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UNGAR: We're now approaching MacArthur Station. MacAarthur Station is a transfer point for patrons headed in the Berryessa direction. If your head down Berryessa away, step across the platform and catch that Berryessa train on platform number four. This is a San Francisco International Airport Yellow Line train making all stops in downtown Oakland, San Francisco and all points on the Peninsula to San Francisco International Airport.

FILIPPI: Welcome to “Hidden Track Stories from BART.” I'm Chris Filippi and on this edition of our podcast, I'm joined by Casey Unger, who is a Transportation Supervisor based in our Daly City Yard.

As a Transportation Supervisor, Casey plays a critical role in BART's daily ability to implement our service. But before he got a promotion, Unger was a Train Operator and a very popular one with announcements just like that. Casey, welcome to Hidden Tracks.

UNGAR: Thank you so much, Chris. I'm thrilled to be here.

FILIPPI: Did I detect a little bit of a dialect on that one?

UNGAR: Oh, it's hard to say. We had a train controller, a man named Virgil, and Virgil had a beautiful southern accent and whenever Virgil came on to the console, people listened. People perked up. The whole system was a little more responsive. And part of that was because listening to Virgil was a delight. He was a change from the everyday. What I tried to do when I first started operating trains was to make my announcements listenable, to make my announcements something that people would actually perk up to that might cut through the noise on their headphones or whatever they were doing at that time and to be reassuring, you want people to listen to the Train Operator when anything anomalous occurs, when something weird happens and for the Train Operator to be a voice of reassurance. You know we're going to be delayed for 15 minutes in downtown San Francisco direction due to police activity. I'll let you know when something changes and that's a good way not only to keep our patrons involved, our patrons interested, but a good way to keep the system as a whole running, as a good way to reach out to people, to provide that customer service, that as an organization we really try to strive for.

FILIPPI: That was very soothing. I noticed in the announcement and you have a musical background, is that right?

UNGAR: I do. I was in conservatory for a couple of years. I then transitioned over to history and when I was a historian at San Francisco State University in graduate school, I studied the history of sound and the history of religion. The history of sound in particular is something that's very interesting in the Bay Area. People talk about the noise of BART or the noise of Muni, the fog horns in San Francisco. To me, that's all part of what makes the Bay Area and public transit in the Bay Area a crucial part of the fabric of our everyday lives. How the train sings to you when it pulls into the station, the clatter of the overhead wires, the bus goes through an intersection. They're incredibly important parts of the soundscape of the Bay Area. That's always something I tried to be cognizant of, that people would hear my voice sometimes for upwards of an hour and a half, and I wanted to make sure it was a pleasant experience, not a grating experience.

FILIPPI: It's funny you talk about the sounds of transit. It's almost like it's like comfort food. We hear so much about the BART screech and it's annoying if you're in the Transbay Tube, but for a lot of folks, it's almost like that comfort food for our ears.

UNGAR: It really can be, you know, to tell a personal story. I lived on Fourth and Balboa for quite some time in San Francisco, and there was a trolley coach line that I used to drive that ran right outside of my apartment. One of the things that felt like coming home was to sit in my living room and to hear the were of the trolleys, to hear the carbons on the top of the trolley poles interact with the breakers, to hear the air brakes at the stop outside of my house. For me, that's a big part of how we perceive place. The sound of public transit, the sound of BART, the horns on the legacy fleet, Gracie and George when they're in the station, you know, it's important. It helps people understand where they are. It gives them a sense of place, gives people like me a sense of purpose in a very real way.

FILIPPI: I’m speaking with Casey Ungar, a Transportation Supervisor here at BART, formerly a Train Operator. Casey, you really have a passion for public transit and even before you came to BART, that started with Muni.

UNGAR: Yes. I dropped out of graduate school, as one does, to drive a bus for a couple of years. And prior to that, I had or prior to coming to San Francisco, should I say, I never had the opportunity to take a bus in my hometown. The bus ran every hour, if you were lucky. SLO-RT is doing a fabulous job in San Luis Obispo County, but limited resources. The buses never run past 8:30. When I moved to Stockton to be in conservatory, there wasn't really a reason for me to take the bus. I was centered around campus. When I moved to San Francisco for the first time in 2010, I believe I'm coming up on my 13th anniversary this week. It was the first time in my life I had never had a car. 

Taking the bus throughout the city, taking BART throughout the Bay Area felt like a sense of freedom. It was an incredible thing to be able to stand on the corner of California and Park Presidio and to have the 28 come and take me to school. Every 15 minutes, every 10 minutes. It was an incredible thing to go to Daly City BART and to have a train that would take me to UC Berkeley so I could go to class just so that I could use the library. Regularly it would get me there quickly. It would be faster than driving. It was a sense of freedom for me. I didn't have to fill up my car. I didn't have to pay for insurance. I didn't have to find parking. I could just get up and go. So, when I decided that graduate school wasn't for me and Muni came calling, that felt like a really good way for me to figure out who I was in the space of the greater Bay Area, figure out who I was in terms of what it meant to my community to have this really good bus service and to give back in a very real way. I'd been riding the bus, I drove for five years at that point, and again Muni came calling and it taught me so much about the city I lived in. It taught me so much about the people around me. It taught me a lot about myself. The habits I formed driving out of Presidio Division on Presidio and Geary, I still hopefully carry with me through this day or to this day. It was hard work. It was stressful and difficult work. It was work where you could go throughout a ten hour shift and you might not have more than a five minute break.

But at the end of the day, what Muni gave me was a real sense of fulfillment. It felt like I was doing good work that helped people and so when BART came calling and offered me a similar sort of position, one that was a little more technical, maybe, of course, I jumped at the opportunity.

FILIPPI: It must have a special importance for you, considering how empowering transit could be, especially for folks with limited incomes or even perhaps limited personal mobility, to have this opportunity to use a public transit system that can get you to a job, to see loved ones to a vital medical appointment, that must have given you a lot of purpose in the work that you were doing.

UNGAR: Absolutely it did. I operated one of the busiest trains in the system prior to the pandemic. I would leave San Francisco International Airport at 4:57 pm or 16:57, as we prefer in operations, and I would get to Embarcadero at 17:26 or thereabouts. There were 1500 to 2000 people on my train every single day operating that train through the Transbay tube under a couple of hundred feet of water, knowing that I was getting these folks safely home, safely to their loved ones where they needed to go, getting them to work in the mornings when I had a morning shift.

That was something that really motivated me and gave me drive to continue. BART and Muni and public transit as a whole is the lifeblood of the Bay Area and I am so lucky to have been able to be a part of this and I'm so lucky to have been able to be an operator for four years and even throughout the pandemic, when we were serving 25,000 riders a day, 22,000 riders a day in April of 2020, I felt honored to serve the essential workers. I felt honored to be an essential worker with these people and to give those folks who needed us the most the option to take the service. Having BART there, even in the darkest days of 2020, I feel, was an incredible service. It was the honor of a lifetime.

FILIPPI: And it's interesting you talk about how few riders we had at that point, but literally each one of those riders, they were relying on us. Most of them had no other option and they were coming to us and you were in a position where you could help each of them.

UNGAR: Absolutely. I remember again in April of 2020, right after shelter in place, there was one person in my lead car, whereas previously there had been 175. They were people working out of Oakland International Airport. There were people working at SFO. There were nurses, there were janitors, there were people working at the supermarkets. The people in society who really help society run relied on us and they still rely on the work we do and that's an incredibly important thing. And that's something that now as a supervisor who works with Train Operators, who works with Foreworkers, I try to remind my people that the work we do is incredibly important.

FILIPPI: I've heard multiple people tell me that the best job at BART is being a Train Operator. Do you agree with that?

