Danville neighborhood, on Jun 9, 2011 at 9:50 am

Are they kidding? With the growing width of the American population, narrower seats??? REALLY? For more aisle space?

This is insane.

Posted by John Tanner, a resident of the Danville neighborhood, on Jun 10, 2011 at 1:41 pm

NO cloth seaths and No rugs!!!

I am tired of the grossness of the seats. They find all sorts of fecal cloriform bacteria on the cloth. YUCK...

Wider aisles for sure, they are too narrow to get extra people into when the train is SRO. The seats, less two inches are still way way wider than an airplanes.

Posted by Farmer Dave, a resident of another community, on Jun 13, 2011 at 8:56 am
Farmer Dave is a member (registered user) of Danville Express

Doesn't anyone remember the original BART promises?

o A seat for every passenger

o Bart will pay for itself out of the fare box

These promises were made when they were trying to get approval for the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BARTD) and the original bond issue to construct it.

Of course, similar promises were made about the tolls on the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges...

Posted by psmacintosh, a resident of the Danville neighborhood, on Jun 13, 2011 at 11:42 am

Update: Jessica, I entered my above questions into the comment box (email) of BART's train car info page on their site. I received a canned message to the gist of "we have received your comment message and our planners will take your comments/ideas into consideration in their planning." So we'll see if there is any followup response.