BART ridership reached a post-pandemic ridership record on Saturday, helped in part by the Chinese New Year Festival and Parade in San Francisco and Fans’ Fest in Oakland, the agency said. 

BART reported 123,636 trips on Saturday, up 54,000 more than the previous Saturday. Before that, BART said the post-pandemic record for a Saturday was in October 2023, with 116,000 trips. 

Transit agencies across the Bay Area are still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and are trying to increase ridership. 

Last November, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission — the transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county Bay Area — announced that it would be releasing part of $5 billion in state funds earmarked for struggling transit agencies. The funds will keep Bay Area agencies from making service cuts through June 2026. 

BART has recently made changes in an effort to increase safety and efficiency by shortening trains and increasing frequency of service. Running fewer cars is meant to allow BART police to increase its visibility with the same amount of staff.

Katy St. Clair got her start in journalism by working in the classifieds department at the East Bay Express during the height of alt weeklies, then sweet talked her way into becoming staff writer, submissions editor, and music editor. She has been a columnist in the East Bay Express, SF Weekly, and the San Francisco Examiner. Starting in 2015, she begrudgingly scaled the inverted pyramid at dailies such as the Vallejo Times-Herald, The Vacaville Reporter, and the Daily Republic. She has her own independent news site and blog that covers the delightfully dysfunctional town of Vallejo, California, where she also collaborates with the investigative team at Open Vallejo. A passionate advocate for people with developmental disabilities, she serves on both the Board of the Arc of Solano and the Arc of California. She lives in Vallejo.