BART on the record - Bay Area Rapid Transit podcasts & more

BART Bicycle Advisory Task Force 2/7/11

2011-02-08T07:19:00.000-08:00

BART Bicycle Advisory Task Force meeting 2/7/11, including: Bike to Work Day participation; East Bay Greenway Plan; bike locker procurement/deployment/status; BART bicycle access plan update; meeting travel reimbursement; Alameda County BBATF representative; West Dublin parking (1:38:30, 180MB in stereo). Listen.

Transcript: BikeLink discussion, 11/18/10

2010-12-18T21:38:00.000-08:00

The following transcript is from one of three video files on the BART Web site, from the November 18, 2010 meeting. This segment begins at time point 1:14:30, during a public comment period.

BART Director James Fang: Our next item…we have a couple of people here speaking this morning. The first is Steve Grover, bike locker procurement contract.

Steven Grover: Hi my name is Steven Grover. My Berkeley-based company is interested in bidding on an upcoming procurement contract for electronic bike lockers, but we’re finding that we probably will not be able to do so, because the terms are becoming increasingly arbitrary, with each contract addendum, over the past five months. For example, Addendum Number 9 establishes a trust so that proprietary materials a company uses to produce its products will be accessible to BART should the company go under or fail to fulfill its obligations. This protects BART, and this makes sense. However, it goes on to say that if the contract is terminated for any reason, the [BART] District can compel release of these materials anyway, and of course BART can terminate any contract just for convenience. So, why go to the cost and trouble of creating a trust to ostensibly protect the very basis of a small technology company like my own, if it can just be cracked open at any time? Here’s another section which talks about protecting the company’s rights to things it developed outside the contract. It distinguishes between things that are developed under the contract and things that were developed before or outside the contract. Things developed under the contract, BART will own, of course. But then there’s this big exception for something called procurement licenses, which effectively gives the District the right to force the supplier to license all of its technology for manufacture by others, even if the supplier is fully in compliance with its obligations under the contract. Those others can then presumably start selling the product to anyone else beside BART, and they don’t have to factor in development costs. There are many other similar examples of things that just don’t make sense if you read very, very, very carefully. But just taking these two, what does this mean for a company like my own, trying to figure out how to bid on this contract? Well, under the contract, the District is obligated to only buy 54 units. So a company that’s developing a product specifically for this contract, they’re going to have to do software, electronics, interfaces, mechanical systems, prototyping, refining, debugging. They’re going to spend a million bucks easily. And if they’re paying attention, they’re going to need to amortize that million bucks over the first 54 units. So instead of a $3 million bid, they’re going to be in for like $8 million. So, despite all of its intense specificity, the contract proposed has gotten so convoluted and arbitrary that bidders cannot determine what kind of a business model to adopt when they’re developing their pricing and developing their bid. Is this an equipment procurement contract or is this a business acquisition contract? Why am I here? Perhaps the Board can help by requesting some simplicity. Three things. One, get rid of the loopholes. They’re not helping anybody in the long run. Two, make this about purchasing a competitive product that fulfills important functions for BART patrons. Period. And three, establish strong protections for BART in the event that the bidder fails to fulfill its obligations or goes bankrupt, but then, stop there. Use an escrow or a trust for proprietary materials, but don’t allow BART to just take possession willy-nilly of the materials in the trust whenever BART wants to. Thank you very much.

BART Director Lynette Sweet (at 1:23:18): I think I’ll address the bicycle gentleman first, because I was real curious. He brought up some very interesting contractual issues that do deserve some kind of comment, and my hope is we heard what he said. Would it be possible for you guys, I’m sorry, would it be possible for the General Manager to provide some kind of feedback on what he spoke about, because it sounded as if, and if he was reading it correctly, it sounded as if we were actually buying out his business, and that’s not what we were looking for in this.

BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger: I’d be happy to provide the Board some feedback. This has been a particularly complex procurement, so rather than do it ad hoc, if I could respond to the board offline.

Director Sweet: Well are there other bidders on this contract that are also experiencing the same type of, I don’t know, just confusion over what we’re looking for?

GM Dugger (speaking to someone off-camera): Do you know who the bidders were?

Director Fang: Well if I might jump in just briefly, Director Sweet, we’ve got to be very careful when we have these kind of situations. I totally empathize with that gentleman about the complexity of the BART contracts. Clearly, that’s something we’ve talked about with multimillion-dollar contracts, a lot of the ones that are just getting disqualified because they didn’t fill out the right paperwork. But I’m a little bit hesitant from a BART perspective to have one gentleman come and say, here’s a problem, here’s my problem, the way the contract is being set up is really not good. I’m hesitant to jump in and say, very compelling argument.

