BART Riders in Dublin Can Weigh in Soon on New Car Design

BART riders at the Union City station got a chance to test out various seat widths and fabrics last week to give the transit agency feedback as it redesigns its cars. And riders at the Dublin/Pleasanton BART station will get the same opportunity on June 13 from 3 to 6:30 p.m.

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 that will need replacement — at an estimated cost of $3 million to $3.5 million per car — according to officials. It wants 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 in the country) to a rather narrow 17 inches — and three types of seating used on public transit systems in Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Boston. People also could feel swatches of material for seats, from vinyl to fiberglass to antimicrobial woven fabric.

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

In a survey of lab participants, passengers are asked to rank the importance of cleanliness versus 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 on trains will not be used in the new cars. "Cleanliness is a big factor that we are considering," she said, though she added that since BART was 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. 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 exit. She said the seat labs have generated more than 500 survey responses and BART has received about 1,000 email responses as well.

Once the seat labs are finished, BART will award a contract to a supplier 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-plus project. Martin said that 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," she said. "We just don't know yet." For more information on the seat lab schedule at the Dublin/Pleasanton BART station, click here.