UNGAR: That is a fabulous question and I 100% agree with you. Now, when I was a Train Operator, people would come and tell me that being a Train Operator was the best job at BART, and I thought they were crazy. Now that I'm a supervisor, I completely agree. It's good work. It's fulfilling work and its interesting work. At the end of the day, you clock out not only do you have a paycheck, you have a sense of purpose. Train Operator and Station Agent, for that matter, are incredibly important jobs and they’re jobs that I feel should be getting a lot more recognition from the public. You know, we should be saying thank you more to our Train Operators and Station Agents. Train Operator. Absolutely a wonderful job and I miss it every day.

FILIPPI: I was going to say so you were a Train Operator and you messed it up by becoming a supervisor?

UNGAR: Well, you know, desperate times call for desperate promotions.

FILIPPI: There you go. So, tell us about that, because I think a lot of people, a lot of our riders don't really know what a Transportation Supervisor does. How does that play out? What's your role here?

UNGAR: Well, I've only been a Transportation Supervisor for about 18 months now, maybe a little more. And I'm still learning everyday what it is that my job entails. It's a very complex job. As a Train Operator, you're responsible for a single train as a Station Agent, as single station. As a Foreworker, which I did for six months, you’re responsible for the operations side of things, the integrity of the line, making sure that trains dispatch on time, people are paid appropriately, that everything moves smoothly, even though like a duck underwater, you're paddling frantically, you're still on top and the system continues to run.

Now, as a Transportation Supervisor, I'm responsible for BART itself. When I breakdown my job, it's really four major components. I do a lot of customer service, both external, responding to patron complaints, going to incidents. I'm out there doing service disruptions. If you send an email, you might get one back from me. I help in stations. I help whenever we have train problems. That's external customer service that's making the system run just a little bit better. 

I do a lot of internal customer service though too. I'm the face of the District for my employees. If they have questions about policies, they come and talk to me. If they need something, they come and talk to me. If they're feeling overwhelmed by their responsibilities, they know they can come and talk to me.

It's important. That part is important because I try to make my employees feel like they're respected by the District, that their input is valuable. I let management know when we're having problems. I try to solve the issues on my own. If I can't I try to bring in people who can by serving my Train Operators and Station Agents in that way I try to make a better working environment for everyone. I try to make the system run just a little more smoothly. I try to make people happy. Customer service is one. The next part is safety. I, with help, obviously run the Daly City Rail Yard, the Millbrae terminal, the airport terminal, and our Daly City terminal 122 train operators, lot of trackage.

I'm out there every day checking to make sure Train Operators are following the rules. Checking to make sure that we're working safely, checking to make sure that our stations are safe, you know, are there slipping hazards that need to be mitigated? Are there other issues that I, as a supervisor can take care of proactively? Safety is a big part of it. And as a supervisor, when I'm on the line or when I'm out in the field, I want my people to know that all I want from them is for them to behave safely. And all I want is for the system to be safe so our patrons can be safe, so that we can all go home at the end of the day and say, wow, that was boring day.

The third major component of my job is kind of a labor relations component. I work with one of our unions, the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555. That's the operators’, agent and clerks’ union and I work to make sure the rights of their members are respected. I answer their grievances. I meet with our union reps to discuss pressing concerns again, doing some of that internal customer service there but sometimes they also have to do investigations, sometimes they also have to do discipline. But one of the things that I really like about that, that I really respect about the way we do things here at BART is we use positive discipline. It's corrective in nature. We focus on the problem, but not the person and I hope that whenever I do an investigation or have to talk to an employee about an issue, they come away feeling respected, having learned something.

The final part is kind of miscellaneous. You know, some days I might have to write a report, some days I might have to make a presentation about trends that are going on in my rail yard. A lot of what I do is employee morale. My train operators know that once a week there's going to be free food in one of the break rooms. It's an incredibly important thing. Other miscellaneous things, I love doing employee development. I love talking to new Train Operators and new Station Agents, seeing what's going on, trying to help them figure out how they fit in the system and how the system can help them live a good life and how they can have a good life at BART. It's a big job.

FILIPPI: And that's critical, isn't it? Because what I'm thinking of is BART has really placed an emphasis in recent months on hiring more Train Operators and by doing that, giving the operations greater flexibility, avoiding cancelations, because we don't have enough Train Operators for a given day. This is a huge customer service initiative for BART, and what I'm struck by is what you're saying about that internal communications part and making people feel valued and wanting to be part of this complex dance when it comes to providing our service, how important is that to ensure that everybody feels like they're a part of the puzzle here and they're really serving the Bay Area by being a TO at BART?

UNGAR: It's incredibly important and it's kind of difficult at the same time. Train Operators, you're really focused on the train and it's easy to forget that you're part of this bigger, more complex organism. 

What I've seen the last eight months is that our train cancelations have dropped virtually to zero. Our Train Operators are less stressed. They don't have to worry when they go into work every day that they might be doing something different. They know what they're going to be doing. Our yards are running a little more smoothly because we've got more people in place who are willing to work. It's a huge deal for our employee morale and I feel like hiring more Train Operators, hiring more Station Agents is one of the best things we could do to promote good customer service in the Bay Area. By staffing those stations, by staffing those trains, we're showing the Bay Area that we are invested in making the BART experience better, in making our reliability better, and for that matter, in our employees’ well-being because staffing the system better means that everyone gets to relax a little more, gets to feel better about the work they do. And frankly, over again, in the last six or eight months since we've really been hiring, I've noticed so much improvement not only in the temperament in my breakroom, not only in the morale of my employees, but system wide. It's really been an incredible thing to see, and I'm thrilled that we're continuing to hire through the end of the year.

FILIPPI: I'm struck by how the people component is critical to service. And there are so many moving parts to it that go beyond our employees. You're talking about the track, the trains, the stations, and then the external factors. Weather, our riders, external traffic, there's so much that goes into it. How complex is it to ensure that our service is operating the way it should be?

UNGAR: Oh, my goodness.

FILIPPI: And I probably only touched on a fraction of the different factors that go into it.

UNGAR: Absolutely. A lot of that has to do with the Operations Control Center. But a lot of that also comes from our Train Operators, how they're trained, our Station Agents, how they work, you know, as a Transportation Supervisor, as kind of a middle management sort, I am fortunate to be able to interact with the different departments that make BART tick. Buildings, tracks, train control, power, mechanical. I work a lot with outside agencies. I'm BART's incident commander. When incidents occur, I'll deal with the police, fire department, San Francisco International Airport. As a Train Operator and a rider, I never realized. I thought it was a magical thing that a train came out of Richmond Yard and would take me from downtown Berkeley to Montgomery Street. And it's an incredibly complex thing, transportation is not an island. We work closely with our shops to make sure that we've got the cars that we need to provide revenue service. We work closely with the buildings department to make sure that our stations are in tip top shape, that the bathrooms are open. Elevator, escalator, they work invisibly day after day after day to keep our stations accessible for people. It's an incredibly complex dance and when I was on the front lines, when I was Foreworker, you never know about it. And one of the things that I really love to do as a Transportation Supervisor is to reach out to these different departments and to see how we can get things working a little better. To see if we can get the radios down at Millbrae reprogramed to work with our new system just a little better. To see if we can do little ergonomic things the train cabs or in our break rooms, working with the Vehicle Systems Engineer to make my Train Operators lives a little more comfortable. I live to help the front line do their jobs and working with all of these different departments to help the front line get our patrons from point to point is a complex and interesting thing.

BART as an entity is fascinating. We do so much here that people may not know about. And again, I've only been a supervisor for 18 months and I'm still learning about ways that we can make the customer experience better. That I can make my Train Operators and Station Agents lives a little easier, that we can make things just work a little more smoothly.

