COVID Recovery: BART Increases Saturday Service; Weekend Use On The Rebound
OAKLAND (CBS SF/BCN) -- Encouraged by a surge in weekend ridership as the COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted, BART officials added 16 train trips to its Saturday service.
The additional train trips will serve Saturday riders throughout the day. Most of these trips will serve the Pleasant Hill-Daly City corridor, which is heavily used on a regular basis.
An additional trip has been added from the BART station at San Francisco International Airport in the morning. One trip that is headed to the airport has been added in the afternoon.
BART officials said that systemwide ridership on Saturdays has increased at a faster pace than ridership on weekdays.
Last Saturday, for instance, 42,356 riders took BART. That's 27 percent of pre-pandemic ridership for a Saturday in June.
"We're excited to see our riders returning and we're adding trains to make it more convenient," said BART Board President Mark Foley. "Sitting in a traffic jam on a Saturday afternoon is no fun. BART, on the other hand, is on-time well above 90 percent of the time and, with more frequent service beginning tomorrow, we feel we're the best way to get around on a sunny Saturday."
Also on Saturday, BART reopened all station entrances that were closed in October of last year due to low ridership. Some construction-related closures will remain closed.
