All tomorrow’s BART rides: How reimagining transit can build a more equitable Bay Area

AS SOMEONE WHO was raised in the Bay, and who recently finished teaching a graduate course on “Environmental Futures” for the English Department at San José State, I was struck by the recent slate of announcements that California will ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035, that the state will invest $54 billion in climate change projects over the next five years (including $14.8 billion for transit, rail, and port projects), and that BART celebrated its 50^th anniversary on Sunday, Sept. 11^th.

My students and I spent this spring semester exploring the ways that imagination and speculation can shape our relationships with equity, each other, and the environment. And thinking about these announcements in this mode, I can’t help wondering about the opportunity costs and social disparities that are baked into any response to climate change that prioritizes rail transit and electric vehicles without also bearing down on the dynamics of equity.