FILIPPI: I'm speaking with Casey Unger, a Transportation Supervisor here at BART. Casey, before that, you talked about your experience as a Train Operator. How much does it help having that hands on experience as an operator and now as a supervisor?

UNGAR: It's incredibly helpful. As a former Train Operator, there are two big parts of my job that it really, really impacts. The main one for me right now is how I'm able to talk to our patrons. When a customer comes to me with a complaint, I'm not just offering an apology on behalf of the District. I'm not just telling the customer we're sorry, we're going to do better for you next time. I'm trying to figure out what happened so that I can educate the customer this is why this sort of thing happens. This is why the doors on this train car didn't open. This is why the Train Operator’s announcements might not have been clear in 1681, but they were certainly clear in car 1522.

And as a former Train Operator who's worked with Train Operators before, who's worked with kind of the train control system and the broader nitty gritty operational elements of BART, I find that a lot of my job when I'm doing that external customer service is educational. I want people to come away from interacting with me, from talking to me about the problems they're having, and I want them to understand why we do things here the way that we do them. The answer shouldn't be, well, this just happened because and we're really sorry. It should help give people a better investment in the system, a better understanding of why we do things the way that we do them. And more impetus to continue riding, continue working with BART. I try to assure people that even when they're having a bad day in the system, it's not something that happens all the time.

Their problem was something that was rare and interesting and that we can all learn from. And as a supervisor, it's my job to try to instruct my employees to take those proactive actions to communicate a little more clearly about these issues. As a former Train Operator, that's incredibly useful when I'm talking to my employees, because while I speak the language, it's a huge thing for me to be able to go to my operators and try to find out what happened and talk to them and see what is going on and mainline to read between the lines of the issues they may be having. 

I will never forget what it was like to be the last train of the night coming from Dublin, Pleasanton to Daly City and having to sweep the train out of service and bring it into the yard. I will never forget going through a Station Agent class and I was a Foreworker and having to close 19th Street Station with only one other Station Agent. For me, being a part of BART's front line, learning about how to be a Station Agent, which was the other frontline working position, I would hope it's made me a more empathetic person. I would hope it's made me a better communicator for our patrons. And I would hope that when I go out into the field and I talk to my agents, when I talk to my operators, they don't see a supervisor. They see someone who's lived the same life they have. I have 27 years until I retire, give or take, and I hope that until the day I retire, I don't forget what it was like sweeping that train out of service. I don't forget what it was like closing 19th Street. I hope that I am able to be the sort of supervisor and manager who is there for my employees, who is there to understand the problems they're facing, and who can communicate to our patrons who are having issues why these things happen, why the system runs the way it does, why we work the way it work, and to get that buy in both from our external customers and our internal customers, to make BART run better, to bring our patrons back after the pandemic and make the system as a whole just a little bit more of a joyful, understandable place.

FILIPPI: Casey, you work at the Daily City Yard, so that's a really important portion of the system. You're touching on multiple lines there. What is it like working there?

UNGAR: Daily City Yard has been my home well, for the entire time I was a Train Operator and as a Foreworker I worked at one of the adjunct terminals. Daily City Yard is also the newest yard in the system. It was built, I believe, in the 1990s as part of a capacity project, as part of the Colma extension and the Daly City tail tracks. Daly City Yard is one of the busiest places in the system. My Foreworkers are there checking Train Operators in and out. They're pulling bad order trains from mainline and replacing them flawlessly and seamlessly. They're there coordinating with the shops to make sure that we can make our revenue requirements in the morning. My terminal zones are dispatching trains. They're checking Train Operators in and out, they're communicating with central. It's an incredible ballet to see when I come in at 1300 all that's been accomplished and all we have to accomplish. 

And as a supervisor, my role is unfortunately not to be in the nitty gritty anymore. I'm no longer a Foreworker, I can't manage a terminal. But what I can do is I can be there for my Foreworkers, I can be there for my Train Operators. I can help them figure out what they need to do to make sure the yards and the terminals are running. And Daly City, again, as a yard is fairly unique. We dispatch Dublin trains, we dispatch Berryessa trains, we dispatch Antioch trains. We dispatch just about everything except for the occasional Richmond train although we've done that before too. And in Daly City Yard it's very busy, but we've got the best Foreworkers in the system. We have the best Train Operators in the system. We have people who are willing to work to make it work. And I am so lucky to have cut my teeth there as a train operator, to have worked at Daly City Terminal as a Foreworker, and now to be there as a supervisor. The work we do at Daly City Yard is important for the functioning of the system, and we do it well. And I am so proud of the people that I work with. I am so proud of the work that we do there because every day we make it happen, all of our trains go out on time, all of our trains got the link they need., all of our operators are there and they're ready to work and they're ready to put in the work that they need to make the yard run, that they need to make the system run.

Daly City Yard is the smallest yard, but we are a linchpin in BART and I like to remind my people of that. I'd like to remind my people that the job they do is important. And it's not only important to get the trains out, it's important to keep the Bay Area running.

FILIPPI: Is there a particular challenge that's most common that comes up when it comes to executing that vision?

UNGAR: Oh, gosh. As a supervisor, the challenge is knowing what's happening and knowing why things happen. So just knowing why we weren't able to run a train one day, it isn't enough. Knowing why it happened that's part of the job. To know that our train wash is broken, that's not enough. To know when it'll get fixed and how it'll affect our ability to wash trains. That's a huge challenge. And then to be able to present my findings to my boss and my boss's boss and the Chief Transportation Officer, and to give suggestions on how we can do it a little better. To give suggestions to my Foreworkers about how we can maybe staff a little bit more efficiently to make things run a little better.

My job is not one where I'm making decisions that are tremendous. It's not one where I make decisions every day that will change the world. My job is to make things run a little bit better, to provide that oversight, to ask the questions, and to find out reasons why the things that happened happened. And for me, as a former historian, as someone who really is interested in research and really interested in the way the system runs, there's an incredible fulfillment. My days go by really fast and there is a joy to knowing that the support that I give to my frontline workers helps make it happen and helps make the yard run, and that every day we're getting a little better.

FILIPPI: You touched a little bit on your history before really getting into BART and public transit of being a historian. Where would you put BART in terms of its importance to the history of the Bay Area?

UNGAR: To my eyes, BART is one of the most impactful projects the Bay Area has had within the last century. After the Key System dissolved in the fifties, after Muni streetcars stopped running, what did we have? We had the automobile. We had all of these towns that weren't connected. When I think of the Bay Area, I think of what it must have been like in 1950, 1960, 1970, when they were waiting for BART. The traffic, you had to take a bus. You couldn't use the Transbay Tube. You were going across the Bay Bridge. Maybe there was a ferry. There was so much air pollution. I try to think of a world now without BART, a world where there's traffic, a world where the people who need us the most don't have us. What would the Bay Area look like without BART? My answer is that it wouldn't be the Bay Area. When BART opened in 1972 on its little stub line from Fremont to MacArthur, that was an incredibly transformative moment for the Bay Area, for the culture of the Bay Area. It brought back what we had lost to the Key System. It gave people more options and more places they could live.

I try to think counterfactually what is a Bay Area without BART look like? It doesn't look like the Bay Area. The work we do, the system we have is a treasure. BART is something that cannot be replaced. We can widen the freeways as much as we may want. We may build more bridges. We can never replace the work that BART did during the ‘89 earthquake. We can never replace the capacity BART has in the Transbay Tube. We can never replace the the important impacts BART has on our environment. That’s huge, we're running electric trains in the Bay Area.

We are making people's lives better simply by running by taking those cars off the road, by giving people that option. So where is BART in the history of the Bay Area? It's one of the most hugely impactful infrastructure projects in the last 100 years. Could the Bay Area run without the Bay Bridge? Absolutely. Could the Bay Area run without BART? I don't think so.

