Post-Pandemic Travel Patterns Call for Different Transit Schedules

Transit agencies like Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) in the San Francisco Bay Area are reworking their schedules to provide more frequent service on nights and weekends, and running shorter trains to improve safety by having more people in each car as ridership remains relatively low, writes Jared Brey in Governing. “As part of the change, the agency is also reducing service on weekdays on several lines,” Brey adds.

On the other side of the country, “the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Boston launched new night and weekend service on its commuter rail lines,” and “The Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York has been incrementally increasing midday, night and weekend service over the last year, in keeping with new investments included as part of the budget deal that helped the agency resolve its fiscal cliff.”

Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia are also increasing service on off-peak hours in a bid to, in the words of Philadelphia’s Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, create a network that can be “easily and reliably used for any sort of trip — whether that be commuting, everyday errands or leisure activities.”