Riders flood Bay ferry during tube closure

Due to the closure of the Transbay Tube, the number of passengers riding the San Francisco Bay Ferry from Oakland and Alameda to San Francisco on Saturday more than doubled, ferry officials said today.

There were 8,464 passengers on the route Saturday, whereas last year on the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend there were just 3,771 passengers, according to ferry officials.

There was also a smaller increase on the ferry route between Vallejo and San Francisco. Last year there were 1,992 passengers, but that increased to 2,464 on Saturday, ferry officials said.

As of this afternoon the Alameda/Oakland/San Francisco route had 2,185 passengers, which is only up slightly from last year’s 1,931 passengers on Sunday of Labor Day weekend.

The Vallejo/San Francisco route has carried 1,173 passengers so far today, which is also just a slight increase over last year’s number of 1,149 passengers.

A full summary of this weekend’s ferry ridership will be available Tuesday afternoon, ferry officials said.