In 2009, three San Francisco Bay Area organizations brought this complaint against the Bay Area RapidTransit District (“BART”) under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Executive Order 12898, and related provisions, in connection with BART’s proposed Oakland Airport Connector (“OAC”). The OAC project was a new rail link that would run the 3.2 miles to the Oakland International Airport from BART’s Coliseum Station. Its capital cost was projected to exceed $500 million, and it would charge a one-way fare of up to $6. The rail project would replace an existing bus link with a fare of $3.
According to the complaint, “As a recipient of Federal Transit Administration(“FTA”) assistance, including funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (“ARRA”), BART is subject to federal requirements that require it to analyze the equity impacts of the service and fare changes and improvements associated with the project and its alternatives, including any discriminatory impacts on minority populations and low-income populations. It has not met these requirements. BART relies, instead, on a grossly outdated Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report that it adopted in 2002, when the project’s capital cost was estimated at $229.6 million, and included two intermediate stops and a fare of $2, and on its 2007 Title VI Triennial Report, which contains no evaluation of this particular project at all.”
