BART swings into badly needed cleanup mode
QTo Paula Marshall of Brentwood and her complaints about conditions on BART – Right on, Paula! — Roseanna Lavia, San Jose
AUrine-soaked seats, panhandlers, hard-to-hear PA messages and jammed parking lots were just a few of Paula’s complaints. Now Roseanna weighs in.
QHow about the station restrooms? Some are closed. Most are disgustingly filthy. Looks like no one ever cleans them. Same can be said for the seats in the trains — filthy and often spotted with body fluids. It looks like no one ever cleans them, too.
Paula mentioned the garbled PA system announcements. You went on to address those in the station. But same applies to the ones made inside the train. Many a time we have had to try and figure out if the driver is saying something more important than routine announcements. — Roseanna Lavia
AIf I had a buck for every complaint about BART, I’d be off to Arizona for all of March to catch MadBum, Buster Posey and the Giants at spring training.
BART is putting a higher priority on the cleanliness of its stations. Bathrooms that are open get cleaned on a regular basis. More crews will be working during day-time hours to clean, power wash stations on a rotating basis and have brightening crews that clean stairwells and entrances.
Now they are hiring more people to clean the stations. There is funding for 150 positions this year, up from 137 two years ago.
BART also has planned PA system upgrades underway to improve the intelligibility of station messages.
QHas anyone at BART ever tried to explain the logic of closing its underground bathrooms? Why would a terrorist commit an evil act in a restroom? And even if they did, why would they use a bathroom in a ground-
AThe restrooms at underground stations have been closed since after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks based on a recommendation from Homeland Security. Here’s why:
In the 1995 nerve gas attack on Japan’s subway, a cyanide device was placed near a restroom ventilation system with a fan piped to a subway platform, which is common across the world. Vents in other restrooms often go to the ground outside, where gas would be dispersed and hurt fewer people.
QI was lucky enough to catch one of the trains consisting of the new BART cars. I wish there were more than 10 of these in service. — Glen Norman
AIn time, there will be. Over the next year, production will ramp up to a rate of 16-20 new cars per month.