BART Unveils Mascot-Covered Train Car
- BART wrapped one train car in mascots as a test to generate revenue and rider goodwill. - The eye-catching car is expected to spark smiles, waves, and photos during a limited pilot. - Part of efforts to diversify revenue amid ridership shifts; officials hope the novelty boosts engagement (patch.com).
Bay Area Rapid Transit has put a bright blue train car covered in dancing BARTy mascots into service as a live test of full-car advertising. (bart.gov) BART said the wrapped car began roaming the system on Monday, April 20, and uses one of its newer Fleet of the Future cars rather than the agency’s retired legacy fleet. (bart.gov) The agency said the design is meant to draw smiles, waves and photos, but the business purpose is to see whether wraps on newer cars can be sold as paid ads. (bart.gov) BART is testing the idea while facing what it calls a fiscal cliff. In a January 2025 fact sheet, the agency said emergency funds run out in 2026 and structural deficits are projected at $375 million to more than $400 million a year starting in fiscal 2027. (bart.gov) That gap opened after ridership patterns changed. A regional presentation this spring said weekday recovery still lags pre-pandemic levels because downtown commute trips have been hit by remote work, even as overall ridership keeps growing year over year. (sfcta.org) BART has leaned on mascots before as a rider-engagement tool. The agency introduced its anime-style mascots in 2023 after an open call in 2022 drew nearly 500 submissions from California artists. (bart.gov) BART said those mascots were modeled in part on transit systems in Japan and Taiwan, where character branding is used to connect with riders, especially younger ones. (bart.gov) The wrapped car also revives an older ad format. Streetsblog noted that BART sold train-car wraps on its previous fleet, and the new pilot checks whether the same approach can work on the current trains. (sf.streetsblog.org) Ridership has improved, but not enough to erase the budget problem. BART officials said January 2026 logged nearly 4.6 million paid exits, up 10.7% from January 2025, with average weekday ridership at 182,487 trips. (nbcbayarea.com) For now, the mascot car is both ad test and moving billboard for BART itself. If riders keep spotting it and advertisers show interest, the agency has signaled that more wrapped cars could become part of its revenue mix. (bart.gov)