FILIPPI: And you mentioned all of the importance that BART has had throughout the history of the Bay Area the last 50 years. Certainly, the pandemic was a historic time as well. And you touched on your experience during that time with our diminished ridership. And on a much lighter note, I know you would go to Millbrae during the pandemic and saw some interesting things there.

UNGAR: So, one of the things that I loved about the pandemic was the genesis of the Slow Streets movement. Areas that were closed to cars where people could walk and be socially distanced and be outside. And for me, when I was working at Millbrae during the pandemic, I had a shift that started at I think it was 14:45, 2:45 if you're out of operations and then end at 10 pm or 10:30 pm. I had some downtime in there between when I would run the shuttles and take a train from the airport to Antioch and back. And one of the things that I did instead of being in the break room was I would walk on the Millbrae parking structure on the top level. I do four or five laps. There'd be a few of us who all do our laps at about the same time. 

One of the clearest memories to me was back then you could see the airlines coming in and landing at San Francisco International Airport. You could see the sunset over the mountains. And there was a family of very cute ravens and I got to watch one of them raise their fledglings from a chick to a full grown raven over the course of that pandemic year. And I just remember walking on by the ravens and they'd look at me and I'd look at them. They'd fly to the other side of the parking structure, and they'd look at me and I'd look at them. It was one of the weirder relationships I've had in my life. But that moment of connection with those ravens as the planes fly in from parts unknown and as I'm getting ready to take my train from the airport to Antioch and the cool of the winter evening, that was an experience that kind of defined the pandemic for me. And that was for me a very BART thing.

FILIPPI: It really was something how the world kind of slowed down in that time and BART was always there. No matter what the ridership was or what the circumstances were, BART was still there and our frontline workers continued to show up, even though there was so much uncertainty about what was going to happen with that virus and what it would do to people awe were still there. I mean, there's a really powerful statement in that, isn't there?

UNGAR: There absolutely is and being a Train Operator during the pandemic, seeing my coworkers show up to work every day, knowing the stations were staffed was an incredibly powerful thing. And again, you want to speak to the importance of BART in Bay Area history. I would say our two greatest moments were the service we ran after the ‘89 quake when we replaced the Bay Bridge for months, 24-hour service, we kept the Bay Area moving. But that we kept running throughout the pandemic, that we kept providing people with the ability to get where they need to go without a car. And I think that's a very powerful argument for BART as part of the social safety net of the Bay Area and for something that is absolutely indispensable to our culture.

FILIPPI: BART Transportation Supervisor Casey Unger, thank you so much for joining us.

UNGAR: Thank you, Chris. It's been a delight.

FILIPPI: And thank you for listening to Hidden Tracks, stories from BART. You can listen to our podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Play and of course at our website, BART.gov/podcasts.

San Francisco’s annual Chinese New Year Parade will take place on Saturday, February 15, starting at 5:15pm. 2025 is the Year of the Snake, which represents wisdom, intuition, and transformation! For the first time ever, the parade will close out with a choreographed drone light that will illuminate the sky over the Embarcadero at approx. 8pm.

The Chinese New Year Parade is the largest illuminated night parade in the country, and thousands of people will gather along Market Street to celebrate. Transit is the best way to get there.

Montgomery Station is the closest BART station to the start of the parade, at Market and 2nd streets. Embarcadero and Powell St. stations are also close to the parade route. Follow the rider guide above for reference. 

The BARTmobile will be zooming along the parade route along with a cohort of BART staff and their families, who will be wearing BART's 2025 Lunar New Year shirt. The shirts are available for purchase in adult, youth, and toddler sizes on Railgoods.com, as well as special BARTy x Year of the Snake stickers.

If you are planning to visit Chinatown to celebrate the new year, take BART to Powell St. Station, transfer to the Muni T Third, and ride one stop to Chinatown-Rose Pak Station. Muni will be free on February 15. 

Discover additional ways to celebrate Lunar New Year on BARTable. 

BART is seeking feedback on two new fare programs under consideration to increase transit ridership. Take the survey at bart.gov/BayPassSurvey.

The first is Clipper BayPass, a regional, prepaid, unlimited -ride transit pass available to institutions including employers, universities, affordable housing sites, and other participating organizations. Organizations purchase and provide a prepaid Clipper BayPass to 100% of their eligible members who can enjoy unlimited access to all bus, rail, and ferry services in the nine-county Bay Area. This program is currently in its pilot phase. 

The second program is the No Cost & Reduced Cost Transfers Pilot Program scheduled to launch along with the Next Generation Clipper system in the future. This will provide transit riders with free or discounted transfers between various transit agencies when using Clipper. Customers will pay the full fare for the first leg of their trip and transfer trips made between agencies in the two hours following their first Clipper card tag will be free or discounted up to the maximum local fare, currently $2.50. 

Please share your opinions about these programs by taking the survey online June 7 – June 24 at bart.gov/BayPassSurvey or at in-station outreach events at the BART stations listed below.

• Montgomery Street Station on Tuesday, June 11| 7:00am – 9:30am
• Richmond Station on Wednesday, June 12| 3:00pm – 6:00pm
• Downtown Berkeley Station on Thursday, June 13| 7:00am – 9:30am
• 12th St./Oakland City Center on Tuesday, June 18 | 7:00am – 9:30am
• Berryessa/North San Jose on Thursday, June 20 | 3:00pm – 6:00pm

If you are a member of the blind or low-vision community and would like to explore BART in a relaxed environment, we invite you to our sensory orientation event from noon to 1:30pm on Wednesday, March 25, at 19th St. Station in Oakland. 

This free public event presents two unique opportunities to:  

• Leisurely explore an out-of-service ten-car train. BART staff will demonstrate features such as Braille car identification numbers, inter-car barriers, and the location of train intercoms aboard the Fleet of the Future train. 
• Practice getting to safety in the event of an accidental fall onto the track with a set-up mimicking the crawl space under the platform next to the trackway. 

Another focus of the event will be navigating the vending machines, fare gates, and platforms with plenty of staff on hand to answer questions and provide information. BART has an online accessibility guide that provides additional information. 

Some service providers, like Lighthouse for the Blind and Clipper, will table at the event to provide more information and resources.  

Let us know if you intend to participate in this sensory orientation by signing up at Eventbrite, which will ensure that we have adequate staff at this event. To request language translation, interpretation, or special accessibility accommodations,, email your specific requests to Elena Van Loo at [email protected] no later than March 17 so we can have the appropriate resources on hand.  

The event will take place in the middle of the station on the concourse and the upper platform levels, which are both underground. The most direct street entrances are found on the east side of Broadway, one between 20th and 19th Streets and the other at the 19th Street intersection. Elevator access between the street and concourse is found at 1736 Broadway. 

We look forward to seeing you there.

BART is the only transit agency to officially recognize and encourage speedruns through the BART speedrun webpage at BART.gov/speedrun.

(Podcast transcript below)

HOST ALICIA TROST: There's a new sport gaining popularity across the globe, transit speedrunning, and today we'll take a deep dive into what it takes to speedrun BART. Welcome to “Hidden Tracks: Stories from BART.” I'm your host, Alicia Trost, Chief Communications Officer and today's guests are, in my opinion, local celebrities because all three of them have set records speedrunning BART.

Now, a speedrun is the total time it takes to travel through all BART stations. It's a race against the clock to ride every BART line as fast as possible and my guests are experts. So, welcome Ameen DaCosta, Enzo Wu, and Adam, who runs the YouTube page, “Adam Does Not Exist.” Now for the record, did any of you know each other before BART speedrunning?

GROUP: No (laughter). 

TROST: Total strangers. Right? Never met each other? 

GROUP: Never. 

