BART supports a potential name change to the Lake Merritt BART Station in Oakland, but only after an external source fronts the $750,000 required to do it and a lengthy community engagement process is completed.

A recent BART Board of Directors meeting saw the unanimous approval of a motion to rechristen the station as the Oakland Chinatown Station, provided a third-party fronts the capital required to do so.

Robert Raburn, a member of BART's Board of Directors, has been leading the charge to rename the station for months alongside local advocacy groups. The effort comes in the wake of a new affordable housing project for seniors, located on top of the station, recently breaking ground.

“It’s a no-brainer,” Raburn told KQED last week.

BART policy currently holds that costs related to station renaming must be covered by the third-party applicant, but Raburn feels that the funds should come from either BART or a grant.

"We can find the money and this isn’t the kind of dollar amount that’s going to scare us away from taking this action,” expressed Raburn to KQED.

BART's reluctance to fund the project themselves could potentially be seen as prudent, as the organization faces an oncoming budget deficit potentially in the hundreds of millions and an incoming administration seemingly unlikely to throw federal funds in their direction. Ridership, BART's primary source of funding, has been cut in half compared to pre-pandemic levels, with drastic cuts potentially on the way if funding is not sourced soon.

“BART going into a death spiral is a very real possibility if we don’t find the resources to keep it running,” said Metropolitan Transportation Commission vice chair Nick Josefowitz to the Chronicle earlier this year.

Others, however, feel that the name change is a necessary olive branch to the city's substantial Chinese population after the spike of anti-Asian hate that occurred during the pandemic's height, and that the cost is relatively minor for BART.

Those local to the community have stated that it is also a matter of pride.

“The community really wants to take ownership of naming this area as Chinatown. We want to collaborate with our BART Board of Directors to make that happen,” said Oakland City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas in October.

Image: sourced via Wikimedia