Richmond BART station —just wow..! Or maybe it was North Richmond..?
I’m pretty unfussy about such things, but that places is a complete HOLE.
If you are white or asian and you go there, you are taking your life in your hands.
All kinds of vagrants, drug-addicts and run-down buildings there. The place just screams desperation and anger.
I get on in San Leandro (mixed bag, going south quickly), then Oakland Coliseum (’hood), then Fruitvale (barrio), then Lake Merritt (downtown Oakland/Chinatown) then West Oakland (’hood) then Embarcadero (SF/Financial District).
Honestly, I rarely ride after 8 PM and most times, I feel pretty safe, there are sometimes cops (10% of the time) that ride or bring dogs onto the trains, but most people are honestly just commuters from the East Bay trying to get to work or school.
There are the occasional homeless, hoodrat (Oscar Grant), druggie, crazy person incidents, but compared to the New York City subway system, this is a piece of cake, and probably even more safe than the T in Boston, which you can quickly jump off and run from as it stops many times on the local routes.