A look inside BART's ride of the future

BART has plans to put 140 of the reimagined train cars into service in 2017, with more arriving each month until 2023. BART has plans to put 140 of the reimagined train cars into service in 2017, with more arriving each month until 2023. Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 19 Caption Close A look inside BART's ride of the future 1 / 19 Back to Gallery

BART riders are getting one final chance to weigh in on the design details of the transit cars that will be carrying passengers around the Bay Area as soon as 2017.

A line of interested people snaked through a half-length model of one of the reimagined cars Wednesday at San Francisco's Justin Herman Plaza, testing out the colorful seats, the real-time electronic system map and other innovations, such as dedicated space for bikes. It was the first of 10 stops for the model over the next month.

"We want to lock down the design by the end of May," said Aaron Weinstein, the transit system's chief marketing officer. "But we want to get a final confirmation of the design before the manufacturing begins."

Riders' comments already have had an impact on the design, he added. A much less detailed mockup of the new car, complete with absolutely nonstandard wooden seats, was on display in July and August at Oakland's MacArthur Station. A number of changes suggested then have been incorporated into the design seen Wednesday.

Visitors to the earlier mockup, for example, complained that the grips near the car's doors were too tight, causing them to bang their knuckles on the wall. People using wheelchairs also found that their hands could be squeezed when they rolled too close to the widened part of the new multipronged pole near the doors, designed to make traveling easier for standing riders.

"We were following all the federal rules for accessibility, but they didn't completely work," Weinstein said. "So we pulled the grips a little farther from the wall and raised the widened part of the pole."

Height issues

Visitors on Wednesday found their own share of design glitches.

Marie Marchese, who often rides BART to and from her home in Daly City, was worried that the straps for standing riders were set too high.

"I'm 5-foot-3 and I can reach the straps," she said. "But I'd be really stretching on a long ride."

Marchese, who works with the disabled, also suggested that the size of the signage be increased to make traveling easier for the visually impaired.

The new electronic route maps drew raves from many of the hundreds of people who tromped through the car. The signs, which replace the maps on the walls of the current train cars, not only provide a multicolored digital look at the entire BART system, but they include a real-time "you are here" look at where the train is and what stops are coming up.

"It's pretty cool," said Adam Konoske, who takes the train each day from the Glen Park Station to his hotel job near the Financial District. "I ran into a couple last week who were hard of hearing, and it was tough for them to understand the announcements of the stops."

The familiar, slightly pedestrian look of the cars was a bit disappointing to Richard Hilman, who takes BART into the city every day from his home in Hayward.

"I thought they would be more futuristic," he said. "But it's a big step up from what we have now."

The most visible changes in the cars are the wider aisles and the greatly increased amount of standing room. While the redesign will allow a 10 percent boost in the number of people who can stand during busy commutes, it comes at a cost. Each car will lose four seats, much to the dismay of riders.

Longer trains

In the new design, "there aren't enough seats for the long commutes, like from Fremont to San Francisco," Hilman said. "That's a long time to be standing." The new seats are thinner, covered in a vinyl material that's lime green and teal.

But complaints about the lack of seats are a good thing, said BART Director Robert Raburn, because that's exactly what the addition of 775 to 1,000 new cars will address.

"There aren't enough seats now, but these new cars will allow us to have longer trains to accommodate more riders," he said. "If you see an eight-car train at 8 a.m. during the morning commute, it shows there's something wrong."

Plans now call for 140 of the new cars to go into service in 2017, with more arriving each month until 2023. While the current order is for 775 cars, BART directors want to boost that order to 1,000.

Augmented service

The first cars will be used to augment the existing service and the current cars, which, on average, are 30 years old.

"We want to build up the fleet before we begin retiring cars," Weinstein said.

The first cars to be built will be a 10-car pilot train that will be delivered to BART by summer 2015. This train will run after regular passenger hours so that BART engineers can see how it works on the system and determine its reliability.

"We also want to make sure our mechanics get their input," Raburn said, "so we know they don't have to tear the car apart to change a lightbulb."