BART Connects: A new Bay Area resident's first glimpse of the U.S. was through the windows of a BART train
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.
Katelyn Breaty and her family immigrated from the Philippines ten years ago. She got her first glimpse of the place she’d call home from the windows of a Richmond-bound BART train.
Breaty was seven at that time and hadn’t yet learned to speak English. Through her young eyes, the terminal at San Francisco International Airport was a mess of chaos and kinetic energy.
“I had no idea what was going on. I just hopped on BART,” she said. “I’d never experienced anything like it.”
Though Breaty had ridden trains before, she’d never been on a system like BART before. She said, “Everything about the system mesmerized me since day one.” The speed of the trains – and the ease with which they stopped at each station – was especially memorable. From there on out, she took BART to learn the lay of the land.
Since their arrival in the U.S., Breaty’s family has lived in Martinez, Vallejo, Daly City, San Francisco, Hayward...the list goes on. Every time they moved, BART was a lifeline for Breaty, keeping her connected to the friends she left behind.
“BART was the driving force that helped me escape the suburbs, that made me feel free,” she said. “Having grown up poor, BART has been a getaway from my life that enables me to go somewhere fun, exciting, fulfilling."
Before immigrating to the U.S., Breaty lived in urban centers, including Manila in the Philippines and Bremen, Germany. She said moving to the suburbs was “crushing and dehumanizing,” and learned quickly that in America, "cars are prioritized over people." Taking BART to San Francisco or Berkeley or Oakland was an escape from all that.
Once, when she was ten years old, she snuck out of the house and took BART to meet friends in San Francisco. She’d never taken the train by herself before, but she figured it out. Her parents were understandably upset when she returned home, but also “glad and amused I was able to navigate the system myself.” From then on, they started giving her more freedom to go out on her own because “they knew I’d find my way home,” she said.
Today, Breaty relies on BART to get to class at the City College of San Francisco, where she’s working toward a degree in computer science. On her BART ride to CCSF, she works on assignments for class and projects for her web development consulting business. She even makes time on the train to work on a complete model of the BART system she’s building in Roblox, a virtual game platform and creation system.
Now that she’s sixteen, Breaty has her driver's license. But, she said, "I take BART over everything.”
“I would rather sit and look out the window of a train than be behind the wheel looking at standstill traffic,” she said.
Recently, she and her parents were going shopping in Walnut Creek. Her mom didn’t want to take the train, so Breaty made a bet that she and her dad would beat her to Walnut Creek on BART.
“She was still looking for parking when we started eating,” she said. “Even with a bus bridge that weekend, we got home before her, too.”
Breaty said the friendly bet persuaded her mom to start riding BART for non-work-related trips.
She said, “BART has made me an advocate for public transportation and urbanism." When the new service schedule came out this past September, which increased weeknight and weekend service, she told everyone she knows: If you’re not already taking BART for leisure, you should start now.
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.