Gendered Perspectives of Bay Area Transit Event Series: Panel 3-- Transit Advocacy & Activism
Start: 2024-09-24 17:30:00 UTC Pacific Daylight Time (US & Canada) (GMT-07:00)
A link to attend this virtual event will be emailed upon RSVP
Join us this Bay Area Transit Month for a deep dive into the intersections of gender and transit with this series of events featuring leaders in the field of transit. From governance of transit agencies; to the day-to-day operations of buses, trains, and ferries; to advocacy & activism -- the way we all get around the Bay Area is not gender-neutral. Tune in to learn how transit shapes people’s experience in a gendered way and how by incorporating different gender backgrounds into transit work, we can make a transportation system that works better for everyone.
The third panel in the series is a moderated discussion between transit advocates & activists. The panel is co-hosted by SF Transit Riders and Transbay Coalition; moderated by Thea Selby, Co-founder of the San Francisco Transit Riders and Voices for Public Transportation. The panelists are Haleema Bharoocha (MPP) who helped lead Phase One of BART's "Not One More Girl" campaign; Lian Chang is a proponent of Prop L: Fund the Bus and has previously supported transit lanes through Faster Safer Geary; and Abibat Rahman-Davies, Transform’s Transportation Policy Advocate.
Register today to tune in to this unique Transit Month event!
And make sure to come to the Gendered Perspectives of Bay Area Transit Celebration: “The Rosie Ride & Mixer.” Learn more and RSVP here.
About the participants:
Haleema Bharoocha specializes in promoting equity and public safety within transportation using non-carceral approaches. Nationally recognized for her efforts to ensure safe passage for marginalized communities, she brings valuable experience from organizations like the American Public Transportation Association, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and Transform. Haleema authored “Ride Fearlessly: A Framework for Reimagining Transit Safety." co-led "Not One More Girl," a youth-driven initiative combating gender-based violence on BART, which influenced California's SB 1161 transit safety bill, now considered a national model, and presented her work on the criminalization of mobility at the Transportation Research Board.
Haleema's diverse project portfolio includes regional improvements to paratransit through a disability justice lens, quick-build traffic calming pilot design, analyzing the equity implications of greenhouse gas emission reduction strategies, ensuring equitable access to federal funds for small businesses in clean energy, and increasing micro-mobility adoption in urban settings through a Mobility as a Service (MaaS) platform. Her work is featured in publications such as Teen Vogue, Bloomberg, SF Chronicle, KQED, and Streetsblog. Haleema is an alumna of UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy, where she earned her Master of Public Policy.
Lian Chang is currently a proponent of Prop L: Fund the Bus, a ballot measure to increase operational funds for Muni. She has previously supported transit priority improvements on Geary Boulevard through a campaign called Faster Safer Geary; and pedestrian safety as part of Walk SF. Lian also has experience in architecture, data storytelling, and tech startups, and lives with her husband and seven-year-old child in San Francisco. 
Abibat Rahman-Davies is Transform's Transportation Policy Advocate. A native of Southern California, her realization of the importance of transportation came early as limited transportation choices showed her the impact transportation can have on economic mobility. Her commitment to economic justice and transportation took her to Washington DC where she worked as the lead lobbyist for the economic justice portfolio for the Friends Committee on National Legislation. She later went to Capitol Hill through the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and worked in Congressman Hank Johnson's office and the Senate Committee for Commerce, Science and Transportation. At Transform she works on getting funding for transit, advocating for transit improvements, free and reduced fares and equitable pricing and hopes to create a world where our transportation system can be a vehicle for political, social and
economic mobility.
Thea Selby is co-Founder and Principal at micro-LBE, SBE- and DBE-certified Next Steps Marketing, where she combines her expertise in communications and logistics, deep relationships with people in government and transportation, and passion for infrastructure to help make things work better for people.
Thea’s passion for transportation and good governance are present in her on-going advocacy as well. She is a founding member and current co-Veep of the nonprofit organization San Francisco Transit Riders, the voice of the riders of the largest transit agency in the Bay Area, and a co-founder of Voices for Public Transportation, a 40+ member coalition fighting for enough funding to create transformational transportation in the Bay Area. This work, in conjunction with her former elected position on the Board of Trustees for San Francisco City College allows her to see issues and challenges from an agency, advocacy and public viewpoints. Thea and her husband raised two kids without a car in SF, and continue to work for a safe, thriving and inclusive Lower Haight from their center-city home at Haight and Fillmore.
About the organizers:
San Francisco Transit Riders is the city’s only member-led, grassroots advocate for excellent, affordable, and growing public transit. We believe empowering everyday transit riders to speak up for rider-first policies will bring us the world-class transit system we need for an equitable, livable, sustainable, and accessible San Francisco. Learn more at https://sftransitriders.org/
