Obituaries

Sammamish Resident, Public Transit Pioneer B.R. (Bill) Stokes, dies at 89

Sammamish resident B.R. (Bill) Stokes, 89, is credited as one of the driving forces behind creating BART, the San Francisco Bay Area's public transit agency.

Sammamish resident B.R. (Bill) Stokes, a former Bay Area Rapid Transit general manager who is credited with propelling the financing, construction and operation of the transportation district from its origins in 1958 to 1974, died May 15, according to the San Jose Mercury-News. He was 89.

Stokes was the agency's first employee, helping pass a $792 million bond issue to build a 75-mile rail rapid transit system in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Born in Shawnee, Okla., in 1924, Bill Stokes attended college at the University of Oklahoma and UC Berkeley.

As an officer in the U.S. Navy, he was aboard a destroyer involved in the Japanese surrender in Sasebo, Japan, during World War II. Besides Tim and Lindsey, of Santa Rosa, Bill Stokes is survived by daughters, Leigh Allison Stokes, of Seattle, and Celia Marie Stokes, of Frederick, Md., and six grandchildren.


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