It’s the end of the line for free parking at BART stations.

The rapid transit district began service in 1972 with a philosophy that people needed to be offered an empty seat on a train and a free parking space if they were going to be lured out of their cars to commute.

But now riders will have to hand over $1 a day to park at Concord, North Concord, Hayward and the Oakland Coliseum as BART over the next few weeks phases out the last of the four free lots.

Rider Jack Fernando, of Concord, isn’t happy about it.

“It’s another charge on commuters, and it’s inconvenient,” Fernando said Thursday while waiting for a train. “You have to remember to enter the right parking stall number or you get a ticket. That adds stress for commuters.”

BART officials say free parking at stations is obsolete after record ridership that has left rush hour trains packed and many station lots full by 7 or 8 a.m. on weekday mornings. This month, ridership is on pace to set a record at an average of 438,000 passengers per weekday. BART has 33 stations with a combined total of 47,000 parking spaces, but that’s proven not to be enough.

“I understand the frustration with parking fees and was against them for a long time,” said BART board Director Joel Keller, of Brentwood. “But with our big growth in ridership, it’s simply not possible to build enough parking to meet the demand.”

BART Director Tom Blalock, of Fremont, said he voted against parking fees because he sees them as punitive against suburban riders in spread-out cities with limited bus service. But he is resigned that fees are here to stay.

BART began introducing fees to its lots in 2005, setting the rates under a formula that links the charges to how fast lots fill up. The transit system charges between $1 and $3 per day at most of the lots. Busy West Oakland is an exception with its $6.50 per day fee.

“It’s government taking more money out of your pocket,” Irma Balsover, a train rider from Walnut Creek, grumbled about the fees.

Transit officials said it’s only fair to charge for parking so riders help cover the cost of parking lots. It costs about $1.33 a day on average to maintain, operate and police each parking space in the system, BART says.

Some riders, however, said they wouldn’t mind the fees so much if BART would plow the money into opening more parking lots and garages.

“My big complaint is they need more parking,” said John Hockenbery, of Concord. “It’s getting harder and harder to find spaces.” He said the Concord lot fills up by 7:30 or 8 a.m.

Parking lots at 12 BART stations filled up by 8:30 a.m. or earlier on Thursday, including Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Castro Valley, Fremont, Rockridge, Lake Merritt, West Dublin/Pleasanton and Pittsburg/Bay Point, according to figures from BART.

Transit officials say it’s too expensive to build new garages — it costs about $30,000 per space. And they say it is tough to get cities to approve garages because of neighborhood opposition.

But BART insists it is not ignoring the problem.

The district expects to earmark some $10 million a year from parking fees to make it easier to reach stations via bike, walking, buses, shuttles and other improvements at stations.

BART is rapidly adding bike lockers and racks to accommodate a surge in people cycling to stations, said Bob Franklin, BART department manager of customer access. And it is developing a plan to promote and assist buses that shuttle riders to and from stations, he said.

Some 49 percent of BART riders reach stations by car, 31 percent by foot, 15 percent by transit, and 4 percent by bike.

Keller, the BART director, said he favors opening more park-and-ride lots where customers can leave their cars and take buses to BART.

“We know we have a problem with station access,” Keller said, “and we’re trying hard to deal with it.”

Contact Denis Cuff at 925-943-8267. Follow him at Twitter.com/deniscuff