Our campaign to put riders first has been on an incredible winning streak! First we won the endorsement of the Building & Construction Trades Council of Alameda County. Next we earned the support of the Alameda County Carpenters Local 713. Then we received word the Metropolitan-Greater Oakland Democratic Club endorsed our campaign. And finally, last Friday, while reading through the Oakland Tribune’s editorial page we came across the big bold headline: “Re-elect Raburn to BART Board.”

While I’m honored to win every one of these endorsements, the fact is, endorsements don’t win elections, voters do. And if there’s one lesson we've learned in this campaign, it’s that when voters hear our message, and learn about my accomplishments while serving them on the BART board, they support our campaign.

In other words, we need your help getting our message out. There are all kinds of ways you can do that, so whatever suits you, suits us.

Please consider volunteering for any of the following activities: display or deliver campaign signs, make calls, host a house party, walk precincts, or pass out flyers at a BART station or local “hot spot.”

Absentee ballots go out the first week of October - and over 60 percent of Oakland voters now vote by mail. That gives us just over two weeks to inform these potential supporters that we need to keep a transportation expert on the BART Board who understand how transit works and knows how to make it better.

I need your help to ensure every voter in District Four is provided the information they need to make an informed choice for BART Board. Please consider volunteering today!

Thanks for your support!

Robert

Help us raise the resources necessary to win in November. Please join with the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters of the East Bay by contributing $25, $100, $1000 or more today!

CAN YOU SPOT THE FIVE DIFFERENCES SINCE 2010?

Some passengers see the renovations in the aging cars and think they are new cars. Not! The new cars will be identified by three doors. They will allow BART to provide longer and more frequent trains to comfortably accommodate the record number of riders taking BART. Meanwhile, the following changes will help BART get to the arrival of the new cars in 2017:

A) Strap hangers

B) Easy to clean vinyl seat covers (replacement of fabric covers to be completed in 2014)

C) Easy to clean floor (replacement of floorboards and carpet to be completed in 2015)

D) Removal of “wind screens” to reduce crowding/blocking next to car doors.

E) Larger signs to designate bike space and senior seating areas.

EARLY EARTHQUAKE WARNING ON BART SYSTEM 

BART Operations Control Center

Had BART trains been running on early Sunday morning during the Magnitude 6.0 American Canyon quake (3:20am on August 24), they would have been automatically slowed or stopped. Following the Fukushima earthquake disaster (March 11, 2011) I commented at the Board meeting that Japan’s renowned high-speed trains received an earthquake warning that protected passengers on the Shinkashen trains and kept them from derailing when the Magnitude 9.0 quake hit.

Beginning in 2012 BART has teamed up with the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory (BSL) and other institutions in using an earthquake early warning system to slow down the trains before the shaking actually starts. The BART system has been equipped with sensors connected to BART’s Operations Control Center. A signal is automatically sent to each train to slow to 26 miles-per-hour or less.