BART Redoubles Effort To Remove Urine Smell From Elevators
OAKLAND (KCBS) – For years, BART riders have complained about the smell of urine in station elevators. The transit agency is redoubling its efforts to remove the stench, but it won't happen overnight.
BART has restrooms in its stations but you'd be hard pressed to find one that's open. So for some people the next best thing is the elevator.
"In cases where there is a restroom that's open, right above our station in public, and it's still happening," BART spokesperson Alicia Trost told KCBS. "So we don't believe it's necessarily because some of our restrooms are closed, though of course that may play a role. This is a larger issue of homelessness, mental health."
Trost said crews are ripping out elevator floors in the problem stations and putting in urine- resistant floors sealed with epoxy. It's a never-ending issue.
"Every day, elevators are cleaned by our workers. We would need a full-time attendant, watching every elevator to prevent this from happening as frequently as we're seeing it," Trost said.
At the Civic Center station, BART is experimenting with a bacteria-killing enzyme cleaner on the elevator shift that removes any smell that may rise up.
