BART and other Bay Area transit agencies face a budget deficit of $370 million. This November, tax Measure RTM on Bay Area ballots could help BART avoid having to make significant service cuts and shutdowns.
In August, BART averaged over 500,000 weekly riders. For young people among these tens of thousands of riders that the agency serves daily, it’s essential to our mobility when we don’t have better options.
As a teenager growing up in Fremont, I’ve experienced firsthand how transit can be an empowering way for young people to get around.
Fremont is a sprawling suburban city where most people drive as their main mode of transportation. My city consists of large strip malls, low-density neighborhoods and the long, major roads that connect them. It makes walking to places difficult, and before I got my driver’s license, this frustrated me.
Every time I needed to stay for an event after school, or wanted to go out with a friend on the weekends, I’d have to ask my parents for a ride. Often they’d have their own priorities and wouldn’t be able to drive me.
When I wanted to attend a journalism conference in San Francisco last October, it would have been difficult for my parents to drive me, wait during the event and then take the long commute back — so I decided to try taking transit instead.
I remember stepping onto the BART platform, tracing the lines on the map, and searching for the station I would have to get off at. I looked back at my phone, anxiously triple-checking Google Maps to make sure I was preparing to get onto the right train. Once I got on the train, I stayed vigilant and hyper-aware of my surroundings.
And then I looked out my window, letting myself breathe out a bit. I watched as the train passed by the rolling East Bay hills, the ships in the Oakland Port and neighborhoods I had never seen before. As I learned to make sense of the train system map and observe the cities and regions the train went past, I realized how little I actually knew about the Bay Area, despite living here my whole life.
Since then, BART has become my regular mode of transportation when I venture farther from my city. It’s also made me more aware of how the other people in my community view public transportation.
Public transit safety
Because Fremont is so car-centered, I find that many of my classmates don’t take public transit — they opt to get their licenses early or continue relying on parents to give them rides. Parents express safety concerns about letting teenagers ride BART by themselves.
That’s valid and understandable. BART and other transit agencies should take steps to protect their riders from harassment and crime — as a young woman, I make it a point to constantly survey my surroundings when I’m on the train by myself.
But the reality is, young people can’t be sheltered from the unpredictable realities of public spaces altogether. What happens when we head off to college or move out on our own, and suddenly need to learn to navigate new campuses, different environments, bus and subway systems and unfamiliar streets? Learning to take BART has taught me to be more independent, rely on my instincts and navigate the unfamiliar on my own.
Concerns about BART’s issues aren’t a reason to stigmatize and overlook public transit altogether. We should be looking toward ways that this system can be made safer and more efficient, especially for its young riders who will come to rely on transportation infrastructure the most in the future.
To young voters this November — I ask that you reconsider your outlook on transit. We shouldn’t just give up on Bay Area transit systems because of their faults, but instead, look toward ways they can be reorganized to serve all of their riders better.
Sophie Luo is a member of the class of 2027 at Irvington High School in Fremont.
Editor’s note: This story is part of the annual Mosaic Journalism Program for Bay Area high school students, an intensive course in journalism. Students in the program report and photograph stories under the guidance of professional journalists.
Editor’s note: This story is part of the annual Mosaic Journalism Program for Bay Area high school students, an intensive course in journalism. Students in the program report and photograph stories under the guidance of professional journalists.