BART to restore service to prepandemic levels early

BART will restore most of its pandemic service cuts — expanding service hours and running trains more frequently — four weeks sooner than originally planned, the agency announced July 1.

On Aug. 2, BART again will offer Monday-Saturday service through midnight rather than 9 p.m. On weekdays, trains will run every 15 minutes from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m., and every 30 minutes thereafter. On Saturdays, BART will offer more trips, with four trains per hour on most lines. Sunday service will remain the same from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., with trains running every 30 minutes to accommodate BART’s infrastructure rebuilding work.

In the meantime, from July 15 through the end of the month, BART also announced that it will run limited late-night trains leaving from downtown San Francisco at 11:30 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, with the goal of giving latenight workers and patrons more options to return home from the city on public transit.

BART also is running trains past the 9 p.m. cutoff to accommodate fans attending A’s and Giants weeknight games scheduled before Aug. 2. Check the schedule in advance to see what time trains depart, and which stations they serve, as the stops are limited. The agency said that fans attending the fireworks show after today’s A’s game at the Coliseum will need to find alternate transportation.

The accelerated timeline was made possible by “working collaboratively with labor partners to accelerate the hiring, training and shift signup process,” according to a news release. BART ridership is still hovering around 20% of pre-pandemic levels, seeing about 80,000 passengers per weekday, compared to over 400,000 before the pandemic.