With loosening COVID restrictions and many new in-person work schedules, the spike in gas prices could give public transit the ridership bump that it desperately needs.
One Thursday morning, Marshall Ward hopped in his Range Rover, got on Highway 24 and met a wall of traffic.
“I turned around,” said Ward, who left his vehicle at home and instead took BART into San Francisco. “I looked at my tank – last time it cost me $100 dollars – I saw the traffic and I just realized: Why am I driving?”over the last month, many commuters are now mulling cheaper alternatives.
With COVID restrictions loosening and many employers summoning workers back to the office, the spike in gas prices could give public transit the ridership bump that it desperately needs. Some agencies are already seeing results. On Wednesday and Thursday, BART saw its highest ridership since the start of the pandemic with over 125,000 trips each day. Meanwhile, VTA saw a 24% increase in ridership versus last week.
“I haven’t seen anything sardine can-like, like back in in the good old days, but there are definitely more people on,” said Richard Shearer, an attorney who works in San Francisco. During the pandemic he was accustomed to scoring a seat anywhere he wanted on mostly empty BART cars but that’s no longer guaranteed. “I’ve done more standing in the past week than I did in the previous several months,” he added.
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