On a recent BART ride, I saw a teenager pull out a seat cushion, exposing the springs as well as a crumpled Cheetos bag, a candy bar wrapper and a tissue wad. And there it was: the outlet he needed to charge his phone.

Riding BART is something I look forward to, because there’s usually someone doing something that catches the eye. Sometimes I learn a powerful trick.

Sometimes I like to stand so I can get the best view of the Public Broadcasters, the people who talk loudly on their cell phones so we’ll be up to date on all their complaints about life.

Occasionally, I’m confronted with another rider’s emotional monologue about personal destitution. Don’t get me wrong — I do want to reach for my wallet to help, but sometimes the performance is so good I want to clap.

And when I spot a Germinator — those who catch their sneezes and coughs in their hands before spreading them onto poles and straps — I move away to find a new vantage.

By July 1, everything we do on BART will be recorded. That’s when all 669 of BART’s railcars will have working security cameras.

BART is keeping its promise to install working cameras on all BART cars — a promise made after The Chronicle revealed that less than one-third of BART’s cars were equipped with real and functioning cameras. The disclosure came after 19-year-old Carlos Misael Funez-Romero was shot and killed on Jan. 9, 2016, on a train in front of a camera.

But the camera was a decoy.

The installation of cameras — about 900 total — is a public relations decoy. I get it — BART wants to produce a safe atmosphere. But at a cost of $463,749, it’s a waste of time and money because all 669 cars are going to be retired within five years.

And while the new cars will arrive with security cameras capable of providing live feeds to a monitoring center, BART will still have to install a new communications infrastructure along the tracks for it to operate. Why not get a head start on that work instead of installing what will amount to be disposable cameras?

BART isn’t able to say how many arrests have been made from crimes caught on camera because arrest data aren’t sorted by whether or not a camera was involved. And Funez-Romero’s killing remains unsolved, even though BART released of images of the suspected shooter taken from station surveillance.

That’s right: There are multiple images of the suspect in the killing — a man with close-cropped hair walking through the turnstiles at the West Oakland Station, his hands calmly placed into the front pockets of his jacket. More cameras might make riders feel safer, but that doesn’t mean they are.

And captured images don’t always lead to a solved crime.

Still, in five months each car will have four cameras. The footage, stored on internal memory cards, will be kept a minimum of seven days and a maximum of 14 days, depending on the camera type and setting. Then it will be recorded over. Footage will be reviewed by investigators only if the time and train car number are reported.

That means, for now, there should only be a light sting of worry about BART watching every move you make.

Still, the rest of us see you.

We see you when you plug your ears with your fingers to block the screech of train wheels. We see you when you pull out your camera phone to apply makeup and check your teeth for specks of breakfast, lunch and dinner.

And we see you in the handicap section, obliviously pecking away at your laptop as an elderly person standing nearby holds on for dear life when the train jerks.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr