[Pedestrian]

This Bay Area transit service is booming after adding more service on the weekends
Ricardo Cano
Sep. 13, 2021
Updated: Sep. 14, 2021 6:05 p.m.

When the San Francisco Bay Ferry increased service beyond pre-pandemic levels in July, it did so by discounting rides and beefing up the number of its weekend trips instead of relying on the peak-hour weekday service that used to make up much of its ridership.

Two months later, the service increases seem to be paying off, and the ferry’s ridership surge marks the latest example of how the pandemic has changed the way people get around the Bay Area, perhaps for the long run.

The ferry’s ridership is a fraction of some of the region’s largest operators, such as Muni and BART, and weekday ridership remains at 32% of pre-pandemic figures despite its recent gains. But the ferry’s surging popularity on the weekends illustrates how weekend and leisure travel have taken center stage during the Bay Area’s summer of reopening.

Ferry service to Giants baseball games is selling out. And though its weekday ridership has increased by 67%, particularly during midday hours, Saturdays and Sundays have now become the most popular days to ride the ferry, reaching more than 60% of pre-pandemic levels since service resumed in July.

“We were not expecting our weekend service to be at 70% of pre-pandemic levels on our holiday weekends.”

In response to its growing weekend ridership, the ferry added more weekend service from Oakland and Alameda starting Labor Day weekend. It also plans to bring back limited service to South San Francisco in October . . . .

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...r-16453963.php