Press Releases

Transit Ridership Surges as Passengers Spare the Air

Double Digit Increases at Most Agencies

For Immediate Release

Contact:
John Goodwin, MTC 510.817.5862
Ashley Nguyen, MTC 510.817.5809
Luna Salaver, Air District 415.749.4900

OAKLAND, Calif., June 23, 2006… Thousands of Bay Area travelers heeded the call yesterday to ride transit free of charge on the first Spare the Air Day of the 2006 summer smog season. Preliminary figures from the roughly two dozen transit operators participating in this year’s Spare the Air/Free Fare campaign indicate large ridership increases across the region.

BART recorded its largest-ever Spare the Air/Free Fare ridership jump yesterday, with about 33,000 more passengers than usual on the 104-mile railway. BART projections peg Thursday’s total ridership at about 329,000, which is approximately 10 percent higher than a typical Thursday. BART registered an average increase of 20,000 riders on two Spare the Air/Free Fare days in 2004 and saw no appreciable change in ridership on the Bay Area’s single Spare the Air day in 2005.

Passengers flocked to other Bay Area rail systems as well. The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA)’s light-rail trains carried almost 37,000 passengers yesterday, a 24 percent increase over the previous Thursday — and VTA bus ridership rose by 8 percent over June 15 levels. The Caltrain station at 4th and King streets in San Francisco handled 1,592 passenger arrivals and departures between 7:15 a.m. and 9:15 a.m. Thursday morning. That marks an increase of 96 passengers, or 6.4 percent, over a typical Thursday. The three morning trains of the Altamont Commuter Express (ACE) attracted a total of 1,790 riders yesterday, a 19 percent increase over the 1,507 passengers who boarded the trains on June 15.

The biggest percentage increases in ridership yesterday were reported by the Golden Gate Ferry system, with the number of passengers on the Larkspur-San Francisco route climbing by more than 60 percent over a baseline established Tuesday, June 20, and ridership on the Sausalito-San Francisco route soaring by more than 200 percent over Tuesday levels.

Smaller transit agencies also registered hefty ridership gains yesterday. Passenger counts on Tri Delta Transit and County Connection buses in Contra Costa County were up six percent and 12 percent respectively, compared to the previous Thursday. In western Contra Costa County, WestCAT buses carried 4,563 riders yesterday, compared with 3,588 on a comparable Thursday in June 2005. The
27 percent increase is due in part to two new routes that carried 503 riders yesterday. Subtracting passengers on the new routes, WestCAT ridership rose by 13 percent over June 2005 levels.

Vacaville City Coach buses carried 17 percent more riders than usual yesterday and Union City Transit ridership rose 10 percent for the day. The Napa County VINE system carried 18 percent more passengers yesterday than the previous Thursday and Fairfield-Suisun Transit saw an 11 percent increase in riders.

Today is the second Spare the Air day of the year, and most Bay Area transit operators are expected to wait until next week to report preliminary ridership figures for today. Several transit agencies — including San Francisco Muni and AC Transit — are expected to report preliminary passenger counts for both Thursday and Friday next week.

The 2006 Spare the Air/Free Fare campaign allows travelers to ride free of charge all day on 25 Bay Area transit systems on the first three non-holiday weekdays on which the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (Air District) declares a Spare the Air advisory. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission has committed $6.7 million in federal air quality funding for this year’s program, with another $870,000 contributed by the Air District. The free transit offer is designed to get drivers out of their cars on hot days with potentially high levels of air pollution.

Bay Area residents can register online at www.sparetheair.org to receive Spare the Air alerts via e-mail. To learn more about the Spare the Air/Free Fare program, to plan your trip on transit, or to view a list of all participating Bay Area transit agencies, go to www.511.org.

MTC is the transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District (www.baaqmd.gov) is the regional agency chartered with protecting air quality in the Bay Area.

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