SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — BART ridership numbers for Tuesday were the second-highest since before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency confirmed to KRON4. Ridership yesterday was reported to be 189,716, second only to the Golden State Warriors victory parade in June of last year.
Ridership Tuesday was largely driven by a fan-organized “reverse boycott” to protest the Oakland Athletics’ proposed move to Vegas at the Oakland Coliseum and a K-pop concert at the adjacent Oakland Arena. BART recorded 12,699 exits at Coliseum Station, amounting to 7% of Tuesday’s ridership.
Attendance at Tuesday night’s game, in which the A’s extended their winning streak to seven games with a win over the Tampa Bay Rays, was 27,759, according to MLB.
Tuesday’s spike in ridership comes at a time when BART and SF Muni have warned that they are in danger of going off a “fiscal cliff” without state funding. Transit agencies like BART and Muni saw a drastic drop in ridership at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While ridership has rebounded somewhat, the pivot to remote work for much of the Bay Area’s office workforce has left BART ridership down about 60% of what it was pre-pandemic. In a recent survey, Bay Area residents cited the two biggest factors preventing them from riding BART as safety and cleanliness.
