Is the new BART Participation Plan designed to better get BART's message out, or to listen to the communities it serves and let their views have impact?  Seems like a PR wash to me.

Yesterday, BART released the first draft of their Public Participation Plan (PPP), one of several steps they have promised the FTA to engage in in order to correct their Title VI Civil Rights violations, brought to light during the Oakland Airport Connector process.  The new Public Participation Plan outlines many pages of realizations BART gathered from numerous interviews, meetings and surveys, including the awareness: "We have learned that building bridges and trust among  people who have historically felt excluded from real institutional decision making is a  journey that will take time and a redoubled commitment from all of the staff at BART. "

The BART Public Participation Plan published this week outlines new ways to improve BART's communications with low-income people, people with limited English proficiency, and people in neighborhoods across the Bay area.

Among the tactics they recognize now are effective in communicating are:

• Holding meetings in conjunction with community based organizations (over 200 people showed up at a meeting with the Lao Family Foundation)
• Holding meetings in the evening when working people can attend
• Going out into the community to meet people and talk

The new BART report also recognizes the value of community advisory groups in various neighborhoods as a means to share their views with the BART Board.

However, it's hard not to read this first draft and not feel like the main point of it is to demonstrate legally-mandated compliance in making adjustments to BART's Title 1 compliance.

As outlined in the February 2010 SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT DISTRICT TITLE VI CORRECTIVE ACTION PLAN, establishing and implementing a Public Participation Plan and changing the way BART has contact with people who have limited English proficency are cornerstones of this plan. 

Among the goals of the plan, as stated in the Correctve Action document is this:
"Establish partnerships/collaboration and work closely with community-based organizations that serve LEP populations; contact community-based organizations that BART has worked with in the past."

However, in all these documents, I don't see anything that articulates BART's intention to actually listen to the feedback all this improved communication is going to offer.

I also don't see any changes in how the BART governance is structured. This fact doesn't gives me confidence ridership or communities are going to get to have any actual impact at BART because of this plan beyond better marketing and communications capabilities.

Is this just a Talk to the Hand communications gloss (now in more languages), or is it really a step toward letting community needs guide this powerful institution?

The improved Public Participation plan is definitely a step in fulfilling their stated goals to the FTA, but I don't feel it does enough.

Where is the language from BART that demonstrates HOW they are going to review and process the public input they are going to solicit?

Where do they describe how their Board is going to be advised by this information?

It's not enough to put the appearance of collecting information in place, BART needs to demonstrate HOW they are going to use what they collect.

In addition, why doesn't BART take the next step and actually invite someone from the community to join their Board of Directors? 

Why can't BART add a community member from a low-income community on the Board as a citizen member?

That would provide more than a PR gloss on BART actually changing how they make decisions.

 I'd like BART to respond to these suggestions and share how they are going to use the information they are gathering to improve their decision-making--how about that?

Oakland Local has published the Public Participation Plan and the BART Title IV Corrective Action plan so everyone can easily read them.  We will be digging deeper into these documents and the issues they raise, as well as asking other groups to comment, including Urban Habitat and Public Advocates, who filed the original FTA complaints. We'd also welcome responses from BART.

But what do you think? Does this plan go far enough? What other accountability does BART need to demonstrate? We welcome your thoughts in the comments or in your own op-ed post--email editor@oaklandlocal.com if you need help getting that up here.

Bart Ppp Draft Rev7

Title VI Corrective Action Plan