Submitted by Josh, who says:

Hey there! Curious about your thoughts on what looks like BART’s decision to not show its new eBART line as a separate line.

If you haven’t been following it – instead of extending BART from its northeast terminus at Pittsburg/Bay Point, it instead built a two-station extension built to standard railroad gauge (BART uses Indian gauge) and running light rail DMUs. There’s a separate transfer platform at Pittsburg/Bay Point where you change from the DMU to a standard BART train, and in theory the transfers should always be timed so that you can just walk across the platform to switch trains immediately upon arrival.

I expected this line to be shown on maps sort of like Boston does with the Ashmont-Mattapan line – same color as the regular line but an indication of a discontinuity – but instead it seems they’re just showing it as a part of the regular line. Curious on your thought on this! My immediate reaction was that it’s smoothing over a sort of hack that allowed them to extend the line for cheaper at the cost of less than fully integrated service, and would cause confusion for people who don’t know the full story and who board the yellow line expecting a one-seat ride to Antioch. On the other hand, I’m not sure if there’s any decision a rider would make based on this map that would be incorrect. Since displays at BART stations show final destinations when trains arrive, maybe someone won’t get on a Pittsburg/Bay Point train because they’ll be waiting for an Antioch-bound train that never comes?

Transit Maps says:

I’ve talked about this on Twitter a couple of times, but I’ll say it again: I don’t like it. 

My personal opinion is that if you make your customers physically get up, leave a train, cross a platform and board another train to continue their journey, then you need to show that on your map, even if only to help people with accessibility needs understand what they’re in for at Pittsburg/Bay Point. Note also that transfers there are only timed in the peak travel direction. Riders traveling the opposite way can be waiting up to eight minutes, according to BART’s FAQ.

Showing that discontinuity in the route could be as simple as butting two “terminus bars” up to each other at Pittsburg/Bay Point, as I’ve quickly mocked up in the right image above.

(Side note: why is the only map on the BART website a tiny 500×500 pixel PNG? That’s not even high enough resolution to work on my phone screen, let alone my Retina Display iMac!)

BART obviously has its reasons for deciding to show the trip as a seamless journey – I believe signage has also been altered to show Antioch as the “end of the line” – but I feel it’s a little bit disingenuous to do so. It’s not a “one seat ride” from Millbrae or SFO to Antioch, no matter how much they try to sell it as one.