A BART Memory

Aboard BART, May 2012.

Back when San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit trains had fabric-covered uplholstery , the seating inspired a story: “On BART Trains, the Seats Are Taken (by Bacteria).” That piece was published in 2011 by The Bay Citizen, a short-lived regional news site that partnered with The New York Times, and it disclosed that the fabric seats were crawling with the nastiest-sounding of microbes. Soon thereafter, BART installed vinyl-covered upholstery— easier to clean, when you get around to cleaning it — on all trains.

Of course, the fabric seats, whose reported rampant filth I was blissfully unaware of and thus unconcerned about after 35 years riding the system, wasn’t why I took this shot back in 2012. Those origami flowers someone left behind were one of the nicest things I’ve ever seen on BART or any public transit. They also remind me of “Blade Runner.”

In Transit: The Audio

Since I’ve been doing the radio thing — actually doing some writing and reporting for the air — I’ve gotten in the habit of recording stuff I hear out there in the world.

Since I got a really capable smartphone a couple years ago, I’ve come to realize what cool little field recorders they can be.

And since I ride public transit (mostly BART) a lot, I’ve long thought about the idiosyncrasies of some of the train operators as expressed in their announcements. The guy who repeats the name of the train and station about six times at every stop. The woman who lectures riders about what station they need to transfer at (I haven’t gotten her recorded yet). The super-happy and the overly dour operators and the ones you can never really understand.

Anyway, I just had a prompt to put together some audio I’ve been gathering over the last few months. It’s not a truly finished radio piece or anything, but it’s got some fun moments in it. Enjoy.