Union City BART Riders Weigh in on New Car Design

BART riders at the Union City station got a chance to test out various seat widths and fabrics Thursday to give the transit agency feedback as it redesigns its cars.

The "seat labs" are happening at stations throughout the system to give passengers a chance to weigh in on what feels most comfortable to them and what features they would like to see as BART designs its "Fleet of the Future."

BART has 200 cars it will ultimately need to replace — at an estimated cost of $3 million to $3.5 million per car — according to officials. They want to make sure they get the redesign right, staff said.
 
BART staff walked participants through four seat widths — from the current 22 inches (the widest seat width for public transit agencies in the country) to a rather narrow 17 inches — and three different types of seating used on public transit systems in Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Boston. They were also able to feel swatches of material that could be used on seats, from vinyl to fiberglass to antimicrobial woven fabric.

The seats are currently cushioned and wrapped in a blue-green wool fabric that is difficult to clean, as each seat must be removed and steamed. After news reports were published earlier this year regarding what types of bacteria and fungus were found on a sample of the fabric, BART staff say that so far many people have said they would rather sit on a hard plastic seat than a comfortable fabric one.

In a survey handed out to those who participate in the lab, passengers are asked to rank the importance of cleanliness against comfort, in addition to seat width versus aisle room, armrests versus no armrests, how bikes, luggage and strollers should be accommodated and even the best way to display travel information to riders who don't speak English. 

Amanda Martin, who works in the transit agency's government and community relations department, helped run Thursday's seat lab. She said it's almost certain that the cloth seats currently used on its trains will not be used in building the new cars.

"Cleanliness is a big factor that we are considering," she said, though she added that since BART was first built in the 1970s, fabrics have been created that are easier to take care of.

Already BART has replaced some carpeted floors with composite flooring, which "the pubic has reacted very positively to," Martin said.

She said most people also seem to want seats that are wider than 17 inches, which feels cramped, but are willing to give up a couple inches to increase aisle space. They also want to increase capacity to enable more people on trains to sit instead of stand.

Martin said one design feature the new trains will have is a third door in the middle of each car, so passengers don't feel the need to congregate on each end to get off on their stop in time.

Martin said the seat labs have already generated more than 500 survey responses and they have received about 1,000 email responses as well (submit yours at BART's website).

Once the seat labs are finished, BART will award a contract to a supplier sometime this year. The company will then create a full-size car mock-up that passengers can walk through, after which officials will finalize the design. Ten pilot cars will debut in 2016 to gauge public feedback before the entire fleet is unveiled in 2018.

BART hasn't yet figured out how to pay for the $1 billion+ project, however. Martin said in addition to finding money within the agency and applying for federal and regional transportation dollars, it may go to the voters to seek a bond measure, like it did in 2004 to help pay for earthquake retrofitting.

"We may try to do that again. We just don't know yet," she said.