Director Sweet: I just want to know.

GM Dugger: I’d be happy to give the Board feedback, but would prefer to do so outside of this meeting.

Director Fang: Excellent.

BART to begin live streaming of board meetings tomorrow

2010-05-12T14:03:00.000-07:00

BART will begin live video streaming of board meetings starting tomorrow at 9 a.m. Bookmark this page where you can find archived copies of all meetings from the January 28, 2010 meeting forward.

In light of this, I will discontinue my own future audio recording of BART board meetings. Audio archives of older meetings will continue to be available here, and this blog will continue to offer recordings of future BART bicycle accessibility task force meetings, as my schedule permits.

Thank you to those of you who donated funds to help support my service here, and let's hope the BART service is reliable and makes public access to BART information and decision-making easier and more useful.

BART board meeting 4/22/10

2010-04-23T07:15:00.000-07:00

Public Hearing on Proposed East Bay Paratransit Fare Increase; SF Airport Employee Premium Fare Program; Sales Tax Revenue Bonds; NCPA Lodi Energy Center; C-1 Car Auxiliary Power Supply Equipment; New Rail Car Replacement Program. (3:22:40, 186MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 4/8/10

2010-04-10T13:14:00.000-07:00

Fiscal Year 2011 Preliminary Budget Overview; Northern California Power Agency development activities; earthquake safety; Glen Park station development (3:27:45, 190MB) Listen.

BART Bicycle Accessibility Task Force 4/5/10

2010-04-10T11:51:00.000-07:00

BART Bicycle Accessibility Task Force meeting 4/5/10, including: MacArthur Transit Oriented Development Update and Bicycle Parking; Earthquake Safety Group work at Fruitvale, San Leandro, Bay Fair and Hayward stations; Bike Station updates; Bike to Work Day support (1:26:21, 79MB in stereo). Listen.

BART board meeting 3/25/10

2010-03-26T14:34:00.000-07:00

eBART hiring policies; Translink Program Update. (2:35:49, 143MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 3/11/10

2010-03-13T10:23:00.000-08:00

List of Projects for High Speed Passenger Train Bond Program Funding; Translink Program Update; Review of Potential Vehicle Registration Fee for Local Transportation and Transit Improvements in Alameda County. (3:20:44, 184MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 2/25/10

2010-02-27T07:46:00.000-08:00

Pro Forma FY 2011 Budget review; Pleasant Hill Station Modernization; Quarterly Performance Report Q2 FY 2010; Fruitvale Station Paid Parking Extension; 2010 State and Federal Advocacy Programs; Report of Police Review Committee (3:04:27, 169MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 2/11/10

2010-02-17T23:56:00.000-08:00

Procurement of Running Rail; Earthquake Safety Program Update; continuing public comment on Oakland Airport Connector and death of Oscar Grant. (1:43:32, 95MB). Listen.

BART Bicycle Accessibility Task Force meeting 2/1/10

2010-02-03T09:30:00.000-08:00

BART Bicycle Accessibility Task Force meeting 2/1/10, including: Warm Springs Extension; Berkeley bike station; abandoned bike removal; locker vacancies and waiting lists; 19th St. Station bike racks. (2:04:50, 114 MB in stereo) Listen.

BART board meeting 1/28/10

2010-01-29T08:57:00.000-08:00

VTA BART Silicon Valley presentation; Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Revision; Capitol Corridor agreement renewal. (3:22:18, 185MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 1/14/10

2010-01-16T12:03:00.000-08:00

Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Revision; Award of Earthquake Safety Contract for M Line. (3:15:48, 179MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 12/17/09

2009-12-17T18:57:00.000-08:00

Restructuring of Board Meetings; Election of Officers. (1:06:18, 61MB) Listen.

BART special board meeting 12/10/09

2009-12-15T22:19:00.000-08:00

Oakland Airport Connector Project: Award of Contract. (3:28:25, 191MB) Listen.

BART Bicycle Accessibility Task Force meeting 12/7/09

2009-12-09T13:37:00.000-08:00

BART Bicycle Accessibility Task Force meeting 12/7/09, including: Balboa Station Bicycle Projects; BART Bicycle Lockers; Berkeley bike station; Embarcadero Bike Cage; Car Modification & Replacement update; Bicycle Security Report; 2009 Safe Routes to Transit Grant Awards. (2:16:25, 125 MB in stereo) Listen.

