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Owen Flaherty pictured at Glen Park Station.

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. 

Most people see BART as a means to an end, a space you pass through to get where you need to go. Owen Flaherty sees BART as a portal to creativity.  

Flaherty, a local high school student, is an avid photographer. A few years ago, when he was in eighth grade, he got his first camera – a Panasonic Lumix. Initially, he didn’t have the time or motivation to get out in the world and start photographing. But in the summer after eighth grade, he found himself suddenly drawn to the art form. He credits BART for giving him a jolt of creative inspiration. In a sense, BART was his first muse -- the Beatrice to his Dante.  

Flaherty doesn’t remember the first time he set out to photograph the BART system – he's undertaken so many BART photo safaris now, they’ve started to blend together. But he does remember that initial moment when BART first “spoke” to him, like the daemon whispering in Dickinson’s ear.  

“BART was exactly what I needed to get started with my photography,” he said. “The people, the movement, the lighting, the station design...BART has everything you need to create a great photograph.”  

In the first two months of his photography journey, Flaherty estimated he took more than 2,000 photographs in the system, “and I’m a kid, of course, so I was only able to go out four days a week or so, after school and on weekends.”  

Both of Flaherty’s parents are creatives; his mom works at California College of the Arts and his dad is a graphic designer. Before photography, he had trouble finding his medium. Things like painting and drawing were inaccessible to him due to certain personal restraints, but when he discovered photography on a trip with a family friend, the art form unleashed something in him.  

“When he was photographing, I could see the expressions on his face, the thoughts in his head,” Flaherty said of the family friend, a professional photographer. "On that trip, I discovered a medium to express myself.”  

Above: A selection of Flaherty's BART photos. You can view more photos on his website. 

Before high school, Flaherty rarely took BART alone. He grew up in the Bay Area, but he used BART mostly for trips to San Francisco – to see the Nutcracker or go to the symphony, for example. Now he takes it pretty much every day, whether it’s going to school or hanging out with friends or, most frequently, to discover a new spot for taking photos. 

“There’s a transition point in your life when you’re a kid and you don’t have a car, but you’re old enough to do your own thing,” Flaherty said. “BART opened things up to me. It’s provided me the opportunity to access the entire Bay Area. It gave me freedom without having to pester my parents for a ride.” 

Flaherty estimates he’s visited 90 percent of BART stations and has traveled every line from end to end, except the Blue Line (though he’s ridden most of it).  

Often, Flaherty takes BART for “joyrides.” He doesn’t have a specific destination, but he hops aboard looking for zaps of inspiration and insight. “It’s the architecture, the people watching, all the nooks and crannies in the stations” that open  his mind and unleash his imagination, he said.

A lot of the time, Flaherty finds himself disembarking at Glen Park (his favorite station), Montgomery Street, or 24th Street Mission stations. He uses BART as a subject for his photographs, but also “to access undiscovered locations and different communities of people around the Bay Area.”   

“BART is what makes the Bay Area the Bay Area,” Flaherty said. “People know BART. Because of BART, when I’m traveling outside the state, I don’t say I’m from Albany, California, I say I’m from the Bay.”  

Flaherty is working toward obtaining his driver’s license now, but he says he will always prioritize traveling by BART.  

“I don’t want to be cooped up in a tin can on my own,” he said. “I want to be with other people, in a bigger tin can.”  

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. 

Courtesy Hernandez-Eli Architecture

There’s something oddly majestic about seeing a BART car “in the wild,” or in a place you wouldn’t expect it to be, far from its straight and narrow tracks. Soon, this will be a regular occurrence for Bay Area residents as BART announces the eight finalists that have been selected to receive legacy BART cars in the coming months. The legacy cars will be replaced by BART’s Fleet of the Future.

The eight recipients were selected after submitting a proposal to BART describing what they planned to do with the vehicle. The selected few will transform the old cars into beer gardens and short-term rentals, museum objects and more.

“These cars are iconic to the Bay Area and to the people that not only live in the Bay Area now, but grew up riding these BART cars,” said Brian Tsukamoto, Manager of Special Projects – Decommissioning at BART. “We’d like to see them given a new life. We’d like to see them repurposed and have people continue to enjoy these cars.”

None of the proposals sought to use the legacy cars for affordable housing projects or homes for the unhoused – two of the major problems facing the San Francisco Bay Area. Other public transit agencies have sunk their legacy cars into the ocean to serve as artificial reefs, but this is unfeasible for BART’s cars due to their aluminum composition. Likewise, BART cannot sell the cars to other transit agencies because its vehicles operate on a nonstandard gauge or track width.

