'Screen Door' Pilot to Be Installed at Oakland BART Station

Funding from the $3.5 billion Measure RR is allowing BART to test out "screen doors" on the platform at the 12th Street BART Station in Oakland.

"BART is looking at screen doors as a long-term way to deal with overcrowding at Embarcareo [sic] and Montgomery stations," reports Roger Rudick. "The idea is with the screen doors more people can squish onto the platform without the risk of someone falling onto the tracks." 

Screen doors are in place most famously in Paris and in many other parts of Europe, Asia, and South America. But no North American transit systems (of the non-airport-people-mover variety) have adopted the technology yet. According to Rudick, screen doors in other countries are also paired with driverless trains. "It’s hard to imagine that screen doors, if they succeed, wouldn’t lead to serious calls for BART to go driverless too, at least on some lines for part of the day," writes Rudick.