S.F. Bay Area’s trains and buses are filling up again. Even experts aren’t sure why

By Rachel Swan and Danielle Echeverria | San Francisco Chronicle (TNS)

Something strange is happening on weekday evenings at the Powell Street BART Station.

Around 5 p.m., people pour onto the platform. There are office workers clutching backpacks and shoppers lugging bags of groceries. There are brusque exchanges on escalators and the occasional sharp elbow. There’s a line for the restroom and an attendant in an orange shirt, asking everyone to wait their turn.

It’s a scene that recalls pre-pandemic days, before the Bay Area settled in to work from home and largely abandoned public transit. Now the rush hour crowds are back, boosting BART to record ridership in the first third of this year. Although the rail agency still only carries half as many riders as it did in 2019, the period from January through April marked its most successful four-month chunk since COVID shutdowns.

“I’m definitely seeing a lot of people in business-casual wear who are clearly coming back from work,” said Carolyn Moore, who was sitting on the Powell Street platform Thursday, reading a copy of “Jane Eyre” as she waited for the next train. She commutes from Richmond to San Francisco each day, jostling among 9-to-5ers as well as children on field trips or families on excursions.

Data compiled by the Chronicle shows that other transit systems have rebounded even better than BART. Measured over the same four-month time frame, Muni recovered 81% of its pre-COVID ridership levels, while Caltrain hit the 70% mark. The Peninsula rail line has steadily resurged since electrification brought faster train service in 2024, allowing people to zip from downtown San Francisco to jobs or conferences in Silicon Valley. In the East Bay, AC Transit reached 79% of pre-pandemic ridership, showing a strong return to local bus lines as well as transbay buses that cross the bridge each day.

These numbers suggest a steady, widespread recovery, goosed along by the Super Bowl, the World Cup games and a recent series of three BTS concerts at Stanford Stadium. Customer satisfaction “dramatically improved” at BART with the installation of new fare gates, said Emily Loper, senior vice president of public policy at the Bay Area Council. People are once again embracing transit, even as agencies warn of impending deficits and rally support for a taxpayer bailout in November.

“I think people have started to get past that mentality of wanting to be at home with their laptop,” said John Dryden, who typically rides Muni’s 38-Geary or 1-California bus to get from his downtown office to his home in Cathedral Hill. The vehicles get so packed, snaking through the Financial District and the Inner Richmond, that passengers don’t always have room to board.

Economists and policymakers can’t quite explain what’s driving the trend. Other datasets for badge swipes and cellphone usage suggest the return to offices plateaued in 2023 and remains relatively stagnant, said Stanford University economics professor Nicholas Bloom, who is sometimes known as a “remote work guru” for his voluminous research on the subject. More likely, Bloom said, people are shifting away from cars to avoid high gas prices or heavy traffic on freeways. Bloom also credits San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie for improving safety and street conditions in the city, making it more inviting for people patronizing the museums, the opera or the night markets. Many of them probably ride transit.

“Identifying a single factor that shapes people’s travel behavior is a fool’s errand,” said John Goodwin, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. He echoed Bloom’s observation about high gas prices, while citing last weekend’s Qatar-Switzerland World Cup match at Levi’s Stadium, which drew 37,000 riders to BART, Caltrain and Valley Transportation Authority light rail in the South Bay.

More promising than the high-profile sports events is the uptick in day-to-day ridership, which suggests that something is luring people back onto transit. Perhaps it is a simple value calculation: A fare is cheaper than a tank of gas or day in a parking garage. Or maybe the pull is less tangible. For all the complaints about crammed buses and trains, people seem to miss their rhythm and bustle — the collective thrill of leaving work at 5 p.m. and joining the swarm at Powell Station.

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