BART Fleet of the Future: North Berkeley to MacArthur

This is part 2 of my experience on board BART's newest trains from Bombardier, covering from North Berkeley to MacArthur in Oakland.

[@TurkishElevators]

I really like the voice of the anouncements. Very similar to Toronto's subway. It sounds super futuristic! The "now boarding" anouncement is kinda unnecessary in my opinion though.

[@mauidano13]

Turkish Elevators could be for blind people

[@adventurem8887]

Is that the Savannah voice from Siri? It seems like anything new today is now being used with Siri voices or any other apple technology, even though these trains are still very unique for BART.

[@kevinhoward9593]

Only in the US do you need signs in 25 different languages. in other countries if you don't speak or know the language they don't have an English translation. They need to do that here. Force people to learn the National Language. our Constitution doesn't say "Para aqua sequea por vavor delle donda es el feuego." In Quebec is law that all store signs be in French. if you don't know how to read it tough shit. Those cars aren't much quieter then the old ones.

[@wishfulanthony]

Kevin Howard take note however that there is NO mandate of a national language anywhere in the US Constitution. Therefore, there is no statutory requirement that all signs must be in English. Instead, look at the predominant languages found in a community (in this case, a transit district) and accommodate all those languages in one go, all paid for by their respective governments as public service. Examples include: - San Francisco: English, Spanish, Chinese (Mandarin), and Filipino (Tagalog) are the city's "official" languages since those have the most speakers citywide - San José: English, Spanish, and Vietnamese can be found all over the place, especially with Santa Clara VTA - Los Angeles: multilingual to a point that you can ask questions or seek advice in nearly every language you're able to speak

[@kevinhoward9593]

That's my point. Did you know in order to enter the Country from Elis Island you had to prove you could speak, read and write English by law? They need to restore that law. The founding fathers would be turning in their grave if they knew 60-70% of the US cant even do anything with English but look at it funny.

[@wishfulanthony]

Kevin Howard I don't think that was a requirement when Ellis Island (NY) and Angel Island (CA) operated as immigration ports of entry for migrants from all over the world. The only reason why English is mandated as the de facto language is because the government wants to unify all political and legislative functions, but it does not discount the reality that we are a multicultural and diverse nation. So, I don't think your argument of English-only will hold; instead, recognize the fact that through the American Community Survey (regularly produced by the US Census), we actually are a nation full of people from various backgrounds, speaking hundreds of languages, believing in different things... and we are just a small subset of a larger human race.

[@icald]

Oml shut your ass up, look up videos of trains in Japan, Korea, they have english in their announcements and signage. Spanish is not the national language, nor is English. BART / MUNI does general announcements (not stop announcements) in English, Mandarin (or some other language) and Spanish. That is what languages are commonly found here specifically, drive East of the bay and English and Spanish is what you'll find. Puerto Rico? Spanish mainly with English mentioned. Tough shit if you're uncultured and are crying because you can't read part of a sign.