What Do You Want in a BART Seat?

You are supposed to sit, not shit on the seat

​We didn't need The Bay Citizen's commissioned scientist to tell us that there is fecal matter and mold in the BART seats -- just look at them.

After foolishly installing carpet and crappy cloth seats some 40 years ago, BART is dropping $2 million to replace the seats -- and it wants us to decide what looks, feels, and smells right.

The transit agency is asking commuters to tour its "seat lab" over the next month, and decide which seats would make them want to use BART.

BART says the current seating arrangement was designed to get people out of their cars in the '60s. Nearly 40 years later, the seating arrangement seems to be luring people back into their cars.

And while BART's focus of the monthlong seat survey is about comfort -- height, width, leg room -- the agency cannot avoid conversation about filthy upholstery that smells like a trip to a Porta Potti.

But Linton Johnson, spokesman for BART, tells the Chronicle that the agency is limited in what seating it can choose because of toxicity, smoke, and fire standards that were put in place after a 1979 electrical fire in the Transbay Tube.

So BART is limiting the survey, asking riders to choose whether they prefer seat comfort or cleanliness.

Okay. We'll say it: Cleanliness is more comfortable!

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