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BART is hitting the runway this upcoming Transit Month to give a final send-off to our retired paper tickets that were a portal to our system for more than a 1 billion trips in the decades since BART’s inception.  

We gave fashion design students from four local schools more than 150,000 paper tickets with one condition: transform them into high fashion.   

The students from Academy of Art University, Oakland School for the Arts, City College of San Francisco, and San Francisco State University will strut their stuff and share their unique designs for a full-blown fashion show, “Project Doneway: A Farewell to BART Paper Tickets,” in the parking lot at Rockridge Station on Saturday, September 14, from 1pm to 3pm. 

The show will feature more than 30 unique garments created by nearly 80 designers. Models range in age from 4 years old to 75! The garments will be judged by local fashion luminaries Charleston Pierce, Randy Wells, and Mary Campbell. Prizes will be awarded for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place (in the high school, and college categories) and Best Use of Paper Tickets. Middle school students from Oakland School of Arts will display mini outfit designs, which the public will vote on before the show. 

There will also be a special guest appearance from Sean Porter, who inspired the event with a dress made out of BART’s blue paper tickets. 

There will be American Sign Language interepreters at the event, and we invite the deaf community to come out and enjoy! 

“We gave our legacy cars a proper send off when they were retired and our paper tickets deserve the same treatment,” said Chief Communications Officer Alicia Trost, who came up with the idea as another way to engage youth and young adults in the Bay Area and to activate BART stations through art. “Our paper ticket designs have long shown up in artistic Bay Area cultural references. This event was inspired by a dress made out of BART’s iconic blue paper tickets by Sean Porter nearly ten years ago, and I wanted to offer students who rely on BART to get around the opportunity to showcase their talents.” 
 

Download the Project Doneway flyer here. 

Project Doneway coincides with Transit Month, an annual celebration of the countless buses, trains, ferries, bicycles and people that make up the Bay Area’s vibrant transportation ecosystem. Throughout the month of September, members of the public can enjoy contests, prizes, panels, clinics, concerts, bar crawls, hikes and more across the region. Learn more about the special month hosted by San Francisco Transit Riders and Seamless Bay Area and the dozens of events happening throughout September on the Transit Month webpage.  

During Transit Month, the public is encouraged to explore the region by taking local transportation. The month is hallmarked by a Ride Contest. Every ride you take on Bay Area public transit is an entry into the Transit Month raffle. Track your rides to earn badges, win prizes, compete against friends by signing up and logging rides at ridecontest.com  

Some of the BART-related events this year include: 

• Wednesday, September 4, 5pm, at Balboa Station: Sound Tracks free concert. Featuring Congolese drummer Kiazi Malonga, performing with full percussion band.
   
• Sunday September 15, 10:45am, at Downtown Berkeley Station: Hiking by Transit: Berkeley to Orinda via Siesta Valley. This hike will head up through Claremont Canyon, taking in majestic views of the Bay, before crossing over Skyline Boulevard into Siesta Valley and descending into Orinda. BART back or stay for Ice Cream at local favorite Loard's. 
   
• Saturday, September 21, 2pm, at Pleasant Hill Station. BART and Bike to the Walnut Creek Walnut Festival:  The Festival offers live music, a carnival, a showcase of local and regional artists, builders, food, craft beer garden, and more. 
   
• Saturday, September 28, 11am, starting at Pittsburg/Bay Point Station and ending at Antioch Station: Bike East Bay Group Ride on the Delta de Anza Trail.  Explore the paved, multi-use hiking, biking and equestrian trail that connects Concord, Bay Point, Pittsburg, Antioch and Oakley.
   
• Saturday, September 28, 12pm, at Downtown Berkeley Station Plaza: Downtown Berkeley Transit Month Rally. Come rally support for and learn about public transportation in Berkeley and the Bay Area. 
   
• Sunday, September 29, 1pm, at Lake Merritt Station: The Craft of Transit: Craft Ride from Lake Merritt to San Jose Flea Market. Bring your favorite craft project to work on and make friends as we ride to the San Jose Flea Market. Gather at the Lake Merritt BART concourse at 1 p.m. then head down as a group to board the 1:27 pm rain to Berryessa / North San Jose BART Station.  RSVP here. 

Rudy Garza, BART’s new Director of the Office of Civil Rights. 

This Hispanic Heritage Month, BART is proud to celebrate employees with Hispanic and Latino heritage, who enrich our organization and the community at large. Over 15% of BART's workforce identifies as Hispanic and Latino, and we will be celebrating them throughout the month with additional stories and internal gatherings.

Hispanic Heritage Month runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

Rudy Garza and his fellow investigators from the U.S. Department of Labor were up at dawn one morning in the late 90s for a surprise inspection of crops in California’s Central Valley when they made a disturbing discovery.  
 
“We saw kids working the fields,” said Garza, BART’s new Director of the Office of Civil Rights. “There were even infants out there.” 

Garza’s team referred the children to social workers, seized the entire crop, and started an investigation that ended with significant civil penalties for the farmers, including back wages paid. 
 
His time patrolling the fields in the 1990s was a turning point for Garza, the grandchild of Central Valley farm workers himself.  