TROST: And now friends? 

GROUP: Yup.

TROST: So, Ameen, we're going to start with you. I want you to tell everyone about the origins of transit speedrunning. 

AMEEN DACOSTA: Sure. Yeah. Hi. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Transit speedrunning really has a rich history. I would say that it originally started, the most famous one was the tube challenge back in, London, where people were trying to speedrun the entire tube system, which is, London’s metro system. That was kind of the first record that gained popularity online. That's one of the first one, the Guinness World Records certified as being a official, record and that's kind of the first one that started this more worldwide trend of people saying, well, if they can do it in London, why don't we try speedrunning our own local systems? 

So, very popular. One happened in New York City. The current record is just over 22 hours, which is a really, really long time, but it's spread all over. But one thing is that the Bay Area and BART did not have as much of a, speedrunning community. There had been a few individuals who had done speedrunning in the past, but there hadn't been this sort of community that you see in so many other cities and it was just, you know, something that people wanted to explore myself included. 

TROST: And so you teamed up with a group of friends from UC Berkeley, and you wanted to speedrun all of BART, and you even went through the formal application process with Guinness World Records to make it official. So, tell me how this all came about and how you set the first record of five hours, 47 minutes, and 14 seconds.

DACOSTA: So, it's, unfortunately, well, it's not 14 seconds. It was 42 seconds. So, a few seconds more, (laughter) but, yeah, we'll get it's. Yeah, it's a really interesting story, actually. So, you know, I'm studying transportation engineering, transportation planning. I'm a huge transit nerd and one of my classmates last year whose name is Paul, he had speedrun Vancouver's transit system. He’s from Vancouver, Canada, and he had speedrun there, I believe it's called Metrolink System. So, when we first met each other last, I guess over a year ago at this point and started to get to know each other, he floated the idea of doing the similar thing for BART, in the Bay Area, because he had read of a few people who had done in the past, but, you know, kind of want to jump on the trend and, something, you know, do something similar. And I believe it was his idea as well to actually, make this an official Guinness World Record, which ended up being a lot more complicated of a process than we initially thought, and then it probably should have. 

So, back in October of last year, he told me and a few other friends like, hey, I'm applying for this record for, for BART and if it gets approved, I'd love to do it with you guys. And I was like, of course, this sounds absolutely amazing. I mean, who doesn't want to have a Guinness World Record on their fridge? Right? So, he sent the application in October. At that point, it was really just a waiting game for them to kind of approve everything, set out the rules and requirements, kind of set the standards and everything and we just found out in, February of this year that, we were good to go. 

TROST: And so what are some of the requirements? 

DACOSTA: Yeah, a lot more complicated than they should be, I would say. So, of course, there's the more general standard requirements that you would think of, such as, you know, you have to hit every single station by transit. You're not allowed to take a car or any sort of private vehicle, you know, things like that. But they also have more specific rules, such as, they want to have as much filming as possible in the entire system, including all the transfers and the beginning and the end. We had to have two outside witnesses meet us at the beginning to start the official timer, and then meet us at the end to have the official time that we could then use to, verify our record. So, shout out to our two classmates who drove us to Antioch in the morning and picked us up from, San Jose in the evening. We couldn't have been possible without you. There was also a few other things. We had to have a logbook and try to get, people’s signatures throughout to certify that we weren't cheating, that we were actually doing this. So, we had to meet up with some people as well as we had friends meet us at different portions along the journey. So, we had to make sure to time appropriately and be like, ‘we're in the first car, meet us here or meet us at this station at this time,’ and if anything went wrong, we'd have to communicate with them, to make sure that we were all on the same page.

We had people delivering snacks and, you know, other goodies to keep us going for the almost six hours and then there are a few other things as well. You know, as I said, as much filming as possible and just as much verification as possible. They just want to make sure that we are not, you know, not fudging anything, not cheating at all. So, official logbook with all the times at every station, photos at every station with the station name just as much as possible to submit.

TROST:  For those who are finally catching on what we're talking about, BART speedrunning, you don't actually have to get off a train and then go tag out. I think that's a misconception. Explain exactly what happens as you pull into each station.

DACOSTA: Yes, of course. So, I know I've heard a lot of people saying that, saying, how is it possible to get out at every station and do all of this stuff and still get in this time? And no, that's not what we did at all. Otherwise, it would have definitely taken over a day. So, what we had to do is we approached each station, we would line ourselves up. I was on camera duty, so I took a photo at every station. One of my friends, Jacob, on his phone, had the official time, just the clock app on his phone in the view of my camera and then we would have the station name. So, from one of the station signs and the camera at the same time in the same photo, so that Guinness knows, okay, they were at this station at this time. And it was a little hard at some of the stations, you know, depending on where the, columns were or the station signs, to kind of make sure we got a good angle and to make sure everything was in focus as well. Sometimes, you know, the camera has a fun habit of either getting the clock in focus or the station sign in focus and not both. So, that was very difficult. We had to, you know, at a few stations, even kind of run out onto the platform and grab a photo really quick. But luckily we didn't miss any of the trains while doing this. 

We, didn't really have any major issues kind of getting the photos, and getting kind of that sort of proof that they need. And then at the end, we would just write down the time and keep it down in our logbook. 

TROST: And remind me it was a Saturday?

DACOSTA: We did it on a Saturday. Yeah.

TROST: So, it's Saturday. I'm at home, probably in my pajamas on the couch. I jump on Twitter, BART Twitter, and I see a post at Balboa Park and it's adorable and it's your team doing a little dance, waiting to transfer and very thrilled that the train was arriving for that transfer on time. When did you realize BART was following your journey and starting to engage with you? 

DACOSTA: That was amazing and that was what really made it one of the best days in my entire life. So, one of our members, quick shout out to Jacob, Paul, Winnie, and Chance. Those were my four teammates. and thank you, Melody and Mike, for driving us in the morning and picking us up in the evening.

So, Winnie's main job was social media duty. We were all members, with the exception of Chance, from UC Berkeley. Graduate students were member of TRANSOC, which is the graduate student transportation club on campus. So, one thing that she was in charge of was kind of getting the social media post, kind of getting some outreach, just kind of making, you know, a social media presence of what we were doing.

But we never expected BART to actually, pick up on what we were doing, and, you know, all of this to happen. So, I believe we were out on, heading south towards Coliseum and we saw on Twitter that they had taken, I believe it was you, who had taken a few screenshots from our live stream that we were and put them on Twitter, which was super, super exciting because that was our first kind of, recognition that BART knew what we were doing, was excited and supported it because a lot of, transit systems don't always love speedrunners and don't love transit nerds, which I find very surprising because if anything, we're kind of promoting the good of public transit. And then a few minutes later, when we're out on the Oakland Airport Connector, I saw that the BART Twitter account actually followed me on Twitter and that was I think there's a really funny clip on the YouTube stream of me being like, ‘oh my God, oh my God, BART, I love you!’ And it was just really, really exciting to see all of the engagement at that point. And BART, you know, made a tweet it said with the waving emoji and then, my username @Horus_The_Local, I just saw that it was so, so, so exciting because we were getting recognized. We had all the support from BART. It was just so exciting to see, you know, see everyone, see all of you guys supporting us and kind of cheering us on our journey.

At that point, the live stream completely picked up in so many more people joined, and we're excited and I was engaging with everyone inthe live stream chat. And of course there were some people being like, ‘why are you doing this? ‘But everyone was so excited and just it was a great atmosphere for the second half of our journey.

TROST: And it was your speedrun that inspired BART to start an official website, BART.gov/speedrun, where we acknowledge anyone who has done a speedrun as long as there's documentation. And you don't need to break a record to be acknowledged on the page and I do believe we are the only transit agency, probably in the world to have an official website recognizing speedruns.

