Here’s how many short stories BART has dispensed so far

Story dispensers are currently located at Fruitvale, Richmond, Pleasant Hill, and Balboa Park stations.

Since January 2021, BART has offered riders at select stations a side of literature with their commute. In partnership with Short Édition, BART’s Short Story Dispensers distribute bite-size tales that can be read in one-, three-, or five-minute sittings – about the time it takes for your train to arrive at the station.

As Edgar Allan Poe once said, “If any literary work is too long to be read in one sitting, we must be content to dispense with the immensely important effect derivable from unity of impression.” In other words, keep things short to pack the maximum punch. That’s the goal of the French company Short Édition, which has more than 300 dispensers around the world that print in a variety of languages.

Currently located at Balboa Park, Fruitvale, Pleasant Hill and Richmond stations, the Short Story Dispensers – like vending machines for words – are entirely free to use. The stories are printed on eco-friendly, recyclable paper that ejects from the machine sans touch; you simply hover your finger over your desired button and a fully formed story appears.

The dispensers, which are suitable for all ages, are funded by BART’s Communications Department and Art Program. The goal of the latter, according to Art Program Manager Jennifer Easton, “is to connect with the community, whether it’s the neighborhood next to a station or, more broadly, the region, and to make the BART experience more dynamic.”

The Art Program predominantly focused on the visual arts at first, but “we knew we wanted to do literary arts, sound, and dance,” Easton said. These art forms have manifested in a variety of ways at BART, including the addition of short story dispensers at stations and BART’s Sound Tracks, a free outdoor music series.  

The short story dispensers in particular provided a “really interesting opportunity” to get something into people’s hands while waiting for a train at a station, Easton said.

“What pushed us to really move this project forward is that the Bay Area has such a wealth of bookstores, readers, and writers,” she added.

Easton explained that from the start, BART intended to find a way to get local writers into the dispensers. This resulted in BART launching its first-ever short story contest, BART Lines, in June. The contest is open for submissions until June 30. To learn more – and submit your work – visit the official submissions page.

Now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for … How many stories have been dispensed thus far?

Since January 2021, when BART installed the machines (Balboa Station didn’t receive a machine until the end of April 2021), 17,198 stories have been dispensed. That’s thousands of minutes of literature consumed.

Which station bestowed the highest number of stories, as of time of writing? That distinction goes to Richmond Station, which has delivered 6,104 stories since installation. Richmond is followed closely behind by Fruitvale, which distributed 4,808 stories, and the latecomer Balboa Park Station, at 3,262 stories. Pleasant Hill Station isn’t far behind at 2,922 stories dispensed.

The most popular length thus far is the five-minute reads, at about 40% of total dispensed stories, followed by one-minute reads at 36.6%.

We should note: Just because a station has dispensed more stories than others doesn’t necessarily mean its riders are more avid readers. Story dispensing figures can be impacted by the varying number of riders that pass through each station every day, as well as the location of the dispenser.

BART is currently exploring adding more dispensers to our portfolio. Stay tuned for updates.