The rapid transit agency uploaded a timelapse video to Instagram showing one of its trains traveling at supersonic speeds.
Over 169,000 people ride transit lines managed by the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) agency each weekday. Though the train network has yet to regularly see pre-pandemic levels of ridership — the result of a myriad of culture shifts, including WFH initiatives and large tech companies downsizing their Bay Area office footprints — its railways are vital to everyday life.
Many of us take for granted the sheer velocity BART trains get us to and from stations. Should you need a reminder of that visceral momentum, the rapid transit agency shared a video of a train traveling through its Tranistbay Tube over the weekend, in tandem with honoring the route’s 50th birthday.
“The Transbay Tube turned 50 earlier this year,” reads an Instagram post from BART. The shared POV (Point of View) video takes we bipeds on a minute-long ride through the 3.6-mile-long tube at Interstellar-like speeds. “To celebrate we thought we’d take you through the Bay Area’s premier engineering marvel from the POV of a train operator!”
Normally, BART trains travel through the tunnel at 70mph, though can speed up to 80mph under certain optimal conditions; it takes about 150 seconds to get from one end of the underwater tunnel to the other, but the sped-up nature of the video makes it seem like the train is traveling at nearly 200mph — a speed experienced on most Japanese bullet trains.
The video also highlights the oddly soothing banality of the enveloping concrete. All 57 individual sections of the tube were constructed at Pier 70 in San Francisco, and the entire build took about four years … at a cost of over $1.35 billion in today’s money.
You can also watch the entire galactic Transitbay Tube ride on BARTube, the agency’s dedicated YouTube channel, which is also rife with content that tickles the soft, malleable, feel-good part of our brain.
