By August 1965, BART proposed to call the station "Claremont", while a city committee had rejected "College–Shafter" and "Temescal".[3] A BART committee proposed "Rockridge" in October 1965; it was accepted by the BART Board that December.[4][5] Service at Rockridge commenced on May 21, 1973, after the construction of the Berkeley Hills Tunnel was completed.[6]
Seismic retrofit work took place at the station in 2008–2009 and above the parking lots in 2015.[7][8][9] Thirteen BART stations, including Rockridge, did not originally have faregates for passengers using the elevator. In 2020, BART started a project to add faregates to elevators at these stations. The new faregate on the platform at Rockridge was installed in July 2022.[10]
As of 2024[update], BART indicates "significant market, local support, and/or implementation barriers" that must be overcome to allow transit-oriented development on the surface parking lots at the station. Such development would not begin until at least the mid-2030s.[11]