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Take BART to SF HolidayFest events
Take BART to the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau's new HolidayFest program and enjoy events and festivities found only in San Francisco, only for the holidays. Winter events and festivities in San Francisco include the new holiday favorite, Irving Berlin's "White Christmas," playing at the Orpheum
"Good vibes on the train": BART employee takes BART to wedding ceremony at San Francisco City Hall
Michelle Robertson and her husband, Orion, at 19th St Oakland station. Even before joining BART, Michelle Robertson thought it was a no-brainer to take a train to her wedding ceremony. Robertson, the new Senior Marketing Representative at the Communications Department, wanted to avoid any and all parking and
National Engineers Week 2022: BART engineers go the distance to innovate BART and prioritize rider safety
In celebration of National Engineers Week from February 21-26, 2022, BART Communications interviewed four engineering teams working on a project which is and will significantly improve BART. BART has hundreds of engineers working to improve the system and the rider experience mostly hidden from public view
Take BART to the Black and White Ball
There will be dancing in the streets of San Francisco’s Civic Center this weekend on Saturday, May 22, just steps from the Civic Center BART station. Bay Area music lovers will be donning their finest and coming out for The San Francisco Symphony’s Black & White Ball. The evening begins with a concert
BART Statement on Disability Access Lawsuit
“The Disability Rights Advocates’ lawsuit filed today touches on issues that go directly to the heart of BART’s core mission statement: to provide seamless mobility for people—those with disabilities and otherwise—across the Bay Area. We share in their endeavor to ensure accessible public services, and
BART announces tentative agreement with unions
Service to resume at 4 am, Tues., Oct. 22 BART General Manager Grace Crunican issued the following statement after BART and its two largest unions reached a tentative agreement on labor contracts, which will now be presented to employees for a ratification vote: “We are pleased to announce that we have
BART responds to latest union allegations
BART spokesman Rick Rice issued the following statement: "We are nine days away from a critical deadline that will impact every person who travels in the Bay Area. We cannot avert another strike if the Unions continue to wrongfully bash the District and its bargaining team with false attacks. The issue
BART PD gains prestigious accreditation
The BART Police Department has officially been accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA). BART PD is now the 17th internationally accredited agency in California. Fewer than 6% of law enforcement agencies in the nation are accredited through CALEA. “This is a highly
BART Connects: BART takes a second-year college student to her dream school
Kassandra Santillan pictured at Daly City Station, where she disembarks to get to her classes at SFSU.
Do you have a favorite BART memory or story to share? Email a short summary to BART Storyteller Michelle Robertson at [email protected], and she may follow up to schedule an interview.
In August, Kassandra Santillan started her second year at San Francisco State University, her dream college where she studies microbiology, her dream major. If she couldn’t take BART to school, she wouldn’t be able to attend.
“BART made it happen for me,” she said. “I can’t afford to live near campus, so I’d probably be at a community college instead.”
Santillan is the first person in her immediate family to attend college. She’s always aspired to study at SFSU because that's where her aunt went, and her aunt was one of the only people she knew who graduated from college.
Santillan lives in East Oakland, where she grew up. She doesn’t currently have access to a car, so she takes BART twice a day, five days a week to school. Before starting at SFSU, she’d never really used the system.
“We didn’t travel far away when I was young,” she said. “The only other time I’d use BART was for field trips to San Francisco."
Growing up, Santillan often “felt really suffocated.” She’d hear stories of people going to Union Square at Christmastime or the mall at Powell Street, but “it wasn’t accessible to me.”
“I never really got out much before,” she said. “BART opened the Bay to me. I had no idea it was so easy to get to all these great places.” Now, she takes BART pretty much everywhere. In addition to school, she’ll ride the train to the mall in Milpitas or the Embarcadero, where she walks the waterfront to Pier 39 and back.
Santillan treasures her time on the train. She’ll do some drawing, finish up assignments, and sometimes just chill out.
“Every day is so hectic as a college student,” she said. “Commuting is my time to unwind.”
When she graduates, Santillan wants to be a clinical lab scientist. She’s wanted to be a scientist since meeting one in elementary school during career day.
“I remember at the end of the day they asked everyone what they wanted to be when they grew up. Most of them said teacher or a doctor,” she said. “I was one of the few who wanted to be a scientist.”
“It’s pretty crazy to be studying in the field now,” she said. “It feels unreal sometimes. I know a lot of people who don’t get this opportunity.”
Sometimes, she has to remind herself: “I’m really here, and I’m really doing this thing I’ve been trying to do all my life.”
About the BART Connects Storytelling Series
The BART Connects storytelling series was launched in 2023 to showcase the real people who ride and rely on BART and illustrate the manifold ways the system affects their lives. You can follow the ongoing series at bart.gov/news.
The series grew out of BART's Role in the Region Study, which demonstrates BART’s importance to the Bay Area’s mobility, cultural diversity, environmental and economic sustainability. We conducted a call for stories to hear from our riders and understand what BART means to them. The call was publicized on our website, social media, email blasts, and flyering at stations. More than 300 riders responded, and a selection of respondents who opted-in were interviewed for the BART Connects series.