http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/14886344.htm
Posted on Fri, Jun. 23, 2006 The good, bad and ugly - bloggers see it all on BART By Mike Adamick CONTRA COSTA TIMES Today was a bit crazy. One homeless man took out a gun from his pocket and pointed right at my head. After 3 seconds of looking at the gun, I realized that it was just a toy gun, but gosh, for 3 seconds there I thought that was the end of my life. -- bartmusings.com. * Cover your mouth, sneezer. Turn down your cell phone, slacker. Stop jumping the gates, loser. BART bloggers are watching. In a world where online diaries document everything from the mundane to the inane, it's no surprise that public transportation and all its foibles, follies, fun and fools cannot escape the current raison d'etre of cyberspace: blogging. From bartrage.com to bartmusings.com, commuters -- and BART employees themselves -- offer inside peeks into the daily grind, spotlighting both the good and the bad in the Bay Area's most talked- about transit system. "There's just so many things that happen, and I'm amazed at the different things I observe each day," says Sandy, a marketing manager and author of bartmusings.com. A 30-year-old Orinda resident and daily BART commuter to San Francisco, she didn't want her full name used because she fears her daily posts might cause too much trouble at work or on the trains. She created bartmusings.com last fall as a way to chronicle her daily travels -- and also to vent. * I had to endure a disgusting phone conversation on BART this morning. This man was talking to his girlfriend or new sweetheart on his cell phone, and was so stupidly infatuated that he did not care that the whole train was sickened by his conversation. "I love you baby, you are so beautiful", "No, you are more sexy." -- bartmusings.com. * An unspoken etiquette governs most train cars, bloggers argue. Don't talk loudly on phones. Don't pump up the volume on boomboxes. Don't peer over shoulders to read newspapers or Blackberry messages. But when the rules are broken, many riders simply sit back and take it. Blogging offers an outlet for shy people or those who don't want to risk confrontations. "I found it very therapeutic to just sit down and write a massive paragraph about whatever happened," Sandy said. "I found it funny to go back and read them. One moment you think, 'OK, this is the worst yet,' and then there's another one." Such as ... "Seeing a passenger clipping his nails on the train -- it's totally inconsiderate, nail clippings flying everywhere." So is pointing a gun at commuters. In one of her first posts, Sandy chronicled the time she hopped off BART in San Francisco and a homeless man pointed a toy gun at her. The man didn't back down until she yelled at him. Most days are far less eventful and even quiet. A perfect ride, it seems, is sitting in silent bliss with a US Weekly magazine opened to the latest celebrity gossip. "I acknowledge that BART is great, or else I wouldn't take it," she said. But when she's on the prowl for blog material, it seems there's no limit -- from threats of violence to smelly food, pee puddles in the stations to fellow commuters who read over her shoulder. "It's kind of become this little hobby," she said. "It's a little diary of my daily transportation experience and something that's really fun -- a little venting tool." She's not the only one to think so. * Question: "Is BART really a place that you could meet someone?" Answer: "Nope. Women have their man repelant(sic) on extra thick when on BART." -- bartrage.com * El Cerrito resident John Glacier, a computer network manager who rides BART to San Francisco every day, started bartrage.com as a place for riders -- and even employees -- to document their daily trips and transit system insights. While Sandy's friends and family are the main readers of bartmusings.com, bartrage.com gets 25,000 "hits," or visits, each month. "It's not about trashing BART," Glacier said. "It's a place to vent on the good and the bad experiences." Most posts dwell on the bad. In an anonymous forum, posters who call themselves BART employees offer tips on getting free rides, such as using certain elevators or simply jumping gates. Other posters take them to task for not stopping faregate scofflaws. From station appearances, delays, fare increases, rude passengers -- no taboo limits topics. While commuters grumble about BART employees, the tables are sometimes turned on the Web site: * In an eight hour day, twelve patrons lost their tickets (and had no money) and over twenty (stopped counting) owed money on their tickets to exit but reportedly also had no money. However I was not cursed at so it was a damn good day!! -- bartrage.com * Glacier's site and its blunt criticism attracted BART management, which told him to stop using BART's logo. "We have a problem when people are passing off their sites as BART's site," said Linton Johnson, spokesman for the transit agency, which runs trains through four counties and carries more than 320,000 riders a day. Glacier took down the logo. He says he just wants a community forum where people can talk about BART. "When things happen during the commute, riders don't always know the full story, and employees will come on and explain what's really going on," Glacier said. "It's good information to have." BART board director Bob Franklin of Berkeley reads the BART blogs, hoping for insight about the system's "real" workings. "It's nice people can talk anonymously because they can say what they really feel," he said. In May, when BART suffered through several days of long delays and a tunnel fire, Franklin said the blogs provided a great outlet for riders to vent -- and for BART management to assess its communications. "You always have the official version, and then the accounts from riders and employees," he said. Like bartmusings.com, bartrage.com has become a forum for people to vent BART-related frustrations. "I think people are a lot more confident to say something online they might not say in front of a person," Glacier said. "This is their chance to do it." --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TELECOM-CITIES Current searchable archives (Feb. 1, 2006 to present) at http://www.mail-archive.com/telecom-cities@forums.nyu.edu/ Old searchble archives at http://www.mail-archive.com/telecom-cities@googlegroups.com/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
