October BART Ridership Soars

BART ridership, which set a new record last weekend, has continued to soar this month, in part due to the success of Bay Area sports teams, according to BART officials.

Thursday was the fifth busiest day in BART's 40-year history, with 431,771 riders, BART spokesman Jim Allison said. The last time ridership exceeded 430,000 was during the San Francisco Giants World Series Victory Parade.

That total includes 41,897 people traveling to and from the Coliseum/Oakland Airport Station, where the Oakland Athletics were playing the Detroit Tigers and the Warriors were playing a midseason game.

"Not only are hundreds of thousands of people relying on BART to get them to work or school safely and reliably, but more people are choosing BART as a convenient and cost-effective way to travel to recreational activities," said BART Board President John McPartland.

The weekend of Oct. 6-8, which featured major events including a Giants game, Fleet Week, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and the Castro Street Fair, set a new record for weekend ridership. A total of 319,484 people took BART on Saturday alone, breaking the previous weekend record or 278,586 set in Sept. 1, 2007 when the Bay Bridge was closed.

By way of comparison, the average Saturday in 2012 has had ridership of around 202,000, Allison noted.

--Bay City News Service