Project Description

This innovative project uses inexpensive, off-the-shelf technologies to provide accessible information about the floor plans and surroundings of all stations in the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system. The San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, in collaboration with the Smith Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, is developing these accessible BART station maps as part of a project to provide improved mobility management and travel planning tools for people with a wide range of visual abilities. Although there have been other efforts to produce tactile maps of transit facilities, this pilot project leads the way for other regional transit systems interested in providing audio/tactile and large-print tools to facilitate travel planning and wayfinding within stations and other transit facilities.