California Transit Officials Say Lingering ‘Rotting Corpse’ Smell Is Nothing to Be Concerned About

For months now, commuters taking Bay Area Rapid Transit trains from the East Bay to San Francisco have been complaining online about an offensive odor that some riders have likened to the smell of death.

According to Reddit posts going back at least two months, the smell is detectable in Oakland, between the Lake Merritt BART station on Oak Street and the 12th Street BART stop on Broadway.

BART riders have been consulting one another on Reddit, wanting to know if they were the only ones picking up on the objectionable scent, wondering what the source of the pungent odor could be.

Many argue the smell is coming from a "rotting corpse" — likely belonging to a critter who crawled across the BART tracks at an inopportune time.

Others say it's more of a "burning" or "chemical" smell while still others compare it to Corn Nuts, the crunchy corn snack.

The mystery goes unsolved, but perhaps not for long. The smell is starting to become the subject of local news articles, like the one published to the San Francisco Standard website last week.

Reporters for the Standard recently rode the BART, and they, too, came upon the smelly stretch of track. One of them said the stench reminded them of burning rubber, while the other said it smelled more like rotting food.

A BART spokesperson, Alicia Trost, told the Standard the transit agency's aware of the funk, and while she couldn't comment on the smell's source or cause, she claimed the odor poses no threat to riders.

Trost said that safety crews haven't noticed anything unusual in the area where the smell has been reported. "Some staff have observed the smell, and some have not," she explained.

"Our system safety department has been on-site and reported nothing that caused them concern."