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Officials at Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) believe they’ve come up with a financially painless way to deliver the message to would-be riders that it’s faster and less expensive to take the train to area airports. The passenger-rail agency recently entered into joint marketing agreements with San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and Travelocity.

Under the agreements, SFO and the online travel agency will provide BART with $700,000 worth of ad space – train cars covered or “wrapped” in messages – to promote BART in exchange for BART wrapping trains with their logos. Travelocity also will provide ad space on its Web site to BART for the next six months. And beginning in June, SFO will display BART ads inside airport terminals for six weeks; then, BART and SFO again will jointly display ads during the 2006 holiday travel season.

The train wraps – BART calls them “moving messages” – are designed to increase ridership to SFO and Oakland International Airport. The message? Taking BART to the airports saves passengers time and money.

“BART is getting $700,000 worth of advertising space and it won’t cost riders or taxpayers a dime,” said BART Board President Carole Ward Allen in a prepared statement. “That said, we’re anxious to evaluate how our passengers react to this before deciding if we should do more.”