Olympic torch, baseball crowds create record ridership

The additional number of people taking BART to and from the Olympic Torch Relay and the Giants game in downtown San Francisco on April 9th resulted in another day of ridership record &emdash; one that easily shattered the previous record set during the 2007 Labor Day weekend Bay Bridge closure.

There were 391,900 riders, which is 2,500 more than the previous record high of 389,400 on August 31, 2007 &emdash; the Friday before Caltrans shutdown the Bay Bridge in both directions for the entire Labor Day weekend to replace a section of bridge deck as part of its earthquake retrofit project.

"Both BART and our riders deserve a gold medal," BART Board President Gail Murray said. "Our trains carried all of those people while still maintaining a 95 percent passenger on-time performance. At the same time, our BART Police never needed to make a single arrest related to the torch relay."

"There's no question that this ridership record underscores just how vitally important BART is to the mobility of the Bay Area," BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger said. "This record once again showcases the wise investment taxpayers made to build BART four decades ago. It also highlights the importance to reinvest in BART to make sure we continue to provide an environmentally-friendly, on-time, reliable and safe service to a Bay Area population that's growing in size and demanding higher levels of service on an ever aging system."