San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District

The Bay Area Rapid Transit District is a special-purpose district body that governs the Bay Area Rapid Transit system in the California counties of Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco. The system itself also serves northern San Mateo County and is being extended to Santa Clara County but these counties have bought into the system and have no voting stake nor representatives in the district proper.

The Bay Area Rapid Transit District (occasionally abbreviated in early years to BARTD) was created in 1957 to provide a transit alternative between suburbs in the East Bay and job centers in San Francisco's Financial District as well as (to a lesser extent) those in Downtown Oakland and Downtown Berkeley.

The district originally included San Mateo and Marin Counties. San Mateo opted out, preferring to utilize funds to build their freeway system. Fearing they would be unable to absorb their share of operating costs and after concerns were raised about the feasibility of running trains across the Golden Gate Bridge, Marin also left the district before construction of the initial system.

BARTD is split into nine districts, each of which elects one board member. One board member acts as president. Board members appoint five officers: General Manager, Controller-Treasurer, Independent Police Auditor, General Counsel, and District Secretary.

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