BART board meeting 12/3/09

2009-12-05T08:10:00.000-08:00

District Civil Rights Policies; Disadvantaged Business Enterprise and Non-Discrimination in Subcontracting Programs Update; Quarterly Performance Report Q1 FY 2010; BART to Livermore Draft EIR; New Year's Eve security preparations. (4:16:38, 235MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 11/19/09

2009-11-24T11:44:00.000-08:00

Free Transportation Passes for Military Personnel on Leave; Director Contribution Options to Reduce Budget; Condemnation of Real Property for the Warm Springs Extension Project; Change Order to Contract No. 03CK-110B, Alameda County Two Underground Stations Electrical Construction, with LINC Lighting and Electrical, for Additional Lighting Improvements (4:39:40, 256MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 11/4/09

2009-11-06T14:11:00.000-08:00

Participation in California Communities Joint Powers Authority Proposition 1A Securitization Program. (8:27, 7MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 10/22/09

2009-10-28T14:48:00.000-07:00

Lighting Improvement Project, 12th Street and North Berkeley Stations; Earthquake Safety Program; Construction Management Services. (3:47:14, 208MB) Listen.

Note: Recording made from official BART meeting tapes, which experienced a 9-minute recording failure about 35 minutes into the podcast.

BART board meeting 10/8/09

2009-10-13T16:20:00.000-07:00

Procurement of C-1 Car Auxiliary Power Supply Equipment; Ashby Station Modernization; Exclusive Negotiating Agreement with The Red Barn Company and the Hercules Redevelopment Agency for Development Project in the NewTown Center Area; discussion of Oakland City Council support of the Oakland Airport Connector. (1:12:35, 66MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 10/1/09

2009-10-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

Presentation by the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) on the Final Draft Management Audit of the BART Police Department. (3:01:14, 166MB) Listen.

Note: Video of this meeting is also available at BARTtv.

BART board meeting 9/24/09

2009-10-11T10:28:00.000-07:00

Lighting Improvement Project at 12th Street /Oakland City Center andNorth Berkeley Stations; Authority to Withdraw from Northern California Power Agency Agreement for Renewable Geothermal Power Supply; Services for Warm Springs Extension Project; 480 Volt Switchgear Replacement Project; Procurement of Car Floor Panels; Change Orders for Earthquake Safety Program; Train Control Switch Machines. (2:31:52, 139MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 9/17/09

2009-10-10T09:34:00.000-07:00

Condemnation of Real Property for the Warm Springs Extension Project; Resolutions Ratifying Collective Bargaining Agreement with theAmalgamated Transit Union, Division 1555, and AmericanFederation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 3993; Earthquake Safety Program Report of the Citizens' Oversight Committee. (1:30:52, 83MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 8/27/09

2009-09-04T23:29:00.000-07:00

Fiscal Year 2009 year-end budget revision; collective bargaining agreement with SEUI Local 1021; traction motor repair services; new rail vehicle procurement; citizen oversight of BART police. (4:19:04, 237MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 8/13/09

2009-08-14T07:23:00.000-07:00

Warm Springs extension; citizen oversight of BART police; parking lot/garage sweeping; earthquake safety program; Oakland Airport Connector; collective bargaining agreement with SEIU Local 1021; imposition of 1-year contract on Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 (2:42:24, 149MB) Listen.

BART special board meeting 7/30/09

2009-08-06T16:45:00.000-07:00

BART has posted online video of the 7/30/09 presentation of the Draft Model of Citizen Oversight of BART Police. View it here. Public comment on this draft model is due tomorrow, August 7, 2009. Send your comments to boardofdirectors@bart.gov.

BART board meeting 7/23/09

2009-07-29T10:27:00.000-07:00

Public comment on labor negotiations; parking citations; Warm Springs project; seat maintenance; Hercules parking (1:47:52, 99MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 7/9/09

2009-06-29T22:25:00.001-07:00

Fiscal Year 2010 Agreement with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency to Participate in the Employer Ticket Sales Program; Proposed San Francisco International Airport Employee Discount; Workshop on Disability Discrimination and Reasonable Accommodation; Report of the BART Police Department Review Committee (1:39:41, 91MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 6/25/09

2009-06-29T22:25:00.000-07:00

Public comment on labor negotiations; fiscal year 2008-09 budget update (sales tax and ridership); paasenger environment survey; station retail policy development (3:26:45, 189MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 6/11/09

2009-06-18T08:07:00.000-07:00

Fiscal year 2010 budget; Business Advancement Plan update; competitive negotiation for transit vehicles and Diesel Multiple Units (for e-BART) (2:42:25, 149MB) Listen.

