You, the loyal BART customer, helped set a new ridership record for BART last weekend. Unfortunately you could not match the overall weekend ridership record set during the bridge closure of 2007. Drat. Regardless, BART Board President Thomas Blalock would like to thank you for proving yet again that BART is undoubtedly “a vital part of this region’s mobility.”
As you know, on Friday September 4th, 395,300 people rode BART as an alternative to the bridge. This is the second highest ridership in BART’s 37 year history, falling just short of the 405,400 record set on Monday Sept 8th, when Bay Area commuters used the rail primarily to commute to and from Giants and a Raiders games. How wonderful to know that the only thing capable of bolstering public transit more than the closing of a major transportation artery is the simultaneous occurrence of football and baseball.
Check here for a posting of the weekend ridership stats, which culminated in an overall, weekend ridership total of 1,005,600 commuters. It feels like a lot of self congratulation by BART over simply being available. If I owned two pairs of pants, for instance, I wouldn’t necessarily congratulate the one pair for being exceptionally wearable in the event that the other happened to be in the wash.
BART officials plan to thank commuters for their support by offering special, off-peak hour service reductions beginning on September 14th.
