Only one public transportation agency with service in San Francisco will still require masks next month.
Beginning Oct. 1, BART will no longer require passengers aboard its trains and within its stations to wear masks as a COVID-19 mitigation measure following a vote of the agency's board of directors on Thursday night.Â
AC Transit – which makes more than 500 trips in and out of San Francisco each week – still requires masks aboard its buses, making it the lone holdout among transit agencies operating in The City. The agency told The Examiner that its requirement is still in effect and subject to weekly review.Â
BART will continue to recommend that all riders wear masks starting on Oct. 2. Following Thursday's vote, BART General Manager Bob Powers can only re-implement a mask mandate under certain circumstances.Â
Masks will be required again if public health officials in one of the five counties BART serves or the state require masks in public indoor spaces, or if the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or Transportation Security Administration issues another mandate.Â
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BART riders must also wear masks if any metropolitan area outside of the Bay Area experiences a CDC-defined surge, according to the transit agency's website.Â
Mask mandates aboard Bay Area public transportation and in the region’s airports fell after a federal judge in Florida struck down the Biden administration’s rule requiring masks. After the federal mandate fell, BART implemented its own in April and then extended it again in July amid a surge driven by the omicron variant.Â
The extended requirement was set to expire on Oct. 1, and BART’s data showed compliance slipped among passengers over the summer. At least 90% of passengers wore masks in the first five months of this year, according to the agency, while 89%, 83% and 85% did in June, July and August, respectively.Â
San Francisco and the eight other Bay Area counties currently all have low levels of COVID-19 community transmission, as defined by the CDC. The City leads California with 79.1% of its residents fully vaccinated and receiving at least one booster dose, according to state data. Â
