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Why are BART announcements so hard to understand?

Andy Bosselman
/
KALW
It's Bob Franklin's job to make sure BART is accessible to people with disabilities.

When you ride BART, there’s usually a moment where you look up from your phone and wonder: "Where am I?" That’s when announcements are supposed to help.

But when train operators call out stops over the loudspeaker, they can be hard to hear. Sometimes they skip mentioning stops, too. 

"Sometimes there's silence," says Ruhama Veltfort, a KALW listener. "Sometimes it's garbled, and it makes it impossible to for a vision-impaired person like me."

Reporter Andy Bosselman took a ride on BART to try and discover why announcements can be so difficult to hear and what would help make it better. 

NOTE: Since this story first aired, the new BART trains have failed regulatory tests, and might roll out later than planned. 

Click the audio player above to hear the answer. 

 

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