BART Connects: This rider uses their BART System Map tattoo to give directions
Sam Johnson sports a tattoo of the BART system map on their bicep.
When Sam Johnson sees someone lost in a BART station, they roll up their sleeve and show them a bicep.
Etched five layers deep into the epidermis of Sam’s left arm is a tattoo of the BART System Map. It’s Sam’s first and only tattoo, and in a pinch, it comes in handy.
“I’ve helped a bunch of people figure out where to go,” Sam said. “I point to my arm and say, ‘We’re here in Concord, you’re going to transfer to this station, then ride along here, and get off at this station.’”
It’s a practical tattoo but also a piece of art, an homage to the Bay, a love letter to transit. And let’s be honest, said Sam, “It looks good on me.”
Sam grew up in El Cerrito and now lives in Concord, where they’re studying technical theater at Diablo Valley College. Sam still remembers being six years old and waiting for their Youth Clipper card to arrive in the mail. They still have the card – a memento of BART rides past and how much they’ve grown.
Sam took BART all the time as a kid with their mom and brother and then on their own when they didn’t have a driver’s license and just wanted to get out.
“Sometimes things in my house were not super fun and awesome,” they said. “Being able to get on BART and go somewhere was comforting.”
Sam felt safe in a BART station, where they knew a train would never fail to arrive.
“Every time I saw the train pulling into El Cerrito, felt the wind blowing, the sound of it on the tracks, I felt at home,” they said.
BART is “the veins of the region" and a gateway to community for Sam. When they were growing up, they were pretty shy and introverted. BART and the requisite interactions with strangers on trains "gave me the ability to be myself.”
Sam Johnson shows off their tattoo.
“Without BART, I would be less outgoing, less enthusiastic, less able to adapt to new situations,” they said.
Sam especially appreciates that on the train, they get a brief glimpse into others’ daily lives as well as access to a “shared sense of humanity."
“We may be in different worlds, but we’re all here together,” Sam said of their fellow passengers. “When I’m with people on the train, I always think to myself, ‘I hope you get home safe; I hope you have a good day; I hope you get an extra long break at work.’”
So, why the BART tattoo?
For Sam, it’s a way to “spread the gospel of transit.” They’d been thinking about the tattoo for awhile, and one day, they finally got the courage to walk into Black Sea Tattoo in Walnut Creek with a printout of the System Map. Tattoo artist Earl Pitt took care of the rest.
In about two-and-a-half hours, after checking multiple times there were the right number of stops on the BART lines, Sam walked out of the shop with an aching, but beautiful, tattoo.
Thus far, when people see the tattoo, Sam hasn’t had to do much transit evangelizing.
“Everyone loves it and thinks it’s so fun,” they said. “People go, ‘Is that BART?’ They are so tickled.”
And Sam is already thinking about the next one: “I’m thinking it will be a tattoo of a legacy train.”
See Sam on our trains. They're featured in our new BART Connects marketing campaign.
About BART Connects
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. The subjects of BART Connects will be featured in videos as well as a forthcoming marketing campaign that is slated to run across the Bay Area. Find all the stories at bart.gov/bartconnects.
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. More than 300 riders responded, and a selection of respondents were interviewed for the BART Connects series.