BART Ridership Jumped During Freeway Closure
- BART saw a surge in riders while a major Bay Area freeway was closed, officials reported. - The spike highlighted BART's role as essential infrastructure during the closure, with notable ridership increases. - Officials say lessons from the surge could inform future service planning and emergency responses (patch.com).
BART picked up tens of thousands of extra riders during San Francisco’s weekend I-80 shutdown, turning a freeway closure into a transit stress test. (bart.gov) The agency said it logged 182,570 trips on Friday, April 17, up 16% from the previous Friday and nearly 25,000 additional riders. Saturday climbed to 139,700 trips and Sunday to 98,850, both 46% above the prior weekend. (bart.gov) The closure ran from 11 p.m. Friday, April 17, to 6 a.m. Monday, April 20, on a 1.6-mile eastbound stretch of Interstate 80 between 17th and 4th streets in San Francisco. Caltrans also shut the U.S. 101 connector ramps into eastbound I-80 as part of a two-year viaduct rehabilitation project. (abc7news.com) Caltrans said about 55,000 people combined usually drive that eastbound stretch during peak daytime hours on a typical Saturday and Sunday. State and local officials urged travelers to use public transportation instead of driving through SoMa and Mission Bay. (abc7news.com, nbcbayarea.com) BART said the weekend surge showed the rail system could absorb a sudden jump in demand while still running its standard five-line weekend schedule. The agency called that role part of the region’s transportation backbone when major roads are unavailable. (bart.gov) The spike also landed during a broader rebound for the system. BART said April ridership so far is about 10% higher than a year earlier, after March set multiple post-pandemic records. (bart.gov, sfgate.com) March brought average weekday ridership above 200,000 for the first time since 2020, but that still trails the roughly 410,000 average weekday trips BART carried before the pandemic. BART recorded more than 5.4 million exits in March, its highest monthly total since 2019. (sfgate.com) That recovery has not closed the agency’s budget gap. BART said last year it was facing a $375 million deficit, and officials tied the shortfall to hybrid work patterns that cut into the downtown commute the system once relied on. (nbcbayarea.com) For one April weekend, though, the Bay Area’s fallback route was not another highway. It was the train system running underneath the traffic. (bart.gov, abc7news.com)