So now I want to bring in Enzo because it was only a few months after Ameen’s speedrun that you did your first speedrun, and you beat them by 17 minutes. So, five hours and 30 minutes. So, Enzo, what made you want to do a speedrun? 

ENZO WU: All right, well first of all thank you for having me. Tt's truly an honor to be part of the podcast. Well, I first got into transit, I, I became a transit enthusiast because of 5-1-1’s free bus passes, during the first few months of school. And I used these bus passes to go to and from school, for free. And it was a really nice experience because it was the first taste of like, true independence, like, you know, being able to go out and do stuff on your own without having to ask a parent or guardian to drive me everywhere.

After that experience, I just kind of got interested in, like, what can I actually do with transit? And then that led me down a really long rabbit hole and eventually I found this, speedrun, which I believe was posted just a little while after, Ameen’s and the TRANSOC group speedrun. and I saw their video on YouTube, and it got me really intrigued because, you know, I'm part of the gaming community, the greater gaming community and I'm also part of the transit community. When I saw the chance to combine them together in the form of a speedrun, naturally, I clicked on the video and then I just got completely attached. I had always wanted to beat the world record but to do that, you have to find the route first and I figured that was probably best if I asked Tonsi or I reached out and contacted them, and we ended up popping on a call for actually a few hours discussing transit. 

TROST: And so, tell me, how do you plan these trips? Like, do you use the trip planner, the PDF timetables? Do you make your own spreadsheet? How do you do this? 

WU: Yeah, so, among the speedrunning community, I think it's pretty known that the timetables, the PDF timetables on BART's official website are probably the best bet because it allows you to see the entirety of BART, rather than a specific segment, like using the Trip Planner.  It’s basically just a form of brute forcing all of these timetables and looking at the map and just thinking outside the box, you know, it's the creativity that brings you to make such, unique runs, to say the least, such as running from, Powell Station to Fourth and King Caltrain.

TROST: And Ameen, did you also use the PDF timetables? 

DACOSTA: Yeah, we did the same thing. We also had a Excel sheet then where we kind of wrote out all of our and I assume is very similar situation with Enzo where, Paul and I just spent hours on the phone as well, or individually procrastinating on my homework, Just kind of thinking of every possible route. And like Enzo said, it's really kind of looking at the ends of the lines and saying, okay, you know, you're not gonna want to double back on Antioch because it's so much further away from connecting to any other line. You know, you're not gonna want to probably double back at Berryessa because it's so much further away and kind of saying, okay, if that's your start and end, how do you kind of fit everything else in between covering every station in the least amount of time possible?

TROST: And is it true that you had found the five-hour, 30 minute run, but you chose not to do it? 

DACOSTA: It's true, it's true. I know, looking back, maybe we would have done things differently, but actually, I do think we made the right decision just because of all those really strict Guinness World Record requirements we had before. I'm sure Enzo will get into this later, but, you know, they did not succeed on their on their first try. And we knew that with us, with all these different moving parts, with people driving us to the beginning, in the end, with the official time and all the witnesses in the middle, it had to be a one and done situation.

So, barring any sort of major BART disruption, which luckily did not happen, we knew that we had to make a route that guaranteed and as you'll see later, the five hours 30 had a lot riskier, connection that we did not want to risk for our run. 

TROST: Okay. Perfect spot to bring in Adam. So, you got into speedrunning because you were making YouTube videos about transit, and I think you just thought like, ‘oh, I wonder if I just wrote every BART line, you know, like, it's a original concept, right?’

ADAM: I don't sound like that. (laughter)

TROST: So, tell us, tell us a little bit about that. 

ADAM: Yeah, It's like, again, thank you for having us here. It's a real honor. I was just trying to make videos about the Bay Area that were positive. You know, nobody does that and it felt like somebody should be covering that side of it and just inspiring people to have all these adventures that you could have.

Not exactly, but like getting to every single station as fast as possible was totally a thing. I thought it would be fun just to ride it all, and, like, that would be good enough. But apparently you got to do it as fast as humanly possible. That’s when I found Ameen and all of the media that had surrounded everything he did around, around his run and the TRANSOC team, I found Tonsi and the run that they did after that, and I just knew I had to try it. 

TROST: So, you posted your first video and Enzo drops in the chat. All this knowledge a little bit schooling you that. Do I have this correct? How did this and how did your friendship then start off of just chatting on your YouTube page? 

ADAM: Enzo shaking his head as if it wasn't schooling me, but I, I think we, I think we both know that it was. So, I made that video I posted on YouTube and he has the top like comment by like hundreds of views because he just dropped all this knowledge about speedrunning. I was like a little caught off guard. I was like, this is like kind of a weird video. Like, you know, it's not a ton of detail in there. Like, who is this guy? Like, is it is it real? He also claimed to be part of a previous world record. I was like, no, no, he's not like he's not in that video at all and then he emailed me. Similar to Enzo and Tonsi, we got on the phone, we talked about speedrunning for two hours and like in the middle of it, he's like, oh, by the way, I'm 15 years old. And I was like, this is this is just this is it's not real. But turns out it was real. And at the end of that call, he baited me with, I think I've got an even faster route and that's how it all began. 

TROST: Yeah. So, Enzo, tell us you had been trying to figure out how to beat. So, remember, at this point, we're at five hours and 30 minutes and that you had developed this new concept that would be five hours and ten minutes. So, what were the big changes and tell us about that? 

WU: All right. So, originally the time save between the 5:50 projected route and the 5:30 projected route was using an OAK skip, which is basically just catching a perfect OAK cycle because OAK runs every 18 minutes or so and fits perfectly between BART's 20-minute headways, which seriously improved the time. It improved it by 20 minutes. And then the second time around, when 5:30 was already done and dusted, it was kind of widely accepted that I knew faster would be practically impossible and even to this day, it's still almost impossible. There have been countless attempts at beating the 5:10 record that Adam set, that have all been failures although I can't really say that I haven't put an effort because I definitely have. It's just so seriously difficult and the major part of the 5:10 is the fact that you have to run or bike, on Lyft’s Bay Wheel Bikes between Powell Station and Caltrain’s Fourth and King Station because going down south on the Peninsula, on Caltrain saves time and it also saves, having to transfer between two lines on BART. And you can still connect back to BART at Millbrae on the Red Line going northbound and you'll still collect every station. 

TROST: So, for people who are not as big a fans of transit as we are, the biggest change was you realize something at Millbrae.  What was the big thing that was the game changer involving a certain other transit system that really pushed you over the edge to saving time?

WU: Yeah, so, the new Caltrain schedules, with their electrification and their electrified trains, allowed their trains to run faster. But it didn't actually impact how fast the trains ran between the period of Caltrain’s Fourth and King Station and their Millbrae Station. So, the time it takes to travel between the two stations is actually the same. However, the new timetables did offer new times to look at and brute force, and when I looked at the new times, it was pretty clear that there was a much larger possibility, between running, between Powell and Fourth and King because the time had now been widened. It was previously, I believe, four minutes in the old timetables, which of course is pretty impossible unless you teleport. And, in the new timetables, I believe it's 7 or 8 minutes. which definitely is a lot more forgiving, although it's still very difficult.

TROST: So, what were you thinking when you realized, wait, if I get off BART and do a bike share and Caltrain and then get back on BART, how did that even come to mind? It's brilliant. 