BART Bicycle Accessibility Task Force, 6/1/09

2009-06-05T14:05:00.000-07:00

BART Bicycle Accessibility Task Force meeting 6/1/09, including: Bay Fair and Balboa station planning; Pleasant Hill transit-oriented development; edited discussion of e-lockers; Embarcadero bike station security; police/security issues; MacArthur signage; new car process and designs (2:34:57, 142 MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 5/28/09

2009-05-29T23:21:00.000-07:00

Fiscal Year 2010 budget revenue, including fares and parking fees; capital budget information; quarterly performance report, Q3 FY 2009; proposed support for state and federal legislation (5:24:03, 297MB) Listen.

Police Review Committee Meeting 5/15/09

2009-05-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

BART has posted online video of the 5/15/09 Police Review Committee Meeting. Watch Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12 and Part 13.

BART board meeting 5/14/09

2009-05-15T14:37:00.000-07:00

Oakland Airport Connector; 2010 budget (7:03:11, 387MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 5/7/09

2009-05-08T07:45:00.000-07:00

New Rail Vehicle Workshop (1:47:21, 98MB) Listen.

Community Meeting on BART Police Oversight 5/2/09

2009-05-06T11:52:00.000-07:00

BART has posted online video of the 5/2/09 Community Meeting on BART Police Oversight. Watch Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

BART board meeting 4/23/09

2009-05-03T06:52:00.000-07:00

Agreement for BART police department review services; Oakland Airport Connector project; East Contra Costa BART Extension Project (eBART); Fiscal Year 2010 Preliminary Budget Overview. (6:20:52, 349MB) Listen.

Note: Audio in middle portion of the meeting is of lower quality.

BART board meeting 4/9/09

2009-04-10T16:38:00.000-07:00

Public comment on BART response to Oscar Grant wrongful death lawsuit; availability and utilization study findings. (4:29:30, 129MB) Listen.

UPDATE: Indybay has published its own recording of the first 1:40:14 of the meeting. Unlike my recording, which comes straight from the BART audio feed, this is just a microphone in the room. I haven't listened to Indybay's, but certain audio may be more clearly understood in their recording, because not all audience members were using the podium microphone -- and because occasionally, some BART board members aren't turning on their mics when they begin speaking.

BART board meeting 3/26/09

2009-03-31T21:35:00.000-07:00

Amended agreement with Meyers Nave; currency processing; federal advocacy programs; making meeting audio public (1:55:27, 55MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 3/12/09

2009-03-13T06:36:00.000-07:00

Fiscal Year 2010 pro forma budget review; customer satisfaction; public comment on BART police department (2:33:57, 74MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 2/26/09

2009-02-28T07:15:00.000-08:00

Report of the BART Police Department Review Committee; Fiscal Year 2009 midyear budget revision; District signage program; 2009 state advocacy programs. (4:30:06, 130MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 2/12/09

2009-02-13T11:08:00.000-08:00

BART Plus ticket price increase; police department review; 2009 federal economic stimulus (5:35:47, 161MB) Listen.

BART Bicycle Accessibility Task Force, 2/2/09

2009-02-04T06:59:00.000-08:00

Second half of BART Bicycle Accessibility Task Force meeting, including: electronic lockers update, station modernization program (Ashby, Pleasant Hill) (1:45:54, 51 MB) Listen.

BART board meeting 1/22/09

2009-01-30T19:59:00.000-08:00

Budget update; earthquake safety; Warm Springs extension; continued public comment on death of Oscar Grant (3:36:19, 104MB) Listen. (Note: There are brief gaps in audio due to this being copied from official BART tape recordings.)

Google ads help pay for this blog

2009-01-29T22:50:00.000-08:00

Blogger hosting is still free, but I've incurred some expense in acquiring tapes of the most recent BART board meeting, so to defray that cost a bit, I've added Google Ads to this blog.

Special BART board meeting 1/12/09

2009-01-13T10:39:00.000-08:00

Special BART board meeting, Jan. 12, 2009. More public comment on the death of Oscar Grant at Fruitvale BART station on New Year's Day 2009; board creates Police Department Review Ad Hoc Committee (1:01:57, 30MB) Listen. (Note: There is a brief gap in audio during opening remarks.)

