{"id":2868,"date":"2014-03-08T22:28:05","date_gmt":"2014-03-08T22:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/?p=2868"},"modified":"2023-07-13T16:40:52","modified_gmt":"2023-07-13T16:40:52","slug":"new-bart-trains-dont-address-boarding-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/local\/new-bart-trains-dont-address-boarding-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"New BART trains don&#8217;t address boarding issue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/07_micro_plug_door.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"565\" height=\"458\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/07_micro_plug_door.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2870\" title=\"New BART train exterior\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/07_micro_plug_door.jpg 565w, https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/07_micro_plug_door-300x243.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 565px) 100vw, 565px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The new BART train cars will have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bart.gov\/about\/projects\/cars\/new-features\">lots of improvements<\/a> over the current ones. But there&#8217;s one boarding issue that they didn&#8217;t quite tackle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">See what&#8217;s missing from their design, as pictured above?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You may have to take a step back, so to speak, in order to notice. Consider how people board BART trains: commuters and other frequent riders wait in a line or small group on the station platform near where the train&#8217;s doors stop when it pulls into the station. Generally they let other passengers off first before anyone gets on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Or at least, they try to. On current BART trains it&#8217;s difficult to tell if there&#8217;s someone waiting to exit before you get on, because the trains are designed like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/telstar\/766550251\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1142\/766550251_4fbd555582.jpg\" alt=\"Now Boarding\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As you can see from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/telstar\/766550251\/\">Todd Lappin&#8217;s above photo<\/a>, there aren&#8217;t windows next to the doors. This means you can be standing on the platform, unable to see an exiting passenger before you try to board. Not exactly a well thought out design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It doesn&#8217;t have to be this way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rotron\/8394695790\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8353\/8394695790_b0b1cfb17c.jpg\" alt=\"Van Ness Muni Metro Station\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/77108445@N00\/8394695790\/\">above photo by Roshan Vyas<\/a> illustrates, even when Muni Metro&#8217;s doors are open you can still see the people inside. You can wait for them to get off before shoving your way on &#8212; or not, like certain impolite Muni passengers at rush hour. But either way at least there isn&#8217;t a wall at a crucial point in the train car exterior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">BART&#8217;s new trains narrow this boarding blind spot, but they don&#8217;t eliminate it. Look at all this wasted space:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/bar-windows.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"565\" height=\"458\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/bar-windows.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2869\" title=\"Bart needs windows\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/bar-windows.jpg 565w, https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/bar-windows-300x243.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 565px) 100vw, 565px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I understand there needs to be a place for a map and maybe some ads on the trains, but this isn&#8217;t the place for it. There shouldn&#8217;t be a need to pick between faster boarding and information &#8212; both goals are attainable without sacrificing one for the other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The new BART train cars will have lots of improvements over the current ones. But there&#8217;s one boarding issue that they didn&#8217;t quite tackle. See [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","slim_seo":{"title":"New BART trains don't address boarding issue - MrEricSir.com","description":"The new BART train cars will have lots of improvements over the current ones. But there's one boarding issue that they didn't quite tackle. See what's missing f"},"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","autoblue_publish_document":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[36,91,996,1422,296],"class_list":["post-2868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local","tag-bart","tag-muni","tag-newfleet","tag-rant","tag-transit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2868"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10085,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions\/10085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}