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(Photos from left to right: Tera Stokes-Hankins at her Station Agent graduation in 1995; Tera handing Station Agent Michael Francis a certificate of recognition at a recent employee appreciation event.)

During Black History Month each February, BART honors the history and contributions of our Black employees, including trailblazers like Tera Stokes-Hankins, the first woman to serve as BART's Chief Transportation Officer. You'll find her "BART story" below. 

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Tera Stokes-Hankins joined BART in the summer of 1995 as a twentysomething near-fresh out of college. Back then, she worked part time as a Station Agent at El Cerrito Plaza Station. Today – 28 years later – she oversees not only El Cerrito Plaza, but all of BART’s stations, service and delivery of day-to-day operations, and the agency’s train operations, Station Agents, and Train Operators. Following an impressive six promotions, including one in 2023, Tera now serves as BART’s Chief Transportation Officer – one of the highest-ranking positions within the organization. She is the first woman to hold the title at the organization. 

“What’s kept me here so long? The people, the relationships I’ve built, and the work is fun!” she said speaking recently on a rare break between operational meetings and field visits, during which she makes sure “we’re running the service we have promised the public.”  

She credits her success to a lifelong love of people and her constant striving to be fair and honest.  

“And I couldn’t have done it without my team. They are BART,” she said.  

Tera grew up in Oakland and still lives there with her family. It never occurred to her to apply for a job at BART. In college, Tera majored in computer systems information and business administration. When BART came calling, she was working an entry-level position at the Federal Reserve in San Francisco and figured she’d be there awhile.  

“My father was trying to get a job at BART, and he saw a listing for part-time Station Agents,” she recalled. “That led my mother to tell me I had to apply.” 

Tera got the job and decided to accept the position. The rest, as they say, is history.  

Every promotion since, she’s called her mom to thank her for that initial push to apply.  

“I wouldn’t be here if she didn’t tell me take this job,” she said. 

As for her dad? “He didn’t get the gig,” she said with a laugh.  

Tera’s days are not without their challenges; being the Chief Transportation Officer is arguably one of the most stressful gigs in transit. What gets her out of bed each morning is knowing “that we are providing an absolutely essential service to the Bay Area and the people who rely on us.”  

“My employees are counting on me, and my family is counting on me, too,” she said. “If BART’s not running, that means people can’t get to an interview or an appointment or class. To get up every day and make sure we’re ready to go and putting our best foot forward – that keeps me going,” 

She also credits her husband with helping her stay grounded. 

“It helps me in my day to day to have someone I can bounce ideas and situations off of,” she said. “He tells me when I’m right and when I’m wrong – especially when I’m wrong.” 

BART is a workplace that seeks to support and elevate its employees to achieve their dreams and rise to their professional aspirations. Tera said she has been consistently uplifted by her mentors, BART’s training and educational opportunities, and the many managers who have supported her in her rise through the ranks. 

“Us managers at BART have a lot to offer,” she said, reflecting. “We are just waiting for our employees to come and ask us how to grow and expand their knowledge.” 

Over the past three decades, Tera has hit many of her most major life milestones while working at BART. In her first year at BART, she got married. Not long after that, she had her first child, and later, her second.  

She now does for her daughter what her mom once did for her. 

“I’ll see opportunities and go, ‘Baby, you should apply for this!’” The approach has paid off so far, she said. 

We invite you to read BARTable's suggestions for honoring and celebrating Black History Month here and to explore One Book One BART's Black History Month Reading List, which highlights a selection of books that illuminate and educate readers about the experiences of Black Americans, especially in the Bay Area. 

BART employees: Later in the month, you will receive an invitation via District Announcements for a special Black History Month event hosted by the Employee Resource Group.

San Francisco Fleet Week 2024 begins Monday, Oct. 7, and culminates on Monday, Oct. 14, and transit is the best way to get there as thousands of people flood the city for air shows and other special events.

To accomodate the predicted crowds, BART will be running longer trains that weekend: Saturday, Oct. 12, and Sunday, Oct. 13. 

Here's how to reach the various air show viewing areas with BART + Muni:

• Pier 39: Take BART to Embarcadero Station and use Exit A1 to transfer to the Muni F Market streetcar or bus.
• Fort Mason, Marina Green, and Crissy Field: Take BART to Montgomery St and use Exit A1. Walk to Kearny St and board the Muni 30 Stockton bus.
• Fort Mason (option 2): Take BART to 16th St Mission and use Exit B to board the Muni 49 Van Ness bus.

Rider Tips

Parking is free at all BART stations except Milpitas and Berryessa/North San Jose (which are operated by VTA) on the weekends. Pay for parking easily on the BART app.

Before you leave home, put Clipper card on your cellphone through either Apple Pay or Google Pay. Please ensure you have sufficient funds for a round trip. Plan at the cost of your trip in advance.

Real-time departures and train alerts can be found at bart.gov/eta or on the BART app. 

Discover more fun events happening this weekend on BARTable. 

A photo of a scrapbook showing Atsushi Goto on a BART train in 2001. The text reads, "Me riding the BART subway. The vibe inside the cars reminded me of an office with sofa chairs." Photos courtesy of Atsushi Goto. 

On Friday, April 19, at 3pm, Atsushi Goto’s plane touched down at San Francisco International Airport. He hastily collected his carry on, went through customs, and dashed toward the SFO BART station. A train was waiting for him on the platform.  

The last time Atsushi rode BART, the trains still had yellow carpets and fabric seats. The Fleet of the Future trains were just an idea, and the legacy fleet didn’t have that adjective attached to its name yet. Actually, at the time, the legacy fleet was only a few years older than Atsushi, then a 21-year-old university student in Japan touring the U.S. 

That was 2001. This past April marked 23 years since Atsushi last set foot on a BART train. And the trains that met him at SFO in April were not the ones he knew.  

The 24 hours that followed his touchdown were a whirlwind of a trains, buses, cable cars, and one big party for a bunch of old trains at MacArthur Station – BART’s retirement celebration for the legacy trains. On the night of Saturday, April 20, just over a day after arriving, Atsushi was on a plane again, headed back home to Japan. Atsushi is an automobile designer, and on Monday, he had work. 

Atsushi poses with the train cab cutout at the legacy retirement ceremony on Saturday, April, 20, 2024. Photo courtesy of Atsushi Goto. 

“I feared this was my last chance to see these trains. I could not wait any longer,” Atsushi said, speaking on a videocall from Japan. He’d never intended for his return to the Bay Area to take so many years, but between work and his other adult responsibilities, it just happened that way. 

Atsushi had heard rumblings of a BART legacy fleet retirement party and final ride from rail fans online, so every single day, he checked BART’s X account to see if the event information had been posted. He immediately started looking for plane tickets. A few weeks before, it finally appeared on his feed. Just a few days later Atsushi booked his ticket. Due to his work schedule, he could only get away for the weekend.  

He has no regrets. His final ride on the legacy fleet was everything he dreamed it would be.  

“It was unforgettable, a wish come true,” he said.  

On his last ride, Atsushi took tons of photos, celebrated with fellow rail fans, and reflected on the 23-year-long ride that took him from his first spin on an original BART train to his final one that day. Before the train returned to the yard from Fremont Station, Atsushi said, “I touched the train to thank it for its many years of service.”  

Atsushi Goto pictured with one of his legacy car number plates back home in Japan. Photo courtesy of Atsushi Goto. 

BART Communications learned about Atsushi and his love of BART from Customer Services Assistant Nathan Nguyen. Nathan’s the kind of guy who’ll go out of his way to help a customer, even if that customer lives in a different time zone halfway around the world.  

Before he learned about the legacy retirement event, Atsushi was desperate to get his hands on some legacy car number plates. There’s no international shipping option on Railgoods.com, where you purchase the quick-to-sellout plates, but Nathan made it happen just for him. The cost of shipping was as much as the plates themselves, but Atsushi wanted them nonetheless.  

“As I got to know Atsushi communicating through email and learning the love he has for BART, I made it my mission to get these plates to him in Japan," said Nathan. "Atsushi is a very genuine guy, and the love he has for BART is overwhelming!” 

A photo of the full scrapbook page with photos Atsushi took in 2001 and the BART ticket he used. Courtesy Atsushi Goto. 

Atsushi has a page in an old scrapbook commemorating his first BART ride. There’s a photo of himself at 16th St. Mission Station. He’s 21, and the ends of his hair are bleached like a true 90s kid. Below the photo, Atsushi pasted his first BART ticket. The text reads on the page reads: “I took the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). The interior of the train felt like an office sofa. It was luxurious and modern.” 

Atsushi had wanted to visit San Francisco since he was a child. His mother used to read to him from the 1950s-era children’s book “Maybelle the Cable Car” by Virginia Lee Burton, translated into Japanese from the original English.  

A snapshot of the opening lines of “Maybelle the Cable Car” (Copyright Houghton Mifflin).  

“Maybelle was a cable car / a San Francisco cable car / Cling clang . . . clingety clang / Up and down and around she went,” the the classic story begins.  

“I was really surprised by the angle of that hill,” Atsushi said.  

When he finally made it to the U.S. in 2001, Atsushi felt like he was on a movie set.  

“I really like America because as a child, I’d often see American movies on tv, like “Speed” and “Top Gun” with Tom Cruise,” he said. He’s also a big fan of American hard rock, including Guns N’ Roses and Aerosmith. 

Atsushi on a Muni bus in 2001. The 8042 bus was retired in 2016. Photo courtesy of Atsushi Goto. 

During his visit, he traveled west to east, stopping in cities along the way, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Washington D.C., New York City, and Dallas. The Bay Area was one of his favorite places, and he spent lots of time riding its many forms of transit.  

“The great thing about the Bay Area’s transportation system is that it combines modern and traditional elements and together, they function as a means of daily transportation,” he said. “For example, on the one hand there are advanced systems like BART and Muni, on the other hand, there are cable cars and the Muni F line. It’s fascinating and wonderful.” 

A Tokyo Metro Series 6000 train. Photo by Atsushi Goto. 

BART’s “sofa-like spacious seats and seamless exterior” made him feel as if he were riding in a vehicle from the future. The cars’ exterior design was quite unlike the trains in Japan, where most of the trains are square and boxy, Atsushi said. He noted that the BART trains influenced the design of the cab on the Tokyo Metro Series 6000 trains, which he used to ride to get to school in Tokyo. He felt a strong sense of familiarity, communion even, with the BART trains off the bat.  

“The legacy train’s design is so simple and iconic a child can easily draw it. With its round headlights and large windows, the design is still fresh even 50 years after its introduction,” he added.  

He also thought the stations were cool thanks to their modern architecture, red electronic display boards, and the hip BART logo and color scheme.  

Atsushi eats clam chowder at a stand in San Francisco during his visit in 2001. Photo courtesy Atsushi Goto.

On his second visit to the Bay Area so many years later, Atsushi said his heart leapt when he came face to face with a BART train at SFO Station. He said his first ride on the new trains was “very comfortable,” and he appreciated the “sloping cross section and color scheme of the cars," which reminded him of the original cars. He also liked how the colors of the train “really match the beautiful Bay Area scenery.” 

After dropping his bag at his hotel in downtown San Francisco, Atsushi hopped on a cable car on Market Street and rode it to Fisherman’s Wharf. After dining on some clam chowder on the waterfront, Atsushi rode back to his hotel on the F Market and Wharves Line, a heritage streetcar service that uses legacy equipment from retired fleets from San Francisco and abroad.  

Scenes from the legacy train retirement event on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Photo by Atsushi Goto.

Saturday morning, he rode BART to Fruitvale Station because he got a tip that the legacy trains would be passing through the station on their way to MacArthur for the ceremony. He met another rail fan waiting for the train, too, and so they hung out and chatted while they waited.  

Then, at last, he rode to MacArthur and basked in the atmosphere generated by thousands of rail fans celebrating BART and its historic trains.  

A legacy train on the tracks during the legacy train retirement event on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Photo by Atsushi Goto.

On the train, he said the scene on the train was very lively and fun.  

“It was a wonderful experience to sit in a spacious seat and ride while looking out at the Bay Area,” he added.  

After the train pulled into its final stop – Fremont Station – Atsushi waited on the platform with dozens of other rail fans to see the trains off to the yard.  

Once the train sailed away, Atsushi had one more rail system to ride. His rail fan friend at Fruitvale told him about Caltrain’s Nippon Sharyo cars, which are being retired. So, Atsushi dashed back to San Francisco, caught one of the double-decker, Japanese-made beauties, and rode it a few stops. Then, it was back on BART to SFO and a long plane ride back home.  

Atsushi said he won’t let so much time pass between now and his next visit to the Bay. He admits he should have come back sooner, but when he started working after graduation, it became difficult to take long holidays.  

“I would definitely like to visit again,” he said. But he’s going to wait until the Western Railway Museum opens it BART museum with its three legacy train cars.  

A Timeline of Atsushi’s Whirlwind Visit to the Bay Area 

9pm JST, Friday, April 19: Atsushi Goto’s plane departs Narita Airport in Tokyo. 

3pm PDT, Friday, April 19: Atsushi touches down at San Francisco International Airport.  

5pm PDT, Friday, April 19: Atsushi takes BART from SFO to Downtown San Francisco and walks to his hotel by Civic Center/ UN Plaza. 

7pm PDT, Friday, April 19: Atsushi catches the cable car on Market Street to Fisherman’s Wharf.  

9pm PDT, Friday, April 19: Atsushi rides the Muni F train back to downtown. 

11am PDT, Saturday, April 20: Atsushi photographs a legacy train passing through Fruitvale Station as it heads to MacArthur for the celebration. 

1pm PDT, Saturday, April 20: Atsushi attends the legacy train retirement ceremony at MacArthur Station and queues to board the last train. 

2pm PDT, Saturday, April 20: Atsushi rides the last legacy train to depart MacArthur, then sees it off as it returns to the yard.  

7pm PDT, Saturday, April 20: Atsushi arrives at Caltrain station and boards the Nippon Sharyo double-decker train. 

 9pm PDT, Saturday, April 20: Atsushi takes BART from Civic Center to SFO.  

1am PDT, Sunday, April 22: Atsushi’s flight to Tokyo departs San Francisco. 

5am JST, Sunday, April 22: Atsushi’s flight lands at Tokyo Haneda International Airport. 

Have yourself a BARTy little sweater – and vest and beanie and scarf. That’s right, we just kicked off the Railgoods.com BART Holiday Merch Pre-Sale, and this year, we have four brand new items to help you toast BART and the winter season. 

The heatwave’s over, the sweat on your brow has dried, your sunburn’s faded. It’s time to start shopping for knitwear. Get ‘em while it’s hot. 

Do you want to be sleighing in the Bay next winter? Preorder the new holiday goodies before this sled sails. The pre-sale is open on Railgoods.com now and will close July 31. Pre-sale items ship early November.

If you miss the pre-sale, we will have sweaters and other holiday merch on hand in late November, which you can order on Railgoods.com, buy at the Customer Services Center at Lake Merritt Station, or purchase at seasonal Railgoods pop-ups at events around the Bay Area, including SweaterFest 2024 (more details to come).  

You can also win holiday goodies from BARTable! Sign up for the BARTable This Week newsletter on bart.gov/bartable to be alerted when contests are running.  

BART holiday sweaters always sell out, and when they’re gone, they’re gone. Order now so you don’t have to DM us later asking if we can “strike up a deal.” We cannot.  

