Bay Area Rapid Transit took to Twitter on Thursday to educate riders about airflow in their cars amid concerns about COVID-19 distribution, but the conversation soon turned out to be scatological.
BART has been hit hard by the pandemic. Ridership for Monday, July 27 was 43,318, representing an 89% decrease compared to their budget projections.
While this is largely thanks to residents who work from home and do not require a daily commute in the city, there are also concerns about viral spread in the car, leading to people often choosing to move into own cars to travel around the Bay.
To address these fears, BART on Thursday tweeted a schematic diagram of a car and its filter systems, claiming that “air is more effective than filtering in an office than a supermarket” in a fast transit car, and that pilot tests for improved filtration systems are began.
But what residents really want to know about was a little more purile.
“All we really want to know is how long it will take for the new system to filter a fart out of the car.” Twitter user Mike Spinney asked, and BART were happy to address the question, and more.
“About 70 seconds, maybe longer if you lay a real monster of a fart or shook yourself,” the agency replied.
Later tweets assured riders that the many malignant woolen cloths that were seen as kymhaven are a thing of the past.
“The wheelchair seats in the legacy fleet cars have all been replaced by vinyl seats for several years. Easier to remove vinyl than wool.” BART tweeted.
Whether the explanation of how airborne fecal matter disappears through the cars leads to increased ridership for the transportation system, or just BART forever connecting to farts, remains to be seen.
Andrew Chamings is an editor at SFGATE. Email: [email protected] | Twitter: @AndrewChamings