WU: Well, I mean, once you get to a certain point, it's just looking at the map and really just thinking, I'm going to try every single possible route, no matter how dumb it may seem, such as doubling back at Antioch. Yes, I did look at those, and eventually, I exhausted pretty much every option, that I know of. And then I looked at the map and I just thought to myself, wow, BART is pretty much the fastest transit in the entire Bay Area. but I did say pretty much, because Caltrain is indeed faster than BART, especially now with their electrified trains. And I was thinking, well, how can I incorporate the two fastest rails in the entire Bay Area combined into one run? And maybe it might save some time. And I looked at the map and Caltrain does take a more direct route between the top of the Peninsula and Millbrae. This direct route saves time because not only does Caltrain run faster and makes less stops and of course, a straight line will always be faster than a curve. 

TROST: Okay. Ameen, I'm going to ask you something really controversial and that may impact your friendship with Enzo, but based on the Guinness World Record rules, in your expert opinion, is taking Caltrain during a BART speedrun and using a bike as part of the trip. Does it officially count?

DACOSTA: Wow. I'm honored to be considered an expert. This is amazing. Yeah, so, here's the thing. When the original tube challenge rules were set back in the 90s, I believe, you know, bike sharing was not a thing at all and, they explicitly say no bikes, no private vehicles, all of that, all that good stuff. For every record since even though this record was just, you know, approved this year, they still basically copy and paste those same rules and just kind of, you know, copy paste wherever it says London changed it to San Francisco, which is why the actual official record is fastest time to visit all San Francisco metro stations, which, you know isn't exactly what BART is, but that's just kind of their way of formatting for all of these records.

So, with all those caveats, it's never been a issue that has been taken to the hands of Guinness. I guess, to make a decision on and that's where it's really gray area, because with Bay Wheels, it is a public system. You know, you can use your Clipper card to, pay for it. So, by that regards, it is a form of public transit, but it also says regularly scheduled and a bicycle is not going to be a regularly scheduled public transit system because, you know, it's assuming that there's a bike that's available, you can kind of just use it whenever you want.

So, it's really this gray area that, I have not really stepped my foot in in trying to make a statement one way or the other. I think that would have to be, a decision made by Guinness at some point whenever that issue is brought up to them, which, you know, is not something that we had in our record runs, that's not an issue for us. I don't know how they would, reply to that. I don't know how they would respond, because they would really have to kind of look at their ruleset and figure out, do they consider bike share public transit. If it's by the books as their specific rules right now I would say probably if I had to choose, wouldn't count. But I think that the rules do need updating. If someone brought a record with this to them, there's a good chance that they could potentially, you know, change the rules and kind of allow for these more modern, forms of transportation. 

TROST: Right. So, Adam, you posted the video of this ride. You went together, the two of you and then actually, I mean, did join in towards the end. So, what is the people in the chat of your YouTube page, what are they saying about this? 

ADAM: I mean, that was such a diplomatic answer from the you run the MTA some day? Yeah, I was shocked by how just unanimously positive the comments were, and it is like there's heartbreaking sections in the video and talk about just like how difficult it is to not only find this, but like, but just like do it. It took us took us four tries. So, the comments were shockingly positive. I think my favorite comment it's about Enzo's dad, you know, the true MVP of this. Like showing up with us at like 6:30 in the morning to be the timekeeper and to get Enzo to the start line and meeting us in the middle to grab our stuff and then meeting us at the end, like if we were going to make it to the end. Yeah, a bunch of people commented on how Enzo's dad was just like the true hero of the story. 

TROST: I love that. so, Enzo, would you say the biggest factor in breaking the speedrun record really comes down to the BART to Oakland airport service, or. OAK, as you called it earlier? 

WU: I actually do believe that the Oakland Connector is not the major part of the run, although a lot of runs do die there especially with the new bike controversy, there have been countless people trying to do, bikeless attempts, which is basically just doing the same run but without the use of bikes. And in this case, they would try to either take a bus if available down Fourth Street or just straight running, which like I said, is extremely difficult.

But the OAK definitely is one of the hardest parts of the run and I do know many countless attempts that have died at, the OAK Connector, because the timing is extremely tight and unless you get the timings down exactly, then the transfer can basically just kill your entire run. 

TROST: My favorite part of all the videos, whether it's Adam's video or even the run you did with Sabi, is the epic practicing of the right hand, and you're literally sprinting the moment the door opens, you run to get to that airport connector. So just tell us a little bit about planning that and the time of day and how do you go about making sure you know exactly when to hit that airport connector? 

WU: Yeah. So, there are definitely some, secrets to researching that, like a connector. that shall be kept secret, unfortunately. But if you do spend a long enough time looking at OAK you'll be able you will be able to crack the code. And after that, it's just like, it's just repetition. You know, the more you practice, the more the better you get. And the run is pretty short but there are some tiny things that new runners might not know such as, standing in the last doors of the last quarter of the train, to be closest to the staircase going up. It's just like a bunch of factors coming down together, which is really why it's so difficult, because it's not just one thing. There's multiple variables working against you here and you do have to be quite lucky so, your train doesn't delay and so the OAK comes on time as expected. But there also is a lot of skill to it in terms of research. 

TROST: All right let's talk about logistics, Adam. How do you handle bathroom breaks. 

ADAM: Oh my God I, I think your best bet is just hope you don't have to use the bathroom because there's almost no time, and there's a section. We thought that taking Caltrain and the new Caltrains would be like a hack because they have like more bathrooms and they're newer, they're nicer. But, when I got to Caltrain, when I finally made it onto that train, the bathrooms were out of order. I, like, watched them, put the ‘out of order’ sign up and like, lock the door. And I was like, what about the other cars? The other cars were all out of service as well. Still working out some kinks with the new Caltrains.

But it's tough there. That's like one of the unsung difficulties of doing a speedrun. Like the OAK Connector is impossible. Making it to Caltrain is impossible, like having no delays and just like every single second matters and then there's all this other stuff that, like, has to go perfectly, which is why I like teaming up with someone like Enzo who can figure this out. Yeah, it's super beneficial.

TROST: Ameen, you schedule the bathroom break, right, For your team?

DACOSTA: We did but, actually, what ended up happening again had to do with the OAK Connector. So, with our run, we had 30 minutes, to do the 18-minute OAK cycle but what ended up happening is when we actually got to the station, we had just missed one of the connectors.

So, in terms of the total time for a run, it was fine because we even if we had to wait the additional eight minutes, it was still fine because we would still have enough time afterwards. But what this did mean is originally our plan was to get the OAK Connector done, and we'd have ten minutes to be able to go to the bathroom at Coliseum Station and Paul and I had actually scouted out that station the day before to make sure that the bathrooms were operating and in order, and one the bathroom just out of service. We spoke to a maintenance worker who said it was going to be fixed by the weekend, which was absolutely music to our ears.

We did study the Oakland Airport Connector trains as well, to see if they lined up with the Trip Planner schedule as well, which, spoiler alert, they do not, at all. So, by missing the initial OAK Airport Connector, connection, it meant that by the time we took he train to the airport and back, we only had about 3 or 4 minutes before hitting our next BART train, and I did not want to risk missing our train, so I ended up actually holding it in for the entire six hours. So, similarly to Adam, I was planning on having a break about halfway through, which is perfect. That ended up not happening. We had to go the whole six hours, but I made sure to limit my water intake, you know, do these strategies to kind of make sure there wasn't going to be an emergency on the train, let’s just say.

TROST: And then you have to think about like power packs, right, and cell phone charging for live streaming. What was your plan there? 

DACOSTA: Oh, yeah. So, before we even started, we, kind of made a list of all of us of what we need to bring. So, of course, water, snacks, layers, in case it got chilly. But one of one of the big things, so we were live streaming as well as they were live streaming their attempt and one of the big things is power packs. So luckily, one great thing about BART, compared to many other transit systems is that even in the tunnels, you still have great cell service. I was very worried about losing cell, losing reception, throughout a lot of the trip. But for the most part, other than a few parts close to San Jose, where the self-service wasn't great, the stream rarely went out, which was absolutely amazing. Our viewers were very appreciative of that. And Guinness World Records.  I hope it will be very appreciative of that as well.

