BART Invites Blind Community to Attend Virtual Town Hall
On January 31, LightHouse staff, students from California School for the Blind, and community members attended the accessibility and safety workshop hosted by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART). This workshop, held at the 19th Street BART Station in Oakland, gave blind and low vision attendees the opportunity to navigate a stationary BART train independently, discover and explore the new accessibility features – such as Braille signage and the location of emergency call boxes – as well as learn emergency exit protocols and procedures.
BART’s Customer Access team reached out to LightHouse for insight and feedback on how to make BART travel as safe and accommodating for the blind and disabled community as possible. BART is hopeful that holding informational demonstrations like this will instill confidence in the community and increase the number of visually impaired BART patrons. LightHouse Community Outreach Coordinator, Sheri Albers, shared her thoughts:
“BART is my way to get out and be independent and self-reliant. Information is powerful, and we want to ally the fear in our community of taking BART. Once you eliminate the fear, the world is in your hands.”
To learn more about the BART Safety Workshop held on January 31, here is an article from Mass Transit.
In response to the success of the BART Safety Workshop, Director of Customer Access and Accessibility, Bob Franklin, has extended an invitation to a virtual town hall to the blind and low vision community:
“BART will host a virtual town hall for the blind and low vision community later this month as a follow up to the very successful safety orientation at 19th Street Station in January. The Town Hall is scheduled for Tuesday, February 28 from 10 AM to noon. After an introduction from General Manager Bob Powers, the BART Customer Access and Accessibility Department will describe the system’s accessible features for blind and low vision riders, seek input on some upcoming projects and then have an open forum, where we invite the public to share how we can improve service for the blind and low vision community.”
What: BART Town Hall
When: Tuesday, February 28, 10 AM to 12 PM
Zoom Details: Please visit this link to join the meeting
Or One tap mobile : +16699006833,,87551894241#
Or Telephone: +1 877 853 5257 Webinar ID: 875 5189 4241
Or an H.323/SIP room system: H.323: 162.255.37.11 (US West)
