Watched the documentary Tunnel Vision: An Unauthorized BART Ride in theaters, followed by a panel Q&A with the filmmaker Vincent Woo and two Bart employees.

Presented by:

• Elishia
• Vincent Woo
• Ethan

Panel:

• Spacing of trains going to Richmond will be fixed, so the different lines are more evenly spaced instead of arriving at around the same time.
• North Berkeley station will get proper signage.
• Some at BART were mad about it, Elishia wanted to film it and was jealous that Vincent did it first.
• Freeways are empty in the movie, which is a big no-no in BART marketing.
• They have recordings of all the routes on the BART YouTube now, though some parts are blurred for security reasons and it is sped up instead of being in real-time.

Questions:

• What strategy will be most effective to keep people informed on transit issues?
  • Elishia: A lot of misconception of transit, like safety and how transit is uncomfortable. need to show that it is safe and normal. Important to talk about traffic too.
  • Ethan: Even car riders are involved because of congestion. Working more on high density housing near BART stations.
• What has BART looked at from policy? We only have sales tax and toll taxes which are regressive funding schemes. What other options do we have?
  • Elishia: Legislature picked the funding scheme, BART did not pick it. Bridge toll actually got rejected due to bad polling. Worried about paid opposition campaigns. Trying to diversify income with TODs, demand-based parking pricing, more ads. Can't subsidize drivers for transit anymore. Tunnels are being repurposed for fiber which bring in a lot of income.
  • Ethan: Used to receive funding from real estate developers to increase property value. Other places let transit agencies own and lease the land around the station as landlords. This would be a long-term solution, also would be a good strategy for high speed rail.
• Any thought in having human voices and more information announced?
  • Elishia: Fleet of the future picked the voice, and a human voice won't work because of changes and variations that take place over time. Would still be interested in having celebrities do announcements, but they want the celebrities to pay for the privilege. There are some human voices, like Zane. Voice synthesization is still preferred.
• How does BART interact with other transit agencies? How can we collaborate more?
  • Pandemic forced transit agencies to coordinate instead of getting away with lip service. All of the general managers meet every Monday now, to coordinate and share data. The transit agencies are not competing, because they cannot survive without each other.
• How did you choose the aesthetics of the film, music and color?
  • Music is from favorite game, Manifold Garden, because they couldn't afford a composer. Developer was friendly and allowed the use of it for free.
  • Actually a photographer, really wanted a sunset scene.
• Will you sell the old signs?
  • Elishia: Part of the issue is a storage issue, trying to figure out the logistics of it. Old signs are missing things from the new signs. Selling the train license plates was her idea. Had some pushback because BART didn't want to sell such dirty items, though she insisted that transit nerds wouldn't mind.