BART board meeting 1/8/09: The death of Oscar Grant

2009-01-10T19:26:00.000-08:00

BART board meeting, Jan. 8, 2009. Public comment on the death of Oscar Grant at Fruitvale BART station on New Year's Day 2009 (6:04:34, 175MB) Listen. (Note: The first two hours of this recording are copied from BART staff tape recordings, and contain several brief gaps representing points where the tape recordings changed sides or tapes. Following Hour 2, my own digital recording contains no further gaps.)

BART Bicycle Accessibility Task Force, 12/1/08

2008-12-02T12:36:00.000-08:00

Update on Berkeley bike station expansion; police report/bicycle theft counts; funding applications for future projects; report on press conference for new e-lockers (1:30:38, 44 MB) Listen.

BART board meeting, 10/23/08

2008-10-23T16:23:00.000-07:00

BART board meeting, Oct. 23, 2008. FY 2009 budget revision; AMR ambulance service agreement; strategic plan update (1:41:24, 46MB) Listen.

BART Bicycle Accessibility Task Force, 10/6/08

2008-10-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

Bicycle theft counts; fall abandoned bicycle removal; press conference for new e-lockers; customer feedback on C-car modifications (2:06:08, 59.1MB) Listen.

BART Bicycle Accessibility Task Force, 6/2/08

2008-06-05T00:49:00.000-07:00

Bike to Work recap; electronic locker project; bike theft/dead bike removal; new bike station operation contract; bike/ped wayfinding at MacArthur station; load factors and crowding with new schedule; East Bay Greenway (1:30:35, 43.5MB) Listen.

BART Bicycle Accessibility Task Force, 4/9/07

2007-04-18T12:55:00.000-07:00

E-locker fee proposal and status update. (1:19:04, 37.1MB) Listen.

BART, MTC take SFO decisions without giving the public a chance to comment

2007-03-05T21:40:00.000-08:00

An injustice was inflicted on BART riders during the past two weeks. BART is now wholly responsible for any operating deficits incurred by the BART extension to SFO and Millbrae. This line has been losing perhaps $10 million a year. SamTrans is now on the hook to pay millions to BART, but all the news accounts are unclear or at best confusing on exactly when and how the line will ever make money. One recent story implied that the line will never make money since nearly no public transit line ever runs in the black. By my estimate, the SamTrans payments and other outside funding won't fill the deficit after several years of lump sum payments have been exhausted. Thoughts that BART will be able to reconfigure service to run a profit are just that, thoughts, with no detailed financial analysis.

But that's not the end of the injustice. The travesty was that the BART board, and the MTC board which also had to approve the deal, never called for public comment before the crucial votes were taken, on Feb. 22, 2007 and Feb. 28, 2007 respectively. I know, because at both meetings, I submitted a speaker request card, and at both meetings, the chair failed to recognize me, and no other board members or staff held up the votes in question to allow my comment.

I reacted differently to the two lapses in procedure. At the BART meeting, where I've been an occasional regular, I was pretty much in shock after the board's gaffe, and when after a few minutes the board realized their error, they offered to listen to my comment and then vote again. You can hear the audio of this BART board meeting, up to and beyond this vote, here. When this offer was extended to me, I remarked, "What's the point?" Then I stopped my recording and left the meeting.

But when the MTC treated me the same way on Feb. 28, six days later, I decided to stick around and let them know what I thought about it. The audio of this meeting can be found on this page. They take up the matter -- before anyone in the audience could possibly interject -- starting at 27:10, and my comments take place -- after the vote -- at 39:45. (After I left the meeting, MTC did rescind the earlier vote and took it again, but the vote was identical to the first vote.)

When you think about all the relatively trivial things at these kinds of meetings that prompt a public hearing, much less adequate opportunity for public comment, the fact that this hugely important decision gets taken without hearing any public comment is especially deplorable.

BART board meeting, 8/10/06

2006-08-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

BART board meeting, Aug. 10, 2006. Ed Roberts campus at Ashby BART. (68.5MB, 2:22:42) Listen.

BART Bicycle Accessibility Task Force, 8/7/06, part 2 of 2

2006-08-19T22:59:00.000-07:00

Timeline update. Thefts, planned new lockers, BART car interior modifications and stair channels, station access improvement funding for bicycle program (part 2 of 2 - 49:58, 23.9MB) Listen.

BART Bicycle Accessibility Task Force, 8/7/06, part 1 of 2

2006-08-19T22:52:00.000-07:00

Timeline update. Thefts, planned new lockers, BART car interior modifications and stair channels, station access improvement funding for bicycle program (part 1 of 2 - 53:42, 25.7MB) Listen.