The Senior Clipper Card is a program that grants discounts on all major Bay Area transit services, including Caltrain, BART, Muni, SamTrans, VTA, and AC. To be eligible for the senior discount, individuals must provide valid proof of age and apply for a senior Clipper card. This program applies to both regular BART and Clipper START, with riders aged 19-64 with qualifying income receiving 50 off single-ride bus, BART, rail, and ferry transit fares. Bay Area youth and seniors can now apply for Clipper cards by mail, email, or fax.
The Day Pass offers unlimited rides for a single day on most County Connection, Tri Delta Transit, WestCAT, and Wheels routes. It is accepted on all Bay Area public transit, including Muni vehicles, BART, AC Transit, Caltrain, SamTrans, VTA, Golden Gate Transit and Ferry, San Francisco Bay Ferry, and more. Bay Area residents ages 19-64 with a household income of up to 200 of the federal poverty level are eligible to apply.
Ridings aged 65 and older or disabled are eligible for Senior/Disabled fares. The RTC Clipper card is a version of Clipper created for passengers under 65 with qualifying disabilities to provide 62.5 off their fair. BART provides a discount to senior community members ages 65 and over, offering discounts for adventure, enrichment, and good eating. To qualify for discounted fares, seniors must be age 65 or older and youth must be age 5-18.
In summary, the Senior Clipper Card is a great deal for seniors in the San Francisco Bay Area, offering discounts on various transit services.
📹 The Space Age Metro System | Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)
A huge shoutout to John FitzGibbon for providing the BART footage used in this video! As always, leave a comment down below if …
Can I use a senior Clipper card on my BART?
BART accepts various payment methods on its Clipper cards, including cash value, high-value discount (HVD), and Muni “A” Adult Fast Pass. For single rides, Clipper customers receive discounts of 50 cents for adults, 25 cents for youth, and 19 cents for senior and disabled riders. A cash value balance of at least $2. 10 is required for an adult card, $1. 05 for a Youth Clipper card, and 75 cents for a Senior or RTC Clipper card. A high-value discount (HVD) ticket can be purchased for single rides by setting up Autoload or through a transit benefit program.
A valid HVD ticket requires a cash value balance of at least $0 on the card. The Muni “A” Adult Fast Pass offers unlimited rides between stations for one calendar month, with trips outside of San Francisco charged the full fare.
Can two people use a BART Clipper card?
No, two people cannot use the same Clipper card at the same time. Each rider needs their own card or device to pay for fares. To add a card to an iPhone or Apple Watch, open the Apple Wallet app and click the plus “+” icon. Select Clipper card and follow the instructions to load value. To add a card to an Android phone, open Google Pay and click the + sign. Tag your phone near a Clipper reader every time you board a bus, train, or ferry, including during transfers.
Is BART cheaper with a Clipper card?
Loading BART HVD (High Value Discount) tickets on your adult Clipper card can result in a 6. 25 discount on BART rides.
Do senior Clipper cards expire?
The RTC Discount Card program no longer offers cards to riders 65 and over, but once they reach 65, they can apply for a Senior Clipper card, which offers the same discounts as the RTC Clipper card. Callers with deafness, hard of hearing, or speech disorders can contact the California Relay Service (CRS) at 711 or 800. 735. 2929 to be connected to the Clipper Customer Service Center at 877. 878. 8883.
All transit agency and Clipper self-serve machines are audio-equipped, and the CRS operator will relay caller requests to a Clipper customer service representative. The CRS operator can also read the balance on the card at a transit agency ticket office, Clipper Customer Service Center, or participating retailer.
What is senior fare on SF Muni for seniors?
The program offers San Francisco low and moderate income seniors free access to Muni services, including cable cars, using a Clipper card. The card can be transferred to a phone via the Clipper App. If lost or stolen, the Clipper Customer Service Center can provide a replacement.
How much is the BART fare in 2024?
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) will adjust its prices on Jan. 1, 2024, resulting in an average fare increase of 23 cents to $4. 43, a 5. 5 system-wide increase.
Can two people use the same BART card?
No, two people cannot use the same Clipper card at the same time. Each rider needs their own card or device to pay for fares. To add a card to an iPhone or Apple Watch, open the Apple Wallet app and click the plus “+” icon. Select Clipper card and follow the instructions to load value. To add a card to an Android phone, open Google Pay and click the + sign. Tag your phone near a Clipper reader every time you board a bus, train, or ferry, including during transfers.
Is it worth getting the Clipper card in San Francisco?
Clipper is an all-in-one transit card accepted by all major transit agencies in the Bay Area. It is available in card form or via an app on Apple or Android mobile services. Clipper fares for San Francisco Bay Ferry are lower than paper tickets and offer transfer discounts on Muni, AC Transit, and SolTrans. To get Clipper on your mobile device, download the app, select the amount of cash value or transit pass you want to load, choose payment method, and complete the order.
You can tag on and off using your device, manage your account, load value, and change settings anytime. You can also purchase an Adult, Youth, or Senior Clipper card or load value on any card at select locations around The Bay. A $3 fee is charged for in-person purchases.
What is the train discount for seniors?
A Senior Railcard is available to anyone aged 60 or over in Great Britain, allowing them to save 1/3 on all standard and first class, anytime, off-peak, and advance fares for £30. This card offers various ticket types and can be used for both long and short trips, and can be used almost anytime during the week, weekends, and public holidays. With a Senior Railcard, passengers can enjoy the benefits of reduced fares and enjoy a more convenient and affordable travel experience.
What age is OAP discount?
A Senior Railcard, also known as the Over 60 Railcard, Senior Citizens Railcard, or OAP Railcard, is a discount card that makes train travel cheaper for those aged 60+. It offers a 1/3 discount on all Standard and First Class Anytime, Off-Peak, and Advance tickets in Britain. The card costs £30 for one year or £70 for three years. The digital Senior Railcard can be found on your phone under ‘Railcards’ in the account section of the Trainline app, eliminating the need for a paper copy.
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BART is the system I grew up with. It’s space-age qualities for the time are why I fell in love with trains and transit systems. The ride under the bay was always my favorite part. FAST! BART platforms have marks where the doors are and people line up at those marks. This is an important BART feature. The unusual thing about this that I haven’t seen on other systems is that the flashing destination signs would always tell you if the approaching train was a 10-car or 8-car train so you know where to stand. Now, w the new 3 door cars, the destination signs will also indicate if the approaching train is 2-door or 3-door so you know which marks to line up behind. You can see it in this article on some of the station footage.
Nice, as an SF resident who just got off a BART train about an hour ago I’m a fan, but I really wish they would expand the network, fix connections to other transit, and most importantly have much more frequent service. Coming home tonight the trains were only running with a half hour headway, even on the trunk.
Great article. I worked on the first phase of the BART extensions in the early 1990’s and learned some interesting BART lore at the time. BART was originally designed in the 1960’s. At that time in the United States, optimism about technology was at its peak. The space race was in full swing, the country was going to the moon, and technology would be able to solve any technical problem. BART was envisioned as a fully automated system, and to compete with the growing popularity or the automobile, it would be designed with space age and futuristic trains with spacious cars, comfortable seats, and large and airy stations all to avoid the reputation at the time of the dark, dreary and crowded older subway and transit systems in cities such as New York, Chicago and Boston. Since downtown San Francisco was the economic engine at the time, and the perceived destination of most of the riders, it was designed so that all three branches on the East Bay would be able to take a direct train into San Francisco without switching trains, necessitating a very complicated route path through downtown Oakland and timing synchronization so that they could all go through the transbay team without backing each other up. Teething problems in its first few years, including a fire in 1979 in the transbay tube that killed a firefighter, sullied its reputation, but overall it’s been a great asset to the Bay Area and has really set the area apart from less transit friendly areas on the US West Coast such as Los Angeles and Seattle.
I’ve travelled to the Bay Area only once in the last 10 years, in 2019, a visit that I oriented around BART. This turned out to be an excellent idea: I flew into Oakland (instead of SFO), took the Coliseum-Airport shuttle, took BART and a short bus ride to a much cheaper stay in Oakland, and then used BART to maximize my exploration of the Bay Area over just a few days. If Bay Area politicians could orient more developments and amenities around it, the potential would be huge. I’m surprised they didn’t take a hint from the 1989 earthquake, which I recall also damaged and caused permanent closure of several elevated highways, while BART’s elevated guideways came out unscathed! (A good indicator for SkyTrain? 🤔)
I love BART. I grew up on it, mostly riding between Berkeley, SF, and Oakland. My favorite part about it is the accessibility. Every single station is accessible with zero help required in the way of a driver putting down ramps or lifts. The train is flush enough with the platform that I roll right in, with a manual or power chair, and there is plenty of room inside a car to move to wherever i want, “disability area” or elsewhere. all this means l I have the freedom to ride public transit”: -without having to talk to anyone – without having to fear that equipment is broken down and I won’t be able to ride (elevators do go down sometimes but it’s usually very few and there’s up-to-date elevator advisories both announced and on the app) -with total freedom to make last-minute changes of plan (bus and light rail drivers usually demand to know what stop you’re getting off at) -without being tied down, which has made me very vulnerable to harassment on buses and is a very awkward process -without dealing with irritated passengers about how slow I’m making their transit trip It’s great. I can simply get on any train at any door as soon as they open, hang out without having to do wheelchair securements, and leave when I want to, and I am much safer from abuse and assaut because of this good design.
A cool topic to cover would BARTS expansion to Vallejo, Fairfield, and Vacaville. It was a movement in the early 2000s but the movement really died when Hercules decided to get a fairy building instead of bart. Cool history and would be greatly needed! I would love to see this idea resurface or at least a shout of in a future bart article!
1:55 A signaling system problem BART encountered in its early days was “ghost trains”. Trains early in the morning would randomly disappear then reappear on the dispatcher’s display at the Lake Merritt Control Center. A university professor investigated and found that fog caused a thin layer of rust to form on the track, preventing the signal’s electrical voltage from shunting between the rails thru the wheel assembly as usual.
One note: You said that Caltrain doesn’t yet go downtown SF. I see what you mean as BART goes to the heart of downtown under market street, but I would call Caltrain’s 4th and King station downtown, and as someone who takes Caltrain into the city all the the time it’s much more common for me to go all the way in on Caltrain then transfer to muni as opposed to transferring to BART at Millbrae.
Nice job. About that “redundant” extension to Santa Clara: For operational reasons (I’d imagine storage of the extra rolling stock they’re going to need for serving downtown San Jose) there needs to be a railyard at the end of the line, and the only feasible place to put it would be in Santa Clara where there’s room. It’s also right by an existing Caltrain/Ace/Amtrak station and beside Santa Clara University, so you might as well put a BART station in there while you’re at it. This will enable a single-seat journey between the East Bay and the university. Given the balkanized fare structure of incompatible transit systems in the Bay Area, this would be a significant convenience for riders and will result in more ridership. A BART-Caltrain change at Diridon would be a pain in the neck, inefficient, and likely pretty costly for riders, which would be a deterrent to ridership. A few years ago the VTA added a bike-pedestrian tunnel under the tracks at Santa Clara station, making it accessible from both sides. The area north of the tracks is underdeveloped now, but that is changing, and it’s ripe for TOD. Now if they could just get a tunnel under the runways at San Jose Airport to connect the terminals to Santa Clara station, that’d be pretty amazing! In an ideal world the terminals would have been built on the south side of the runways and closer to the railway lines, but we are where we are.
I’ve never forgotten my first ride on BART in 1972 when it was brand new, and the Trans-bay tube wasn’t even open yet. Compared to the rapid-transit systems I knew from Boston and New York, BART was impressively futuristic. Later that year, when I first visited Montreal and rode around on their fabulous Metro, I was even more impressed. At 16 years old this looked like the future, and it wouldn’t be long before there were systems like these everywhere. My dream was to live close to a rapid-transit station. Fifty years later I am living that dream — alas, it is in Boston where their abysmally neglected system is often a nightmare!
It’s funny and insightful how you tie Montreal’s REM to the lessons we learned from BART. There’s actually a Montreal-Bay Area-Montreal bookend story there: Montreal’s metro opened in advance of Expo ’67 as the one of North America’s first truly “modern” (post-WWII) subways. BART pushed some of this frontier technology farther with its unprecedented reliance on computers for operations, and enlisted some engineers fresh from Montreal in its design and roll-out work in the late 1960s and early 70s. I agree that BART is more like the RER or a commuter rail for the region, but it is truly a commuter-metro hybrid in that the section you highlight at 6:10, with BART’s most intensely multi-layered service clear between West Oakland and Daly City. For riders traveling entirely between these two stations – the San Francisco segment – BART is truly a “metro” with close station spacings connected at high frequencies. Oakland-Berkeley-San Leandro get a less-frequent version of wider-spaced metro service between their stations (especially between MacArthur, West Oakland and Bay Fair), and the rest of the region gets a more typical commuter rail service.
When San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge was built there was also the Interurban Electric Railway (IER) that ran a long with the Key System until July 26, 1941. BART is in the process of upgrading their rolling stock. The older rolling stock was the same rolling stock that was built when BART first opened on September 11 1973. It didn’t help that the builder of that rolling stock went out of business. The fact that BART runs on a wide gage of 5′ 6″ allows for a larger passenger load and a smoother ride.
Really Well Done. I rode the system back in the mid 80’s and I thought it was very good then. Living on the east coast, I frequent the DC metro which is also nice. I have been on MARTA as well. But I do find MARTA not as polished as BART and DC. Back in the 80’s I could see what BART was aiming for in the future. Nice to have a System with a thriving economy and tech companies with lots of money to toss to the public. Look at NYC, Philadelphia, Old infrastructure, lack of funds, needing a better tax base to make major improvements. Cheers!
Watching this, I’m teletransported back to the time of taking Hayward Bart to SF to work in 1991. I attended law school after work and rode back on BART to Hayward. So many memories came welling back perusal this. I cut high school to take the very first excursion ride on BART back in 71 or 72. – BART handed out lapel buttons to commemorate that first trip whooshing through the tube to SF. wish I still had mine. It was all so space -ageish!
I have to commend you on the pronunciation on all the cities listed in your article on BART. I will say Diridon sounded odd but even I probably mispronounce it. I live in Milpitas and have been waiting for BART to come to the South Bay (Silicon Valley) for decades. San Jose area built the light rail system while BART was expanding elsewhere. We finally got our connection to BART and Milpitas is a decent transit hub for BART, busses and light rail. peace!
It looks like an impressive system. I wish we had something like this in Manchester, England. UK. Unfortunately here all the money gets spent on London. There are some small light rail systems around the UK but were all built decades ago and have never been expanded or modernized. Really enjoyed perusal your article. Thanks.
I’d love to see that article on the second transbay tube. There’s been talk of making a new BART line from the Salesforce center down Geary then south on 19th. And I wonder if you could use that tunnel to eventually connect the Smart Trains in Marin to San Francisco. That plus HSR and Caltrain makes it a really interesting topic.
Growing up in the area, BART was my intro to a love of rail transit and the “Cassette Futurism”/late Space Age aesthetic. I find it interesting to compare and contrast BART with the DC Metro; they’re sister systems in many ways, but the architecture of BART seems bright and utopian compared to the more imposing and sober looking DC system. I wonder how much of that has to do with the difference in cultural attitudes when BART was designed in the mid-late 60’s vs DC a few years later. @RMTransit Given the recent opening of the Central Subway in SF, any chance there’s a Muni Metro article in the works?
RMT – bart is Unique as its not a Metro system or Streetcar/ LRT like many other systems. it does not Directly interface w/ Street traffic like Muni Metro SF and LA Metro rail. bart is a HEAVY rail system that is Underground or Aboveground on elevated tracks or same grade as traffic in a Protected track. in the Transbay tunnel it can reach 80 mph or MORE. in the 70 – 80’s bart would sometimes run 99+ mph, but this was reduced in later years as the system got older.
I feel the connection to SFO was unfortunate as it puts a kink in the line to Millbrae and forever adds inconsistences to service further down the peninsula if it were to ever happen. The BART station at SFO delivers you to the international terminal, but for any other terminal, passengers generally catch the AirTrain people mover system. As I understand it, the local consultants agree that the best way to do things would have been to keep the BART station along the rail line between San Bruno and Millbrae, and just extend AirTrain (which was designed in conjunction with and opened the same time as the BART extension) out to there instead. However, the pitch to voters was that the BART would go to SFO, so the final design ended up the way it is to keep to the letter of that promise.
I’ve been riding, designing, and building transit systems in the Bay Area, including BART, for close to 35 years. Here are some highlights about BART. 1. Based on evidence, one could conclude that BART was originally designed and built as a novelty space-age thing. (The 1st gen rolling stock resembled futuristic rides in Disneyland!) It was never intended as THE key commuter system in the Bay Area. This explains why there are built-in obstacle when it comes to upgrading the system. There is an urgent need to upgrade the system, as current ridership is exploding, and projected ridership will go nuclear. (Spending money to extend itself farther into the outskirts only invite more riders!) 2. The built-in obstacles are: (a) The length of the platform prevents BART from going beyond the current maximum of ten-car trains. (b) The height of the tunnels prevent BART from switching to double-decker trains. (c) The fact that all but one line merge into the Trans Bay Tube makes it nearly impossible to improve headways. (d) The existing right-of-way in certain corridors prevents BART from building parallel tracks as spur or for express service (e.g. separating SF workers living in Fremont, Dublin, Concord, Bay Pointe from SF workers living in Oakland by allowing them to bypass intermediate stations like Lake Merritt, Fruitvale, and Coliseum by using express service). 3. Before plans to extend into the South Bay, BART mainly served ONE center of work place during commute hours; namely, downtown San Francisco.
I was surprised by the proposed extension to Marin County to the north of SF that you mention at the beginning, on the ‘historical’ part, though not later on. I wonder if there were any real projects on that because crossing the Golden Gate is very, very hard. You can’t go below, as you do to Oakland, because the GG is a very, very deep cut and with very strong currents, as the whole of the Bay comes in and out twice a day through that gap. You might build another bridge, but who would want to have another bridge obscuring the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. You can’t reserve a couple of lanes on the GGB for BART since the bridge is already at capacity and the BART trains, being so wide, it would actually take most of the deck. The central lanes on the GGB are reassigned to either direction depending on traffic, allowing for 4-2, 3-3 or 2-4 splits (and even 2-2-2 with the central 2 left isolated, to avoid frontal collisions at night, when the risk of drunk drivers is higher and there is not much traffic anyway). Eventually, in a far away future, when Americans become less car-dependent, running the BART over the bridge might be possible, perhaps a single track in the middle (I am not sure the structure of the bridge would be able to handle two trains at once anyway), and two lanes on either side. Anyway, just wondering. Thanks.
6:05 as a Bay Area person, one huge issue with BART is that we don’t call lines “the green line” or anything of the sort. The lines are named after their terminal stops, so to take the train out of San Francisco, you take the Richmond train (or whatever your destination is). This has lead to a lot of issues as the lines expand, what used to be the Warm Springs train is now the Berryessa train, etc. and is very confusing for old people, who can spend ages on the platform waiting for a train that no longer exists. With the new cars being rolled out, BART is trying to update wayfinding to reflect this, having the new 3-door trains announced as “Orange line train to Richmond”, but so far it’s a very slow adoption—the new cars are having a tumultuous rollout. 13:16 Two other benefits: the new cars have a digital map telling passengers which stations they’re traveling between and what line they’re on, as well as being SIGNIFICANTLY quieter in tunnels and the transbay tube. It’s kind of important to note how fucking loud the tunnels are, and how much of an improvement this is. 15:43 I think you’ll be excited to know that 7 story housing has been approved at the Ashby and North Berkeley BART stations—I certainly am! It’s exceedingly difficult to get any housing built in Berkeley because the NIMBY spirit is very strong. North & Downtown Berkeley as well as El Cerrito Plaza BART stations all land closely to public schools, which is awesome. They recently finished a redevelopment of the El Cerrito Del Norte station which looks pretty slick, and also reintroduced bathrooms to the system (other than the elevators, of course).
Didn’t know that the original iconic rolling stock of this system was made by Rohr. No surprise to me, there were very space-age-ish in their train stuff, with ROMAG maglev PRT and the TACV air cushion hovertrain, which both have a dire resemblance to the BART rolling stock. It also explain the airliner type comfort seating, Rohr was an aerospace conglomerate before anything.
If I’m not mistaken, the reason e-BART exists is for one obviouslty, cost, but also due to the fact that they’ve been trying to run it onto existing rail tracks, which would requires standard guage, and likely prevents the use of overhead wires due to the fun way american railroads operate. This hasn’t happened though, and looks like it may not happen for some time so it leaves e-bart as a bit of an oddity.
i love the BART system it has so much potential to expand after the San Jose north connection to Milbrae but also the North and onto a North East loop, that then will really become the true bay area network and would take all those damn cars off the roads. Bart ridership can and should be fully utilised with just some network upgrades, something exciting for the future of San Fransisco and Oakland
Hii I really love your articles! I just wandering if u can make articles about cities in Africa like Niamey Niger or Lagos. I know there is not any kind of transit system over there but can u make a article like How these cities will be able to develop their public transport and how they will be able to cope with urban sprawl? Thank you!!
I was SURPRISED when I came to the SF Bay Area and saw how MUCH LARGER and SPACIOUS the Subway trains are compared to those in Los Angeles. The Metro System trains (in LA) are INFERIORLY smaller than BART. The aisles are narrow (you have to turn sideways if you’re a little too wide), and everyone is sitting much closer together. We’re just PACKED IN THERE! I cannot even cross my legs while sitting in a front-facing seat. The back of the head of the person sitting in front of me, is just RIGHT THERE, no elbow room, no breathing room. (Don’t cough) BART really is a step above the rest. Thanks for sharing
I wish you would add links or name the titles of your older related articles that you casually mention at times because they are hard to find without knowing the name of the article or having a link to it. For instance you mention you did a article on the 1st generation Washington DC metro cars but I have no idea how to find it lol.
I think BART is ready to be upgraded into a completely automated transit Sky train of the BAY area. Several things to take place, a command center that monitors and operates the trains remotely using cameras and transmitters that communicate with computers to give instructions to each trains through transmitters positioned at the edge of the tracks and to install movable barriers to prevent people from falling into the tracks while they wait for oncoming trains. Take that a combination of technology used in Vancouver to make driverless trains a reality. JFK airport sky trains including one from Tokyo, Japan, it’s automated platform sky train and one from Seattle, Washington.
My wish would be for them to extend the orange line north from Richmond to serve San Pablo, Pinole, Hercules, Rodeo and Crockett, to lighten the burden of the woefully insufficient WestCAT bus service. The yellow line also needs to be extended east to Oakley and Brentwood; there’s a lot of people stranded out there, priced out of more nearby housing and poorly served by public transit.
So funny to me, I’ve lived in the bay for some time now, bart is pretty awesome. But ppl have complaints. I kinda think it’s just something u gotta deal with so doesn’t bother me to bad. Whether it’s issues with the homeless, timings of the trains sucks compared to most other metro or subways in big cities, for good measure the essential bart experience is someone smoking a wood or crack. So have fun on bart.
You sort of skipped over the the significant negatives of this system: 1) Coverage in the extremely dense urban core of the region (SF/Oakland/Berkeley) is terrible, especially in SF proper. So much of the city is not covered by BART. 2) Headways are terrible much of the time. Compared to Seattle, where you rarely have to wait more than 8-10 minutes for a train, there are sections of BART where you may have 20 minute headways at the off-peak. 3) Finally – this is the wrong technology for what is essentially a commuter rail system. Operating costs per rider are through the roof because you are using heavy rail metro technology to go out into remote areas like Antioch or Pleasanton. This makes no sense. Given how harsh you are regarding so many other North American systems (rightly so) you seem to be giving BART a pass here, where you really shouldn’t be.
