Bay Area transit agencies have encouraged Governor Gavin Newsom to make them a priority in allowing front line workers to receive the coronavirus vaccine during the next round of inoculations.
These agencies, including Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), stress that the state should follow federal public health recommendations, which include vaccinating a broad range of transit workers.
BART spokesperson Jim Allison told KCBS Radio that the agency's employees are essential workers providing an essential service.
"Our workers cannot work from home, they must interact with the public," Allison said. "So, we feel it's imperative that we be considered for Phase 1B of the vaccine distribution."
That phase would come immediately after public safety, emergency service workers, employees in education and childcare.
"We have station agents, we have system service workers who clean the stations," Allison said. "And the train operators, while they do spend a great deal of time in the train cabs, if there's an emergency they would be the ones to interact with the public who are on the trains."
There are no exact numbers, but it is estimated that several thousand people are employed by Bay Area transit agencies combined.
Farhad Mansourian is general manager of Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART), and he said it is not a matter of the rail cars being unsafe, as crews clean every train at night, in the middle of the day, then at the end of each run.
"Each train is completely cleaned inside of it," he said. "So we're very safe, I'm sure the ferries and bus services are doing just as good a job as we are."
Transit agencies from across the state are also encouraging the governor to prioritize their employees for the vaccine.
