BART Supports Renaming Oakland's Lake Merritt Station — if Someone Else Pays for It

Updated 3:30 p.m., Thursday

BART directors plan to move forward with renaming Oakland’s Lake Merritt station, but only after they find a funding source for the estimated $750,000 project and complete a community engagement process.

The unanimous vote Thursday by the transit agency’s Board of Directors delivered a setback to many community members who had hoped to walk away from the meeting with a clear timeline for the station renaming.

“I would ask that it not be called a name change. It really is a name correction,” said Joshua Simon, who showed up to the public comment section of the meeting. “I’ve been getting off at that station now for 40 years, and every time I get off, I look around and say, ‘Where’s Lake Merritt?’ It’s in Chinatown. I think it’s time to fix this.”

Board member Robert Raburn, who has spearheaded the renaming effort along with Oakland Chinatown community groups, hoped that board approval Thursday would guarantee the new name in time for the opening of a new transit-oriented development on top of the station, planned for March 2027.

Though the board is generally supportive of the name change, the fact that Raburn’s initiative had not followed established BART protocol made some members uneasy.

Current policy requires a third-party applicant to apply for and cover all the costs associated with a station renaming. As yet, no such applicant has come forward, making some board members worry the agency could be forced to pay the full cost of the Lake Merritt station renaming.

“If we say we’re going to rename it, that means we are on the hook for paying for it if we cannot find the outside funding,” board member Rebecca Saltzman said.

Raburn had previously maintained that neither the Chinatown community groups who have advocated for the name change nor the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation, the new housing project’s developer, should be on the hook for payment, saying instead that the money could come from grants, BART’s capital budget or elsewhere.

“I’m not saying that money grows on trees, but 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,” Raburn said.

Meanwhile, BART is facing a bleak fiscal future as ridership has failed to recover to pre-pandemic levels and federal and state emergency assistance from the pandemic is set to dry up by the end of next year. The agency is projecting a $385 million budget deficit for the 2026 fiscal year.

Raburn sees the renaming as a crucial part of the new housing development at the station.

“I think it’s a good investment to provide the change now and say that by the time it’s occupied, it will be renamed,” Raburn said. “That gives the developer something to share with potential investors, to somebody that might want to build a hotel or offices in Oakland Chinatown. I think those are the kinds of things that can pay dividends in the long run for BART.”

Board policy also calls for a robust community engagement process to rename a station, including at least three public workshops and endorsements from affected local bodies. Although the Lake Merritt renaming has garnered enthusiastic support from community members in BART board meetings and is endorsed by the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce and the Oakland Chinatown Improvement Council, BART staff said that requirement had so far not been fulfilled.

In the end, board member Saltzman introduced a substitute motion,  supporting the intent to change the station name, subject to identifying an applicant who would fund the project, and conducting proper outreach. The motion was approved unanimously.

BART staff said they are aware of at least two other station renaming requests, including one from the family of Oscar Grant, who was shot and killed by BART police on New Year’s Day 2009 at Fruitvale Station, to rename it after Grant.

Staff also said the city of Berkeley has expressed interest in renaming Ashby Station to South Berkeley Station.