Garza is deeply influenced by his family’s journey to California. His grandmother immigrated from Mexico and met his grandfather, a veteran of World War II, in the southwest. They eventually made their way to Fresno, living in tents while working the fields. At the end of each work day, Garza’s grandfather would come home to construct the family’s future two-bedroom house with his own two hands.

“I am proud to come from an immigrant background and demonstrate that immigrants -- all immigrants, not just Hispanic immigrants -- are the backbone of this country,” he said, “where hard work and never giving up is the foundation of who you are.” 

Garza entered the military at 17. While serving, he saw the Berlin Wall fall; Germany win the World Cup; and the decommissioning of the Pershing nuclear missile arsenal as the Cold War came to a close. 

When Garza came back home, he had stints in law enforcement and even worked as a part-time high school football coach back in Fresno. But his work at the Department of Labor gave him a new sense of purpose. 

“That was really my first taste of civil rights,” he said. “I really enjoyed that, protecting the public good.” 

Rudy Garza during his time in the Army.

Garza’s career would take him on a tour across California government, always in roles ensuring complex laws were carried out to ensure the public’s rights were being upheld.  

There was his time at the Fair Political Practices Commission, investigating campaign finance violations. Then he worked to ensure incarcerated people received proper care at the California Correctional Health Care Services. That was followed by a job as a manager at the State Department of Public Health, where he made sure patients were receiving proper nursing care. Just before arriving at BART, he worked as the California Highway Patrol’s Civil Rights Officer.  

Garza is thrilled to join BART, a large, complex organization with a strong public mission.  

“We ensure that everyone has equal access to BART’s programs, our trains, the ability to contract with us,” he said of the Office of Civil Rights. 

Top: Rudy Garza with this family during his swearing in ceremony as a Fresno County Sheriff's deputy. Bottom: Rudy with his younger brother.

Garza has been impressed with the level of expertise and depth of talent at BART, not just among the Office of Civil Rights staff but across the District. 

“They're all very highly intelligent people. They see beyond the bend in the curve,” he said of his colleagues.  

Garza sees the Office of Civil Rights playing a big role in BART’s continued success and sustainability in the Bay Area.

“I am committed to ensuring we provide contracting opportunities for small and disadvantaged business enterprises, along with women- and minority-owned business enterprises to help BART continue to provide safe, reliable, and clean transit service to the residents of the communities we serve.” 

During Hispanic Heritage Month, Garza likes to return to Victor Villaseñor's epic novel Rain of Gold. It’s a tale of magical realism and a family’s saga of struggle crossing the border and making a life in the U.S. It also serves as a reminder that the Hispanic community is not a monolith. Whether you are Cuban American, Puerto Rican, Latino, Latinx, Chicano -- there is a rich mix of heritages and backgrounds that make up this diverse community and are celebrated during Hispanic Heritage Month.  

Rudy commutes by BART and Capitol Corridor from Sacramento. 

We are taking over the parking lot at El Cerrito Plaza Station for a fun family event with music, food, fun, and games. 

The Go Green! Mobility Fair will also focus on educating neighbors about the many different ways to get around without a car to reduce your carbon footprint, just in time for Earth Month. BART will soon transform the parking lot at El Cerrito Plaza into housing and potentially a library, so it is critical to start thinking about alternatives to car travel now.

At the Go Green! Mobility Fair you can:

1. Discover plans to build housing at El Cerrito Plaza and North Berkeley BART
2. Enjoy music, food, fun and games for all ages
3. Test ride e-bikes
4. Learn about discounts for environmentally friendly transportation options

Bike East Bay will be offering a free Family Cycling Workshop at the fair. Registration is required — sign up here! 

The GO GREEN! Mobility fair is sponsored by the City of El Cerrito,  ECRA Walk and Roll, City of Berkeley, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), and Bike East Bay. For more information about the GO GREEN! Mobility Fair, click here.

We need volunteers for this exciting event! If you are interested in volunteering, please sign up here.

When: Saturday, April 26, 11AM–3PM

Where: El Cerrito Plaza BART Northeast Parking Lot (515 Richmond St.)

On Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023, BART is launching a call for riders’ BART stories. We want to hear what BART means to you and gain insight into how we can continue to improve.  

Do you have a favorite BART memory? Have you met a dear friend or life partner aboard a train? Did you take BART to a seminal life event? Have you been sitting on a unique idea to improve the system? We’d like to hear it.  

To answer our questions, visit bart.gov/YourStory. We may contact you to learn more about your BART experience for future articles and communications (but only if you give us permission). You have the option to remain anonymous or share select information. Once you've answered the questions, you can enter a drawing to win one of three $100 e-gift cards. We’ll be sharing these stories in the coming months. 

This call for stories is one aspect of our Role in the Region Study, which provides insight into emerging trends and outlines BART’s benefits to the Bay Area through illustrative data, personal narratives, and factsheets, culminating in a comprehensive final report. The final report is anticipated to be completed in Spring 2024. You can keep up to date with the project and explore factsheets at bart.gov/RoleintheRegion.  

These materials highlight BART’s essential role in the region’s success as well as the compelling need for the continued funding and support of this essential transportation system. This study further develops the analyses and values illustrated in BART’s Transit Saves campaign and builds upon the findings from the 2016 Role in the Region Study.  

This Transit Month, ride BART and tell us what it means to you!  

Answer the questions and share your story at bart.gov/YourStory.