Super Bowl helps BART crush weekend-day ridership record

BART set a weekend-day ridership record Saturday. BART set a weekend-day ridership record Saturday. Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Super Bowl helps BART crush weekend-day ridership record 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Super Bowl 50 is fueling a huge boost in ridership for Bay Area public transit, with BART reporting its busiest weekend day in history Saturday — and three of its top eight busiest weekdays ever during the past week.

BART ridership totaled 419,162 on Saturday, topping the old weekend-day record by 100,000, as the NFL van village Super Bowl City drew fans to downtown San Francisco. A Metallica show at AT&T Park and a Golden State Warriors game against the Oklahoma City Thunder in Oakland also drew big crowds to BART.

“You could pick a dozen different reasons ridership was up on Saturday, but Super Bowl City was certainly the big draw,” said BART spokesman James Allison. “We came pretty close to weekday ridership on a weekend, which is basically unheard of.”

Average ridership during the week is 432,000.

On Friday, BART recorded its third-busiest day ever, logging 528,679 rides. Thursday was the transit agency’s sixth-busiest day of all time, and Wednesday was its eighth-busiest.

BART was expecting big crowds on Sunday as well. It joined other transit agencies, including Caltrain and Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, in bumping up service to accommodate those heading to the Super Bowl at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.

Here are BART’s top 10 busiest days of all time:

• Oct. 31, 2012 — 568,061 rides on the day of the Giants’ World Series victory parade and Halloween.

• June 19, 2015 — 548,076 rides on the day of the Warriors’ championship parade in Oakland.

• Feb. 5, 2016 — 528,679 rides for Super Bowl festivities in San Francisco.

• Nov. 13, 2010 — 522,198 rides on the day of the Giants’ World Series victory parade.

• Oct. 31, 2014 — 511,640 rides on the day of the yet another Giants World Series victory parade.

• Feb. 4, 2016 — 486,596 rides for Super Bowl 50 festivities in San Francisco.

• Aug. 29, 2013 — 475,015 rides on the day the Bay Bridge was closed to take the original eastern span out of service and open the new eastern span to traffic.

• Feb. 3, 2016 — 471,663 rides for Super Bowl 50 festivities in San Francisco.

• Sept. 25, 2015 — 463,487 rides on the day the Giants played the A’s at the Coliseum and the band AC/DC played at AT&T Park.

• Oct. 16, 2014 — 462,242 rides on day of the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco and a Giants vs. St. Louis Cardinals playoff game at AT&T Park.

Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander