Bay Bridge traffic is back as the public avoids transit
The metering lights are on more and more often on the Bay Bridge, and the traffic — which had been down by as much as 60% in the early days of the pandemic — is nearly as bad as ever it was.
“Bay Bridge traffic is slowly and steadily creeping back up,” said Randy Rentschler, spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, as is traffic on the Carquinez Bridge.
Before the pandemic, there were about 140,000 Bay Bridge crossings a day in each direction. In March, at the onset of the pandemic and its attendant stayhome orders, traffic was down by 60%, to about 56,000 per day.
But in recent days, Rentschler said, Bay Bridge traffic is down only about 15%, to about 119,00 per day. And Carquinez Bridge traffic is down only about 5% from prepanBay
demic levels.
The increased traffic is due to more businesses and offices reopening and to the reluctance of commuters to return to public transit, where ridership continues to be exceedingly low: Caltrain and BART patronage remains down 85% to 90%.
BART ridership on Thursday was 55,360, the agency reported — down 87% from the prepandemic level of 440,000. An ambitious regimen of BART car cleaning, longer and more frequent trains, and mandatory mask usage has largely failed to win back riders so far, according to ridership data.
According to “train car loading charts” released by the agency, many noncommutehour BART trains are running with an average of 1 or 2 passengers per car — and some are averaging no riders at all.
“People are reluctant to get into a shared space, and for good reason,” Rentschler said. “We expect commuters to go back to their cars.”
Other Bay Area bridges are seeing slower increases in traffic. The Dumbarton Bridge remains down 40% and the San Mateo Bridge is down 30%, Rentschler said. Traffic experts suspect that the continued closure of Silicon Valley tech businesses is largely responsible for continued lighter traffic on those bridges. Golden Gate Bridge traffic is down about 35%.