Hidden Tracks: Stories from BART

Hidden Tracks: Stories from BART is made by the Bay Area transit agency, and its hosts introduce themselves by their BART roles. Chris Filippi of the communications department leads several conversations. Alicia Trost, the Chief Communications Officer, and Michelle Robertson of BART Communications host others. The format is plain: a host, a guest or a small group, and questions about how one part of the system works. Most guests are BART staff, and they get room to describe their jobs in their own words. Inspector General Claudette B. Murray, appointed by Governor Newsom, explains the value of somebody outside the chain of command who can poke around and say when something needs fixing. She recalls leaning on peers while weighing edits to a proposed state bill, and she says her preferred reporting method keeps people's identities anonymous. Jesse Rubin, senior manager of performance and innovation, explains a bottom-up effort to turn staff ideas into improvements riders can feel, down to how cleaners store and track their equipment. He talks about resisters, early adopters and the tipping point after which everyone else has to get on board. The host remarks that none of this matches the out-of-touch image people often have of government. Faithan Brown, who manages transportation and station operations, describes a job with no set schedule, a frontline transportation staff he puts at over a thousand, and work to modernize the original 32 stations built in 1972. Hannah Lindelof, manager of strategic and policy planning, reports on a study group's visit to Switzerland. She contrasts Swiss cities, where people use the streets and public spaces as part of daily life, with the Bay Area's suburban backyard culture. She also outlines Swiss funding, which combines federal and local money, with a close look at Zurich. Public art is the subject of a conversation with Jennifer Easton, the only employee in BART's art program. Michelle Robertson brings up 19th Street Station, her home station. There, modernization opened up the concourse, tore out pillars and walls to clear sightlines, added brighter LED lighting and put illuminated murals by three local artists in the stairwells. Her point is about safety as much as looks, because a lit stairwell simply feels less unnerving. For something lighter, there is 'Speedrunners push their limits to set records on the BART system', in which Alicia Trost welcomes three riders who have set records racing through every station: Amin DaCosta, Enzo Wu and Adam, who runs the YouTube page Adam Does Not Exist. The story of how two of them connected takes in a YouTube comment, a two-hour phone call and the late reveal that one of them was 15. The register is friendly and appreciative, and one host tells her guest how lucky they are to have her. A newcomer might start with the speedrunners for sheer novelty, or with the inspector general for a clear picture of independent oversight at a public agency.