Transit Ridership
How much are Bay Area residents relying on public transportation?
The Bay Area’s buses, trains, ferries, light-rail vehicles, cable cars and streetcars provide mobility for people without access to – or the ability to use – personal vehicles, and offer an alternative to driving for hundreds of thousands of residents who do have access to a car. Public transit helps to provide an alternative to congested roads, lowering travel time and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. The Bay Area’s public transit system also provides access to opportunity for people in the region by connecting the community with jobs, educational and recreational opportunities that would otherwise be inaccessible.
Over the past three decades, transit ridership in the Bay Area has transitioned between periods of growth and decline – usually based on the state of the regional economy – before dropping precipitously during the COVID-19 pandemic. While there has been some level of ridership recovery since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, transit ridership levels still remain well below what was seen prior to the pandemic.
247Mboardings
Total annual boardings across all transit operators in the Bay Area was over 247 million in 2022
820kboardings
Average weekday boardings across all transit operators in the Bay Area was over 820k in 2022
49%
As of 2022, average weekday boardings across all transit operators in the Bay Area was 49% of pre-pandemic levels seen in 2019
Regional Performance
Over the past three decades, transit ridership in the Bay Area has transitioned between periods of growth and decline – often in tandem with changes in the Bay Area economy – before dropping precipitously during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On a typical weekday in 1990, Bay Area residents boarded buses, trains and ferries approximately 1.6 million times. During the economic expansions of recent decades, weekday transit ridership increased somewhat and peaked at approximately 1.7 million boardings in both 2001 and 2016. On a per capita basis, transit ridership over the last 30 years has declined, with a clear downward trend, perhaps momentarily stalled, but not halted, by the economic expansions.
Transit ridership in the Bay Area declined dramatically amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and as of 2022 has only recovered to approximately half of pre-pandemic levels. During this era, many white collar workers made the shift from commuting by transit to working from home at least a few days per week. This decline in office-based work has had a significant impact on Bay Area transit systems like SFMTA, BART, Golden Gate Transit/Ferry and Caltrain, which have historically been designed to shuttle commuters to central business districts around the region. As of 2022, average weekday boardings on transit in the Bay Area had fallen to 49% of the pre-pandemic levels seen in 2019.
1.78Mboardings
Average weekday boardings across all transit operators in the Bay Area was 1.78 million in 2016, the highest year on record
67%
In 2022, 67% of annual boardings on transit in the Bay Area were by bus
-61%
Boardings (per capita by service area) on Bay Area busses in 2022 are 61% lower than they were in 1991
Historical Trend for Transit Ridership
Local Focus
Transit ridership over the past few decades and during the COVID-19 pandemic varies significantly among different transit operators.
Over the past few decades, transit ridership trends vary by transit operator and mode. For instance, BART's average weekday boardings rose by over 60% from 260k to almost 430k between 1991 and 2019, reaching a peak of almost 460k in 2016. However, AC Transit's average weekday boardings decreased from 218k to 180k during the same period. These pre-COVID-19 trends— generally growing ridership on rail and ferry service and declining ridership on bus service—reflect myriad changes, including increased car ownership in the Bay Area, changes in the geography of jobs, and the displacement of many lower-income communities from the urban core of the Bay Area where transit service is more robust.
The Bay Area's 20+ transit operators have had different ridership recoveries in the COVID-19 era. Ridership recovery by operator generally reflects the type of destinations served and the demographics of riders of each agency. Transit operators serving riders without access to other modes of transportation have recovered better, while those serving riders who can work from home have had weaker recoveries. As of 2022, Marin Transit has seen a recovery to over 80% of pre-pandemic levels seen in 2019, while BART and Caltrain have average weekday ridership at 36% and 29%, respectively, of pre-pandemic levels.
460kboardings
Average weekday boardings on BART was almost 460k in 2016, the highest year on record
-17%
Average weekday boardings on AC Transit declined by 17% from 1991 to 2019
84%
In 2022 weekday boardings on Marin Transit have recovered to over 80% of the pre-pandemic levels seen in 2019
Historical Trend For Daily Transit Ridership by Operator
National Context
Regions like New York City and Los Angeles have the highest absolute weekday transit ridership in the nation. COVID-19 has affected transit ridership across the nation, though some metro areas have been more affected than others.
The New York City metro area has by far the highest transit ridership in the US, with almost 9.4 million weekday boardings in 2022. Los Angeles had over 1.2 million weekday boardings. In 2022, both cities had populations of approximately 20 and 13 million respectively, compared to the Bay Area's 7.6 million. Transit ridership in the Bay Area is similar to Chicago, Washington D.C. and Philadelphia, with weekday boardings ranging from 500k to 1 million.
The precipitous drop in transit ridership in the immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the slow, still-ongoing recovery as cities reopened was a shared experience for transit operators around the country. As of 2022, recovery varies among large metro areas, measured as a percentage of total annual boardings relative to pre-pandemic levels seen in 2019. Regions with comparatively strong transit ridership recoveries include Miami (75%), Los Angeles (67%) and Houston (67%). Weak recovery areas include Atlanta (48%), the Bay Area (50%) and Chicago (52%). The ability to work from home, the availability of transit options, and the varying degrees to which workers have returned to major downtown areas are likely the key factors in explaining variability in transit ridership recovery in the post COVID-19 era.
9.4Mboardings
Average weekday boardings on transit in the New York City metro area was almost 9.4 million in 2022, the highest in the nation
727kboardings
Average weekday boardings across all transit operators in the Washington, D.C. metro area was over 727k in 2022
75%
As of 2022, average weekday boardings across all transit operators in the Miami metro area was 75% of pre-pandemic levels seen in 2019
Historical Trend For Daily Transit Ridership by Metro
Sources & Methodology
The National Transit Database (NTD) dataset was lightly cleaned to correct for erroneous zero values - in which null values (unsubmitted data) were incorrectly marked as zeroes. Paratransit data is sparse in early years of the NTD dataset, meaning that transit ridership estimates in the early 1990s are likely underestimated. Simple modes were aggregated to combine the various bus modes (e.g. rapid bus, express bus, local bus) into a single mode to avoid incorrect conclusions resulting from mode recoding over the lifespan of NTD.
2022 data should be considered preliminary, as it comes from the monthly data tables rather than the longer-term time series dataset. Weekday ridership is calculated by taking the total annual ridership and dividing by 300, an assumption which is consistent with MTC travel modeling procedures; it was also compared to observed weekday boarding data (which is more limited in availability) to ensure consistency on the regional level. Per-capita transit ridership is calculated for the operator's general service area or taxation district; for example, BART includes the three core counties (San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa), as well as northern San Mateo County post-SFO extension, and AC Transit includes the cities located within its service area. For other metro areas, operators were identified by developing a list of all urbanized areas within a current MSA boundary and then using that UZA list to flag relevant operators; this means that all operators (both large and small) were included in the metro comparison data.