We will however give you a discount code. Use code 2024BARTholiday20 for $20 off holiday merch orders over $100 and 2024BARTholiday10 for $10 off holiday merch orders over $50. This is the first time we’ve offered discounts on holiday merch, and this is the lowest priced sweater we’ve ever sold (it’s also the least expensive holiday transit sweater in the Bay).  

Holiday merch prices (shipping costs vary by weight and distance): 

• Sweater - $49.99 (limited to 2 sweaters per order)  

• Vest - $39.99  

• Beanie - $15.99  

• Scarf - $19.99   

BART is at the heart of the Bay Area, and we should be proud of the public institutions that make our region merry and bright. Buy some merch and rep your love for BART and the Bay – the ugly sweater way. 

This is the fourth year BART has sold holiday sweaters. Last year, we sold our entire inventory of 3,000 sweaters. Sales exceeded $100,000.  

BART is one of the first transit agencies to sell holiday sweaters. We designed the first sweater in 2021 as a BARTable contest giveaway and ordered just five for the contests. Our inventory proved insufficient after General Manager Bob Powers wore one of the sweaters during a media event about BART’s air filters. People wanted them...badly. A week later, we held a sale for the public, and the sweaters sold out in under an hour.  

Every year since, despite increasing our inventory into the thousands, the sweaters have sold out.  

Thank you to this year's BART holiday merch models: Mag Tatum, Senior Board Analyst; Damya Belford, BART Communications Intern; and Oscar Brown, Principal Internal Auditor.

BART wishes you a wonderful Filipino American History Month this October.

To celebrate, we are revisiting an interview with Crisis Intervention Specialist Caryl Blount that we published during Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. In the story, Blount discusses her Filipino roots, her gratitude for her family (including her BART family), and shares her recipe for pork sinigang. 

BART celebrates heritage and diversity months throughout the year, and with stories such as CIS Blount’s, we hope to recognize some of the many exceptional employees in our organization.  

Celebrate the holiday by ordering your BARTy Jeepney t-shirt on Railgoods.com. 

CIS Caryl Blount pictured at Lake Merritt Station.

Last April, Crisis Intervention Specialist (CIS) Caryl Blount was finishing up her shift at Millbrae Station when she and her partner, CIS Dinah Amoah-Wynn, came across an elderly woman on the platform. It was a cold night, and the station was closing. The woman sat alone on the platform with her bags.   

Blount and Wynn walked up to the woman to let her know the station was closing and she needed to leave. The woman replied: “I have nowhere to go.”  

After talking to her, Blount and Wynn learned her name was Juanita and that she’d come to the U.S. from the Philippines a week earlier. She was only supposed to be in San Francisco for a few days, but she had missed her return flight. It appeared she’d been sleeping at the airport and riding BART back and forth between Millbrae and SFO Station.  

Blount and Wynn asked Juanita for phone numbers of people they could call for her, but she couldn’t remember any. They realized she was likely suffering from dementia.  

“She gave us puzzle pieces, and we had to put the story together from there,” said Blount.  

Juanita carried a notebook that contained drawings, recipes, scribbles, and fortunately, scattered phone numbers. So Blount and Wynn began dialing the numbers at random. One person picked up – it was a woman in New York named Elizabeth. Juanita, about 45 years prior, had been her nanny.  

It was the early morning in New York, and after the phone call from the CIS team, Elizabeth sprang into action and bought her former nanny a ticket back to Manila. She would arrange things with Juanita’s sister to make sure she was transported safely from the plane back home.  

Blount and Wynn then brought Juanita back to the airport and connected her with staff there, as well as the morning CIS team, who went to check on her the next day. Everyone wanted to make sure she got on that plane.  

A day or so later, Blount received a text from Elizabeth: “Juanita arrived safely in Manila!” She thanked the CISes for their work in getting Juanita home.  

The text message Blount has saved on her phone from Elizabeth.  

For Blount, the encounter was deeply personal.  

“She’s Filipino, and I’m Filipino. I was like, this could be my grandma!” Blount said. “I couldn’t give up on her. I had to find a way to get her home." 

