BART ridership has been hit hard by the pandemic and now the agency is saying it may take years to recover.
Alicia Trost a spokesperson for BART said the omicron variant put a dent in ridership and the agency is lagging behind the rest of the country's rail transit systems recovering from the pandemic. She said the San Francisco Bay Area has been the last to return employees to the office compared to other cities in the U.S.
"What's so fascinating is that our ridership is basically mirroring office occupancy," Trost told KCBS Radio.
Trost said last week BART reached over 100,000 riders for the first time since Christmas and that ridership is now at 25% of what it was before the pandemic. The agency is looking ahead and is estimating that ridership will return to pre-pandemic levels in four years.
"We have some forecasts they are not optimistic and I think that is the best approach to take," she explained. "So, our assumption is that we will stabilize in 2026."
Trost added that BART already approved a fare increase that occurs every other year but the increased fare was delayed due to the pandemic.
"Now with fewer riders and those riders are truly essential workers and they're more likely to not own a car, they are more likely to be low income, we don't want to continue to put the operating budget on the backs of our riders," she said.
The Bart board is expected to meet on Feb. 10 and 11 to discuss ridership recovery.
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