San Francisco Public Transportation ridership to airport fails to take off

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Three years after the extension opened, ridership is nowhere near what BART officials had hoped. The route is losing money, and BART is embroiled in a funding fight with another Peninsula transit agency.

Prior to construction, BART projected there would be 17,800 average daily boardings to and from the airport by the year 2010. During the first year of operation that began in 2003, there were 5,864 daily boardings, the second year 6,675, and the third year 7,116. While there has been ridership growth -- 14 percent after the first year and 7 percent after the second -- it's unlikely the 2010 projection will be met.

Likewise, ridership to and from the three other stations on the airport extension route -- in South San Francisco, San Bruno and Millbrae -- have not met expectations since opening at the same time.

The forecast for the Millbrae Station, for instance, anticipated 33,000 trips on an average weekday by 2010. The number now is about 6,400.

Officials say the chief culprits of BART's ridership woes on the Peninsula are the dot-com bust of 2000 that meant the loss of tens of thousands of jobs and therefore fewer commuters than anticipated, and the double hit to air travel by the September 2001 terrorist attacks and the SARS public health scare.

Still, backers of the $1.5 billion transit project say that not all is bad, and that the region is recovering from those financial hits.

Public transportation isn't the future of commuting.But,we'll admit politicians really like it because it's a great patronage system.