Mass Transit and Urban Protest: The Battle over Public Transportation

Paper Summary:

This paper tells the story of the controversy that surrounded the San Francisco Bay Area proposal to build a mass transit system aimed at connecting new suburbs to existing cities. The story is recounted from the beginning of the planning stage to the outcome of one community's fight against the transit authorities. The paper considers the effects that the unrest and political action happening across the United States had on the efforts to build the transit system, the effects of the dramatic suburbanization of the country, which resulted in a subsequent boom in the construction of transportation infrastructure, and the racial, economic, ethnic, and political issues that highlighted the controversy. Includes an analysis of the political climate at the time and the efforts of political groups, such as the Black Panthers.

From the Paper:

"Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the primary public transportation system within the Bay Area. It connects residents in three separate counties and covers numerous different cities. However, a great deal of controversy surrounded BART during its creation and construction in the 1960's. The most heated debate occurred in the neighborhood of West Oakland, one of Oakland's poorest minority communities. West Oakland residents complained of BART's intrusion in their neighborhood, from the intrusive system lines that divided the community to the numerous residents BART officials displaced and alienated. The battle that developed between BART officials and West Oakland residents was about more than BART's invasion of West Oakland; the debate encompassed many difficult issues facing the Bay Area, as well as the nation, at the time. This paper attempts to tell the story of this controversy, from the BART's beginnings to the outcome of West Oakland's fight against BART."

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