Your Highness! I LOVE your column.

Please help me submit the following comments to BART regarding its new car design. (They are soliciting comments on the design of the 700 new BART cars that will cost $3.4 BILLION and be integrated into the system over the next 20 years The BART e-mail address that I have didn’t work. Ah well.)
* On any new car design, there MUST be space to put oversize stuff. Bikes, strollers, luggage. Removing seats is OK. I’m tired of tripping over other people’s luggage.
* I don’t want to see a special bike car at the end of the train. Distribute bikes in cars throughout the train.
* I’ve seen drawings of certain potential designs that have VERY narrow aisles at each end of the car that will probably make it VERY difficult for pedestrians to walk between cars. Hey BART! Think about it! We must design the new cars so that heavily encumbered firemen can walk the length of the train in an emergency and so that passengers (following the directions of staff) can evacuate the train by walking between cars to a safe (open) door to exit to a safe place.
* Think about “unit” trains with an open “turntable” area between cars. This would mean that the new cars would not be compatible with the old cars so during the transition, trains would have to consist of all old cars or all new cars, but using the turntable area between cars for passenger space would significantly increase the rush-hour carrying capacity of the train.