This isn't a policy failure. BART doesn't need a new committee or a six-figure consultant to study door-blocking dynamics. This is a social contract failure — one that plays out dozens of times a day on every line in the system.

The cousin of the door-blocker is, of course, the door-rusher: the person who tries to shove onto the car before anyone has gotten off, as if the train is going to spontaneously depart the millisecond the doors open. BART literally plays an announcement — "please stand aside so that we can leave the car before you try to get on" — and yet here we are.

As one Bay Area commuter put it, "The Bay Area is the least spatially aware civilization known to humankind." Hard to argue. Another local summed it up more bluntly: "I just assume they want my shoulder to slam into them."

Some riders who've lived in cities with real transit culture — Tokyo, New York, London — are baffled. One transplant suggested painting line-up marks on platforms to guide people to the sides of the doors rather than dead center. It works brilliantly in Asia. But let's be honest: if people can't follow a PA announcement they hear twelve times a ride, floor decals aren't going to save us.

This is a small thing, but small things compound. Every door-blocker adds seconds to dwell times, which adds minutes to commutes, which adds up across millions of annual rides. BART already struggles with on-time performance and ridership recovery — it doesn't need its own passengers making things worse.

No government program can fix a lack of basic spatial awareness. This one's on us. Step to the side. Move to the center. Let people off first. It's not complicated. It's just courtesy — a resource apparently in shorter supply than affordable housing in this city.