BART, An Overpriced Nazi Babysitter

Many of my early childhood memories consist of constantly being barked at by adults even though I was trying to play it safe.

There was the time I gave this girl a haircut at my babysitters, the time I poured dishwater on my mom as a playful surprise, and the time I got my babysitters panties in a bunch for not eating my spaghetti in the proper way to name just a few incidents.

Friday was sort of like being 5 or 6 years old all over again when I tried to use Bay Area Rapid Transit(BART) for the first time.

As I made my way down to MacArthur BART a huge wall appeared consisting of ticket gates and these strange looking metal boxes that take your money. At $1.65 for a 1 way to East Oakland and 1.80 from Ashby, I was going to have to tell my prospective housemate that even though her couch was $250/mo it'd be cheaper to just avoid BART alltogether and live within biking distance from where I volunteer in North Oakland and Berkeley.

After feeding the evil robot a $5 bill (cause I didn't have change and can you get change from these machines?), I made my way down to the Coliseum station. There, a bewildered me was stopped and told by a gate monitor that I need to put my bike on the side area, go through the gate, then pick it up on the side. Whatever.

Later I thought I was just being a regular pedestrian going up the escalator when I was flagged over by some rich cop who asked me for id. He quickly contacted HQ with the news story: He had caught someone with a bicycle on the escalators, and proceeded to read off my passport info. Gosh, what a thug! Well, I got away with it in LA and didn't even cause any chaos. Not in this town. Luckily, since this claustrophobic hobo didn't have a record there was no fine or worse. I was just given a manual on BART bicycle rules.

Then on my return trip I set off a gate alarm again cause I didn't have the proper amount of change on the card I used. So I bought another $5 card. Yet when I went to the gate monitor booth a robot explained that I can not get change back for the money I didn't use on the ticket (even though I'd been refunded a couple hours previous by an employee at Coliseum). Instead she said that what I can do is use the ticket again for another ride. Umm, no thanks. I'll donate or sell my cards to someone who can afford to use BART.

Wouldn't it be a lot more efficient & easier for most everyone if public transportation was like a socialist sidewalk: fully paid for by progressive taxes? If after the revolution, the ticket machines, herd gates and cattle prodders still exist, we'll need to get some dynamite for the coming days. Haul their shit to a museum.