So, power packs is a big thing because we were streaming on someone's phone, so we all brought spare batteries. We all brought, you know, chargers as well. So, if we need to charge, we wouldn't have many options to. But if we need to charge for 5 or 10 minutes in the middle we could. Just everyone brought whatever they had, just to make sure we had enough stuff because the last thing we want to do was be on the final home stretch and then have the phone run out of battery. That would have been absolutely devastating. So luckily, that did not happen. We had all our batteries. I think we went through, I want to say three batteries, two or three batteries. It was a lot, but, I'm glad that we prepared well. 

TROST: Yeah, and Adam, your videos are so entertaining, and you do such a great job filming yourself, and so are other people looking at you like, what is this guy doing? And you're on the train for hours, so are you, you know, chatting with people while filming? 

ADAM: Yeah. I mean, sometimes yes, I am chatting with people, I think, and was making a bigger stir the day we did our video. He was definitely more hyped up than I was. But yeah, that's I mean, like that and thumbnails are the hardest part of making YouTube videos is just like being in public and like, having people see what you're doing and just, like, look like a bit of a clown talking to a camera. But yeah, it all goes with it. 

TROST: So, Enzo, what is next? Do you so do you think, five hours, ten minutes is beatable. 

WU: No, I don't really want to be the half empty guy, but I do think that beating five-ten would be extremely difficult and I know that there are some people in the community that have found better routes using rather unorthodox methods, such as praying that a BART train is exactly X minutes delayed and that your BART train is exactly X minutes early, and stuff like that.

So, it's a lot of like theory at this point because of course the record is extremely, optimized. And when it comes down to this, like I said, it's just back to the drawing board, just looking at every possible route, no matter how dumb or how wrong it could be, there is no wrong route when it comes to speedrunning. And eventually, if you do find that route that does beat five-ten, it will be extremely rewarding. Now, do I think it's possible? I'm not going to jinx it, but I do hope that one day five-ten is beaten by a run that is a completely new route and a new idea. 

TROST: So, wrapping things up, you've all found literally notoriety from this. I want to hear a little bit about that experience. Ameen, why don't you start us off? 

DACOSTA: Yeah. So, it really started mid journey with BART kind of posting about our run, which again, was an incredible experience and from there it kind of took off in a lot more than I think any of us were expecting. So, even as we were finishing our run, I was, fielding requests from, reporters in my, in my DMs, which was the first. We were getting our post celebration meal down in San Jose, and I was responding to a couple of reporters in my Twitter DMs, which was, a surreal experience. Yeah, it was it was absolutely amazing.

We had many newspaper interviews online publications, we had four TV interviews, which was probably the coolest experience going to an actual TV studio and being interviewed live by a reporter. It was just the type of experience where I don't know if I'll ever have that option again. I don't know if this something like this is ever going to happen to me again. I'm sure you know I'm still young there'll be a lot of amazing things I have in my life, but something that kind of goes this viral to an extent. I don't know if it's going to happen and I really embraced it. I mean, I was up on Reddit, you know, responding to comments from people being like everything for the positives and similar to Adam's YouTube comments where you have a lot of people being like, ‘this is so cool, you know, I remember taking BART.’ It was great seeing all these kind of feel good stories of other people who, who took BART and kind of shared all their positive experiences. and then there were, of course, all the few people who are like, why are you doing this, why are you choosing to spend all your time on a Saturday doing this? And just seeing of all of the reactions was a really amazing experience. 

But yeah, just it was great to just have all these opportunities to, you know, share our story kind of share why we love transit so much and really just kind of be good publicity for BART and for public transportation as a whole. I mean, we're all public transportation, you know, nerds. Especially all of the people who I did the run with. We're all studying transportation, engineering, transportation planning. We're going to be looking for careers in the future and the more kind of goodwill there is for public transportation in a selfish way hopefully means that there'll be more job opportunities for us in the future as well, but also helping out the community, helping out myself. I mean, I love taking public transportation, you know, growing up in New York City, taking public transportation, similar to Enzo everywhere, gave me that sense of kind of independence and autonomy as well. So, anything just kind of promotes public transportation and, makes it more popular. I'm all for it. I would do my part. 

TROST: Adam, what about you?

ADAM: Yeah, I just feel lucky. I feel really lucky that, like, Enzo reached out to me and included me on this kind of crazy thing that he was able to accomplish. And it's like why I say in the video, like, if you're from Stanford or even Berkeley, you should reach out to this kid because what he's done here is unbelievable. It's well outside of the school system. It's not just like excelling in sports or academics. It's like really impressive what he did and like I'm so happy with like kind of how, the story turned out. I thought it, it was just like, fortunate that I got to be a part of it and then like Ameen said, YouTube and internet comments can be pretty nasty. But to see, like the comments that I get on some of these adventure videos where people say, like, ‘I used to drive from Davis into San Francisco, every single day and it was awful and now I take the BART in from Antioch and it's awesome.’ It's amazing. Or, you know, people say, like,’ I never knew I could get to Yosemite that way. I can't see, like, I can't drive and now I have an option of taking public transit from San Francisco to Yosemite.’ Those comments, I think, are just so special to get. 

TROST: Yeah, thank you for sharing all those adventures also on YouTube. All right Enzo let's bring it home. When has this mean for you?

WU: So, I think speedrunning has really just been the pinnacle of my transit experiences so far. I mean, yes, I'm still very young and I haven't really gotten that much experience in the world of transit. It's only like my second or third year, maybe but I do think that there is a goal in mind when I did this and my goal was really just like to make something out of my passion for transit, because especially at the school I go to, it's often where students are suppressed from what they truly want to do. And it's all peer pressure, parent pressure. You know, counselors telling them, oh, do this, do that, go do this extracurricular, don't do this extracurricular and it really just made me sad to see, like, so many kids passions just die out, because there's no one supporting them. And that's also another big part, I think my, mom and dad, really supported me on this journey, especially by, chauffeuring us from, all over the place in the Bay to get down to Berryessa in time.

But I think that the main thing here is that, it's more than just a world record for me. It's more like making a statement and that transit is actually something that does matter and especially to people my age where, you know, this demographic that I target in terms of influence isn't always exposed to transit, especially here in the Bay where almost everyone I know has cars. Like I said, it's sad to see them just, like, sit at home all day just doing stuff that they really don't want to be doing that they're forced to be doing when they could be going outside on these adventures like I do. Exploring the Bay Area, getting familiar with their surroundings, learning new things that they actually want to learn, and pursuing their passions.

It’s the influence that I spread to people that are my demographic that not many other transit enthusiasts can spread influence to, because the demographic that I reach out to are teenagers my age, or people in high school, or even people younger than me. And I've personally talked to countless people about, becoming transit oriented and incorporating transit into their life. And I've also passively spread influence by obviously achieving the speedrun and a lot of people in my school by now have seen the website, the videos, it's all over. Whether you hate it or whatnot, everyone can have their own opinion, but it's something that no one can take away from me now. 

TROST: Yeah, and no one hates it.

WU: You'd be surprised. 

TROST: So I do want to give a shout out to some of the OGs of transit speedrunning for BART that we know of, it's Jim Yu, Miles Taylor, aka Miles in Transit. Hayden Miller, a good friend to all Bay Area Transit and Sabi, aka Tonsi. Those are the ones that BART knows about. So, if you have speedrun and we haven't mentioned you or you're not listed on our website, hit us up.

I want to thank my guest today, Ameen DaCosta, Enzo Wu, and Adam and thank you for listening to ‘Hidden Tracks stories from BART.’ You can listen to our podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Play, and of course on our website at BART.gov/podcasts. 

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