Smaller & less spacious seats considered for new BART train cars
A conceptual design of a BART car of the future. (Courtesy BART)
A team of BART employees, hard at work designing the agency’s next generation of train cars, is considering the installation of narrower and potentially cushion-less seats in the new fleet.
The agency has been holding a “seating lab” at its South Hayward maintenance yard where collections of transit seats from rail agencies across the United States are being evaluated by employees for the new cars.
Some of the seats include narrower, hard-plastic designs — like ones found on MUNI vehicles — that are currently used by subway systems in Boston and Los Angeles.
Others, including seats brought in from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, retain cushioning, but are encased in a vinyl cover which would allow custodial crews to more effectively maintain spills and other messes left behind by passengers.
But many of the options being considered by BART would shrink the size of the current seat — potentially giving commuters a tighter squeeze when sitting down in the new cars.
Wow, they really look great!