Blount joined BART as a CIS in 2022, coming from Contra Costa County where she worked as a case manager. The job was similar to what she does now in some ways, but the CIS work is “much more hands on, much more challenging,” she said.  

Blount has been riding BART for most of her life. She grew up in Pittsburg and Antioch, and she had the opportunity to ride the trains for free thanks to her dad, Carlito, who worked at BART for 25 years before retiring a few years ago. Carlito immigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines in his teens. He started at BART as a car cleaner in the early 90s and worked his way up to become a transit vehicle mechanic, fixing the same cars he once cleaned. Blount still remembers going with him to Take Your Kids to Work Day at BART more than three decades ago. She couldn’t believe how many people it took to run the system.  

“I don’t think my dad really knows how much that one visit to his work impacted me,” she said. “I learned BART is run by this massive brain. It’s not just the train operators!” 

Blount and her father often bond about BART. She remembers calling him after she went to Milpitas Station for the first time, which opened in 2020.  

“I said, ‘Guess what, dad? I just went to Milpitas. Have you been there?”  

Blount said her father passed his intense work ethic down to her. Often, he’d leave for his shift at Concord Yard hours early just to make sure he got there on time and had a few moments to decompress before the workday kicked off.  

“He hated calling in sick, missing work,” she said. “And I’m the same way. My mom always tells me I’m just like him.”  

BART was such a big part of her dad’s life (and therefore her life) that Blount couldn’t be prouder to be a part of “the BART family” herself. 

Click here to download the recipe card and zoom in. 

“My dad provided a safe and secure home for us, and BART helped him to do that,” she said. “That’s why BART will always have a special place in my heart.” 

In addition to her dad, Blount counts her mom and big brother as mentors. Her brother for teaching her street smarts, inspiring her to believe in herself and for always being there for her without judgement; and her mother for the sacrifices she’s made and the many hours she’s spent babysitting Blount’s three children while she and her husband, Jason Blount, are at work. Jason happens to also work at BART as a mechanic at the Oakland shops. Blount calls him "one of my biggest supporters." 

“It takes a village to raise my kids,” said Blount, who recently returned from maternity leave (It’s a boy!). “My mom holds it down for me so I can come to BART and be my best. That’s unconditional love right there.” 

Blount also credits her culture for forming her into the person she is today.  

“I have that Filipino pride,” she said. “I’m proud of the fact that my dad grew up poor and came here to make a life not only for himself, but for us and his grandchildren. My parents made a great life for us here, and I’m proud of that every day.”  

Blount makes sure her children know where they came from. Their dad is Black, and with Black History Month and AAPI Heritage Month being close to each other on the calendar, Blount and her husband go out of the way to celebrate and talk about their cultures.  

“We want them to grow up with a sense of where they came from,” she said. “A lot of the time that means story time with the grandparents.” 

A photo of Blount’s immediate family during the holidays. 

Each May, Blount’s family, including her many aunties, uncles, and cousins, gather for a celebration of AAPI Heritage Month as well as Mother’s Day and her parents’ anniversary (it’s a busy month for celebrating). The gathering revolves largely around food. On the table, there is always pancit, lumpia, chicken adobo, sinigang over rice, and lots of dessert.  

“Food is always at the center of everything. That’s where the conversations and the stories start,” Blount said.  

The kids love to ask questions of their elders. Blount remembers a specific conversation between her daughter and her great-grandmother, who was visiting from the Philippines.  

She asked things like, “What did you do for fun when you were a kid?” Blount said. And grandma would reply, “We played with rocks and sticks and built little houses,” to which her daughter would say, “You didn’t have Legos? No tv? No iPads? Wow, you must have been bored.”  

Blount often takes time to reflect on her roots and the differences in her upbringing compared to her elders, as well as her many family members who still live in the Philippines. She’s full of gratitude for her roots, she said, and especially for her large, supportive family.  

She asked: “Without them, who would I be?”