BART reaches near record ridership for Warriors Championship Parade

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- BART says ridership neared a new record as it took fans to the Warriors Championship Parade Thursday as the population of Oakland swelled to two and a half times its normal size.

BART carried 203,000 riders Thursday morning, hours before the parade began. That's 2.4 percent more than the last Warriors victory parade. More than 500,000 people lined the parade route downtown and crowded around the west end of Lake Merritt.

It was 28 percent more riders than a typical commute Thursday.

"We planned for this to be one of the busiest days in the history of the system, we won't know the final ridership numbers until tonight, said BART spokesman Chris Filippi.

Crowds leaving the parade saw huge crowds at the 19th St. station, so large that station agents metered riders onto the train platform.

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