This is the story of BART director Wilfred T. Ussery, who really, really wanted to allow the drinking of alcoholic beverages on BART.

The topic came up in Liam O’Donoghue’s “East Bay Yesterday” podcast, during a live interview with former BART spokesman Michael Healy, which also yielded this stunning tale about a BART seat cushion-slashing crime ring.

I’ve reported about BART’s bank of Atari arcade games in the Powell Street station, Richard Nixon’s BART ride and the role Marc Benioff’s grandfather played as a catalyst for the transit agency. But in more than a decade digging through The Chronicle archives, I’ve never heard Healy’s story - that there was once a strong push for the sale of adult beverages on BART trains.

A Chronicle archive search reveals it actually happened twice.

Ussery, a local civil rights figure in the 1960s, had a lot of ideas as a BART director and president, generating memorable headlines for The Chronicle. (My favorite, from 1993: “BART Chief Wants Rail Lines to Use Magnetic Levitation.”)

He first floated drinking on trains in 1987, after BART directors raised transit fares and watched ridership drop more than 10%. With low ridership threatening federal support for expansions into Warm Springs and Pittsburg, Ussery suggested enticing riders back with a swank BART After Dark vibe.

“BART, Depressed Over Drop In Riders, May Turn to Booze,” the Feb. 4, 1987, Chronicle headline read, followed by an optimistic-sounding story. “Club cars or cocktail lounges in stations might lure riders back to BART trains, transit system officials suggested yesterday.”

The director came with details, proposing gutting the interior of new rail cars, and creating a club car experience like an Amtrak train. He suggested a corporate partner such as Seagram’s or Marriott might purchase the car.

Fellow directors promised to look into the idea, but the initial reviews weren’t positive.

“BART’s bar car idea is silly,” Herb Caen wrote in his Chronicle column. “If those fellers can’t make the trains run on time - or most of the escalators at any time - how are they going to make a proper martini? One gets you 10 that it’ll come with a cherry.”

By the next BART meeting, Ussery’s fellow directors were united against the idea. BART President Margaret Pryor called it “instant insanity,” suggesting a bar car would create litter. Despite success with similar bar service on local ferries, directors insisted a bar car was irresponsible, and would send impaired passengers to their cars and on the highways. The proposal never came to a vote.

But Ussery didn’t give up on the idea. Six years later, when BART’s ridership was back up but revenue was down, he came up with an even more ambitious plan.

BART would commission “Super A” cars, that were articulated like stretch Muni buses, with the extra-long front and back cars extending into the tunnels beyond the platforms. A full-length train would have more room for passengers, with twin cocktail lounges bookending the experience

“At either end of the trains,” The Chronicle reported in 1993, “riders could enjoy their favorite consumables.”

The feasibility of a BART cocktail lounge in 2019 is debatable. Trains are so crowded during rush hour, it often feels like a game of human Tetris just getting out the door. Unless drinks dropped from the ceiling, a bar car seems impractical. That said, these conditions also make the desire to drink alcohol even stronger, so … it’s a wash?

Ussery’s second attempt was also rejected by his colleagues. And his next big headlines were about his own troubles: “Former BART Director Ussery Sentenced: Home detention is penalty for bribery.”

After representing BART for 18 years, in 2000, Ussery pleaded guilty to accepting $1,000 to steer a contract to a Massachusettes company for evaluating cleaning operations for stations and cars. He served a few months of home detention for the crime.

But he still has plenty of good work worth celebrating. Ussery, who turned 90 in 2018, was once a national officer for the Congress of Racial Equality. He’s been a local civil rights leader, seen as recently as 2014 in a Chronicle photo at Oracle Arena, protesting comments made by former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling.

And, for a few months in the 1980s and 1990s, he let us dream of a BART commute that almost sounded fun.

More Information Listen to the Mike Healy “East Bay Yesterday” interview here, or on your favorite streaming service.

Read More

Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicle’s pop culture critic. Email: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub