VTA breaks new ridership record for Super Bowl LX, smashing the previous all-time high set by Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” concert

It’s not often that Taylor Swift gets dethroned from the top of the leaderboard, but on Super Bowl Sunday, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority set a new daily light rail ridership record that smashed the one previously held by Swift’s 2023 “Eras Tour” concert.

More than 30,000 riders boarded light rail to get to Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium and other related events around the South Bay on Feb. 8 — more than triple the number of passengers the last time Santa Clara hosted the Big Game in 2016.

VTA officials hope that Sunday’s triumph will lead to future success when the region hosts six FIFA World Cup matches later this year.

“We use every special event to assess performance, identify opportunities for improvement and apply those insights to future events to enhance efficiency and better serve passengers,” VTA spokesperson Stacey Hendler-Ross said in a statement. “Breaking ridership records beyond expectations shows that riders trust transit for major events. It validates our planning and investments and sets a new benchmark for serving high-demand venues safely and efficiently.”

The transit agency had previously projected that Super Bowl LX would draw 25,000 riders on game day, which is slightly more than the 23,400 passengers that took light rail to and from Swift’s concert on July 28, 2023. The agency’s previous record was set in 2015 by the NHL Winter Classic, which saw 15,000 riders.

VTA said that on Sunday roughly 40 percent of passengers transferred from Caltrain to VTA in Mountain View, while the other 60 percent came from downtown San Jose or transferred to VTA from BART in Milpitas. After the game, the agency used the two nearby stations — Lick Mill and Great America — instead of one to get riders out faster. They were ultimately able to get more than 13,000 fans onto trains in under 90 minutes.

Campbell City Councilmember Sergio Lopez, who serves as the chair of VTA’s Board of Directors, told Bay Area News Group that the new ridership record is “a sign that people trust VTA to get them to where they need, whether it’s special events or just day-to-day needs.”

But people weren’t just taking light rail to get to the game in Santa Clara, Lopez said. There were events across the South Bay, from Mountain View to San Jose, and people relied on the transit system — including the councilmember himself — to get them where they needed to go, further boosting the number of passengers who rode light rail on Sunday.

Now VTA has its eyes on its next major event: the FIFA World Cup. Levi’s Stadium is set to host six matches of the men’s soccer tournament in June and July, which could mean an increase in riders over the span of a couple of weeks. Hendler-Ross said they don’t have any estimates yet as to how many passengers they are expecting this summer. The transit agency is currently seeking $44 million from the state to help them fund security and other operational needs during that time.

Lopez said he feels “very confident” in VTA’s ability to deliver successful service for residents and visitors going to the Bay Area’s next major sporting event.

“World Cup will be different in that it will be spread out over a number of days and a number of locations, that’s going to be not just the light rail service, which was really the star of the show with the Super Bowl, but our bus lines as well and just a much more dynamic environment of planning and adding extra service,” he said. “I think we’re going to keep building on what we learned and the success in terms of what worked in terms of way finding and communications.”