BART Ridership Surges During Freeway Closure
- BART saw a notable ridership surge during the multi-day closure of a major Bay Area freeway that snarled regional traffic. - Officials said the spike highlighted BART's role as essential infrastructure for the region. - The surge may affect future transit planning and funding decisions, officials said (patch.com).
BART handled 421,120 trips from Friday, April 17, through Sunday, April 19, after San Francisco closed a key stretch of eastbound Interstate 80 for repairs. (bart.gov) Friday ridership reached 182,570 trips, up 16% from the previous Friday. Saturday rose to 139,700 trips and Sunday to 98,850, with both weekend days up 46% week over week, BART said. (bart.gov) The freeway closure covered about 1.6 miles of eastbound I-80 between 17th and 4th streets from 11 p.m. on Friday, April 17, to 6 a.m. on Monday, April 20. Caltrans urged drivers to use public transportation during the 55-hour shutdown. (dot.ca.gov) BART said sunny weather also lifted weekend travel, because the prior weekend was rainy and rain usually cuts ridership. The agency said it still had enough capacity to absorb the extra demand while running its normal five-line weekend service. (bart.gov) The spike landed during a broader recovery for the rail system. BART said April ridership to date was running about 10% above the same period a year earlier, and March set several post-pandemic records. (bart.gov) In March, BART recorded more than 5.4 million exits, its highest monthly total since 2019. Average weekday ridership topped 200,000 for the first time since the pandemic, though that remained well below the roughly 410,000 weekday trips BART averaged before 2020. (nbcbayarea.com) Those gains have not erased BART’s budget problem. NBC Bay Area reported the agency still faces annual deficits in the hundreds of millions of dollars and is backing a regional sales-tax measure this fall as it looks for new operating money. (nbcbayarea.com) Earlier this year, Patch reported BART officials were weighing a “doomsday” contingency plan that could close 10 stations, end service at 9 p.m. and reduce weekend operations if new funding fails to materialize. (patch.com) The I-80 weekend offered a simpler test: when a freeway link into San Francisco shut down, tens of thousands of extra riders shifted onto trains. BART said that showed the system’s role as backup infrastructure when major roads are out of service. (bart.gov)