Repurposing old BART cars is no easy feat – nor is moving and installing them. BART estimates the cost of transporting, installing, and permitting the vehicles will cost somewhere in the range of $8,000 to $15,000. Applicants were asked to provide plans for the vehicles’ retrieval, as well as a description of how they intend to dispose of the cars when they’ve served their purpose. It’s all about creative upcycling and a dash of creative thinking.

The remaining decommissioned legacy cars – there are 531 still in-service, as of Jan. 30 – will be mostly recycled, a few cars at a time, by Schnitzer Steel in Oakland.

It’s time for the big reveal. Keep reading to see how the legacy cars will be reborn.

Courtesy Arthur Mac's Tap & Snack

Arthur Mac’s Tap & Snack

A mainstay for pizza, hot wings, and beer in Oakland, Arthur Mac’s Tap & Snack plans to expand – by adding a BART car to its retinue in downtown Hayward. The restaurant wants to see the legacy car used purely for fun – it will transform the car into a “retro videogame arcade and kids play area,” as well as extra seating for weatherproof dining. Arthur Mac’s – an anagram in tribute of the MacArthur BART Station – said its vision for the legacy car “is to create a time capsule that transports our customers and community members beyond the confines of time and space.”

Courtesy Hospitality in Transit

Hospitality in Transit

The BART puns don’t stop there. Hospitality in Transit, the purveyors of “metrobar” – built from an old Metro car in Washington D.C. – intend to bring a similar concept to the Bay Area with “BARTbar.” To be placed at a yet-to-be-decided location, the primarily outdoor venue will serve as a coworking space, café and meeting place during the day and transition to a beverage-slinging joint by night. “We hope BARTbar will bring people together through local drinks, food, art, and culture,” the partners of Hospitality in Transit said. “We’re committed to being a space that supports and uplifts Bay Area creators and communities."

Courtesy the Western Railway Museum

Bay Area Electric Railroad Association

The Bay Area Electric Railroad Association, which runs the Western Railway Museum in Suisun City, plans to create a “Rapid Transit History Center” with one A, B and C car each to educate visitors about earlier modes of transportation. If all goes to plan, the museum will include various displays, a small theater, BART artifacts, and a history of the transit system. The project is currently seeking donations.

Courtesy Hayward Fire Department

Hayward Fire Department

A legacy BART car may soon help save lives. That’s the plan for the Hayward Fire Department, who intend to repurpose their car as a training “prop” to provide “station familiarization, vehicle rescue simulations and safety of the track and third rail system.” The department plans to keep its car “for many years” and noted that they will provide continuous maintenance and repairs.

Courtesy Hernandez-Eli Architecture

Residence and short-term rental

A partnership of private residents will transform a legacy car into a “metaphoric train station that blends the space age-modern esthetics of BART and a cozy cabin” in a Gold Rush-era town in the Sierra Foothills. The structure will be constructed as green as possible, with a solar panel roof, a gray water system and passive cooling, the partnership said. The owners hope to see the house last upwards of 100 years.

Courtesy the Original Scraper Bike Team

The Original Scraper Bike Team

The Original Scraper Bike Team works to enrich and empower urban youth in East Oakland by offering bicycle skill training, mentorship programs, and by encouraging creativity and art. The organization was awarded a legacy BART car that will be divided into two sections: One half will serve as a bike shop, which will provide free bike repairs and help children learn to build and decorate their own Scraper bike; the other half will be a clubhouse for community events and Scraper Bike Teams’ mentorship program. The car will be decorated with murals by local artists.

Oakland Athletics

Nov 29, 2023 Update: On 11/29/23, the Oakland A's informed BART that they have decided to decline the offer to take ownership of the BART car.

What’s the one thing missing from the Oakland Coliseum? A BART car, naturally. Entitled “Coliseum BAR(T),” the baseball team plans to retrofit their legacy car as a museum that celebrates the history of transit and sports in the East Bay, as well as a – wait for it – beer garden, which promises to serve local craft beers. According to the proposal, “The interior would commemorate A’s history, and BART as an extension of it, through memorabilia, historical photographs, old jerseys, [and] autographed bats and balls.”

Contra Costa County Fire Protection District

Update: on January 8, 2024 the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District withdrew their request for the legacy car due to lack of funding to build a platform to accommodate training.

Like the Hayward Fire Department, the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District will use its legacy car for “scenario-based training and car familiarization training.” Because the district’s training facility is a regional training center, not only fire personnel will be able to benefit from the car’s teachings, but so will local EMS agencies, law enforcement agencies, and the Los Medanos Junior College Fire Academy.