BART is doing what it can to make experience touch-free
QI used to ride BART, but COVID-19 has scared me away. I know they regularly clean the trains, but even buying tickets or paying to park worries me.
— Francis Lee, Hayward
ABART is expanding contactless parking payment via the official BART app to all stations that offer parking. Riders can park at any station and pay for their parking stall. This allows them to avoid touching payment machines. And get a Clipper card to board, thereby avoiding ticket machines.
Go to www.bart.gov/ parking to sign up.
QI’d like to chime in on how to press the pedestrian button and those handicapped door opener doohickeys on government buildings. Can you please use your bully pulpit to suggest that people kindly use their knee to press the buttons rather than the sole of their shoe? I’m 59 and I find it very easy to do and it’s far cleaner for the next person.
— Tahir Naim, Santa Clara
AIt’s nice to be agile at 59.
QSince I’m listening to the radio all day, I hear a lot of traffic reports and lately I’m hearing more alerts about objects on the freeway. On Tuesday, there were two king-sized mattresses reported on different freeways, bags of garbage, pieces of wood, ladders, miscellaneous debris and a boat, to top things off. Any idea why this is happening?
— Leslie Pahl, Oakland
AAlthough traffic is starting to increase, it remains much lighter than before the pandemic. This means traffic reporters have more time to tell us about junk on a road.
But a boat?
QI have experienced excessive motorcycle and car noise on Ygnacio Valley Road in Walnut Creek during my COVID-19 work from home saga. I’m calling this Ygnacio Valley Expressway now. I’m trying to get the city to take some actions in terms of signage, possibly cameras and some active enforcement.
Many parts of our road go through residential areas, next to hospitals, etc. What are these drivers thinking? Thanks for any additional attention and stories to get our hearing back.
— Bill Rettberg, Walnut Creek
AYou might see an electronic sign flashing the speed of oncoming cars, but there are no plans to install cameras to catch speeders. Here’s an idea. Fremont is posting signs asking drivers to slow down on some of its busiest streets,
QI love hearing the complaints about fuel taxes. I picked up some gas for our rental car in Germany on Tuesday. The gas tax in Germany comes out to around $3.60 per gallon just for the tax. Yet Americans complain about 55 or so cents.
— Ralph Durham,
Fremont
AYes, complain we do.
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