Sarah Syed

Sarah Syed was elected in November 2022 and is serving her first term on the AC Transit Board of Directors representing the City of Alameda and portions of Oakland and San Leandro.

Director Syed is a Transportation Equity Program Manager at the Othering & Belonging Institute at U.C. Berkeley and, in that role, works to facilitate community-based equitable transportation planning to address transit inequities and the climate crisis. She currently serves on two national panels advising research on Racial Equity, Black America, and Public Transportation and on Cultivating Accountability with Meaningful Public Engagement.

Director Syed previously worked as a Senior Manager with Los Angeles Metro, Senior Transportation Planner with the City of Palo Alto, Design Manager with the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, and Bicycle and Pedestrian Analyst with the City of Oakland. Over the past two decades, Director Syed’s work in the transportation field has contributed to advances in understanding how institutional racism perpetuates transportation inequities and to the development and delivery of new infrastructure, plans, and services to improve mobility for people who walk, cycle, and ride transit in Berkeley, Oakland, Santa Clara County, and Los Angeles.

Director Syed holds master's degrees in Civil Engineering and City and Regional Planning as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. Her master’s thesis analyzed the travel behavior impacts of parking user fees at rail transit stations. A longtime advocate for healthy and equitable communities and transport, Director Syed has served on the American Planning Association Los Angeles Board of Directors, the Young Transportation Professionals SF Bay Area Board of Directors, the Sierra Club Northern Alameda County Group Executive Committee, and the Berkeley Transportation Commission.

Representing: Ward 3 including Alameda, and portions of Oakland and San Leandro.