Bay Area high school students who rely heavily on public transit to get around are lobbying for a sales tax measure that would fund the financially troubled Bay Area Rapid Transit system.
Laurel Tu, a senior at the Basis Independent Silicon Valley Upper School in San Jose, regularly rides on BART. “For me, transit is a lifeline to get to school and places I need to be. Without it, I would be going outside a lot less,” he said.
Tu is not alone. In February, BART recorded over 90,000 uses of its Clipper Youth program, a transit fare card that offers lower fares for students and young riders. Some are worried that possible cutbacks to BART service will affect their ability to get to where they need to be.
BART faces a budget deficit of about $370 million. System supporters are lobbying for a sales tax measure that would be implemented in five Bay Area counties for 14 years, raising $1 billion annually for BART and other transit agencies.
The measure, which would increase the sales tax in the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara and San Mateo by a half-cent and in San Francisco by 1 cent for 14 years, needs over 186,000 signatures to qualify for the November election.
“The worst-case scenario, in which we would not pass the sales tax measure this November, would potentially mean closing 10 to 15 stations,” said Liz Ames, who serves on BART’s board of directors. The board approved in February an “Alternative Service Plan” that, absent new funding, would include service cuts, station closures, fare increases, 1,200 layoffs and other cuts.
On March 5, Tu gathered with other local high school students at the Dublin-Pleasanton BART Station, where they distributed and put up posters with information about the Connect Bay Area sales tax measure and how members of the public could sign the petition.
“Many of my family members are disabled,” said Dublin High School senior Noor Rizvi, who helped organize the event. “So this is especially a very important issue to me, because a lot of my family hasn’t been able to get around by driving.”
Nova Jayaraj and Elijah Asheghian, both juniors at Los Gatos High School, are leading initiatives in their town to push for their community members to sign the petition. They coordinated a signing event at the Downtown Campbell Farmers Market, wrote an opinion piece in their local publication, the Los Gatan, and are working to promote the initiative on their Instagram page, @lgsaratoga_youth_advocacy.
The work has presented some challenges. “You may be persuading someone two generations older than yourself, who comes with the viewpoint of ‘This won’t affect my future, so I care less,’” Jayaraj said. “So you have to get them to understand, it may not affect your future, but it may affect mine.”
Ren Fitzgerald, an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley who has worked in transit advocacy for the past five years, uses social media platforms to bring light to the issue. For Fitzgerald, transit advocacy has been an empowering way to create community.
“I’ve met some of my best friends through transit organizing,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s such a gratifying feeling to have the opportunity to come out and do it together.”
Jayaraj advocates for young people’s involvement in the movement. “I 1,000% want youth to get as involved as possible. You do not need any qualifications — the only thing you need to be is a constituent.”
Sophie Luo is a member of the class of 2027 at Irvington High School in Fremont.
Editor’s Note: This article was written for Mosaic, an independent journalism training program for high school and college students who report and photograph stories under the guidance of professional journalists.