Peek at Your Future BART Seats

If you haven’t sat down on a BART seat or even so much as touched anything on BART since the fecal matter report, you should check out the new renderings of proposed BART seats asap. Designed by BMW Group DesignworksUSA, these proposed seats will replace “the oldest fleet in the country” and feature easy-to-clean seats and “no musty carpets.” See all the proposals in the official announcement from BART.

Word is that the project won’t be completed until 2017, but you should tell BART.gov what you think of the seats via the feedback form or at the open houses that BART will be hosting. The photo above is option A, featuring a center arm rest and head rests for window seats.

Here’s option B, featuring an “informal, open-style lounge” in the middle of each car.

Option C features artistic “S” shaped poles and “portals at the end of some cars for kids to see track and tunnel walls whiz by the front of the train as it speeds down the track.”

Here’s a nifty video of the proposals, set to music, even:

Of course, we know many of you have your own ideas of seating on public transit. And these proposed seats don’t look much like the comfortable subway living room in Prague. But maybe that’s a good thing.

Hat tip: Curbed, SFist.

6 comments

  • With the seats how they are currently (with their petri-dish qualities) these new wipe-down seats are much-welcomed! BART connects us and takes us where we want to go, so might as well be riding in style.

  • Rachael

    So stoked to see there’s a bar between the seats… I mean, I consider myself friendly, but I don’t really like being smushed up against random strangers in the seats.

  • RobertaK

    Armrests? Really? Guess it’ll keep down the number of homeless camping out, but for some of us “commuters of size”, our BART rides are going to be torture. Not the way to enourage people to leave the car at home, I reckon.

  • Love the wipe-down seats… Maybe BART won’t smell as awful all the time.

  • We New York folks were stunned many years ago when our system brought in new seats – they were too small. The popular story is that they were designed in Japan where people have small bums, not like in North America. I think the real story is that a politician at the time forced each car to have x number of seats, which the vendor achieved by making them small. Anyway, our seats are along the wall, and it’s common now to end up sitting on the sharp hump.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *