Bay Curious George and Gracie: The Robot Voices of BART
Apr 6, 2026
Jimmy Tobin, an audio engineer who asked why BART announcements sound garbled. Ana de Almeida Amaral, a reporter who traced the voices’ history and tech. They explore the origin of Lucent voices George and Gracie. They cover accessibility choices, aging proprietary systems, budget constraints, cultural fandom, and plans to pilot new public-address voices.
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Audio Engineer's Confusion At Hearing OAK
- Jimmy Tobin, an audio engineer at Google, often misheard BART announcements and couldn't recognize 'OAK' as Oakland in the Lucent voice.
- His professional background made the dated, hard-to-understand synthesis especially puzzling.
Why BART Adopted Automated Announcements
- BART added automated text-to-speech in 2000 to provide real-time announcements for visually impaired riders.
- The system, from Lucent Technologies, produced the voices named Gracie and George and read ETAs and boarding info automatically.
Voice Direction Mapping On Platforms
- The system assigned Gracie to one travel direction and George to the opposite, creating consistent voice-direction mapping across stations.
- Riders can identify direction by which voice—George or Gracie—announces the ETA.