While BART is a good system in many ways, its full potential was hampered from the beginning. During the 1960’s, San Jose was much smaller, and its economy had only recently began to shift away from their agricultural connections. San Jose political interests were concerned that a BART line between San Jose and San Francisco would inhibit local development by providing easy access to higher paying jobs in San Francisco. Even now that it has became known as Silicon Valley, there still is no BART line up the peninsula to San Francisco. Image being available to seamlessly circle the bay connecting the three major cities, three major airports, all the major sports stadiums, all the universities, and more, without one transfer. You can’t get to Stanford University on BART!?
BART has two major flaws: 1. Gauge. 5ft 6in. Prevents BART buying “standard passenger railcars.”. so everything purchased is bespoke. 2. Single TransBay Tunnel is a limiting factor in the capacity of the whole system. BART needs a second TransBay tunnel via Alameda Island to provide a more resilient service. Allowing either tunnel to be closed for overnight maintenance.. Every year that this project is delayed adds billions to the ultimate cost.
For years I’ve wondered why BART didn’t expand north up to Santa Rosa. (I know: “It costs too much.”). It would be great to run it across the Golden Gate Bridge, but a more doable option might be to run it north from Richmond over the bridge to San Rafael. Another route I’d like to see is something up to Napa and/or Sonoma, because that road (Route 37) can turn into a huge bottle neck. All it takes is money, right?
lol RM transit with the hot takes once again. 1) extension to livermore (population 91k) would have cost $1.6B 2) The DMU extension to antioch cost $463M, compared to an estimated cost of $1.2B for a full electrified 3rd rail buildout. 3) bart should have run to millbrae only, with an airtrain style connector to SFO a la JFK 4) calling millbrae an intermodal station is generous. caltrain and bart don’t time their services.
BART has many things going for it, but I still believe the original designers chose wrong when they opted for such a nonstandard rolling stock. The India gauge means that trains cannot roll on any other trackways, nor can any other trains roll on BART trackways. It also means that every single order is fully customized beyond what other subway and metro systems require, thus adding to costs.
its worth noting that cross platform transfers between bart and caltrain at millbrae are one way and cumbereome because bart isba controlled payment area system and caltrain is a sometimes verified proof of payment system. The widespread elevated track is a real unfortunate aspect of the system when considered in combination with the one off light wheels and poor maintenance which causes BART to be a major source of noise pollution for literally millions of residents.
As someone who has experienced HK’s MTR, UK’s “the tube “, and Singapore’s MRT system, the age of BART really shows itself. First thing I noticed was that There are no railings or anything separating the train tracks from the passenger contact, relying on the pure skill of the train driver to stop the train at a specific spot at each station. Secondly, the ticketing and clipper system does not have a built in method of discerning where you got on only where you got off, meaning if you leave the same station because you forgot something after going in, it will charge you the full fare for leaving. Not even Muni does this. samtrans does not have this problem either. Thirdly, the lack of digital maps or indicators on the train that you are on the right train going in the right direction. Muni and samtrans does a way better job of this too.
As I traveled SF, I was so disappointed by BART. I can’t believe this system can be considered ‘state-of-the-art’ metro in the US when it basically just consists of one line crossing San Francisco (honestly, when 4 different lines take the same path through the city, I can’t call them separate lines). The ride is expensive. The clipper app can’t be downloaded by non-US residents. The clipper card can’t be refunded. Tickets can only be purchased at the airport. A 3 min ride from San Francisco to San Bruno costs 8$. I’m sorry to all folks who grew up with this as a reference of rapid transit, but BART is very bad compared to what you can find outside of the US.
Living in the area, SF specifically, one of the big downsides to mass transit is no inter connectivity between various metro services from a fare standpoint. While yes plenty of local buses have stops outside of BART stations each thing is it’s own fare and it can add up in cost in a hurry. Leave my house take a bus to BART or CalTrain that’s $2.50, then get on either of those that’s another fare (much more than $2.50 unless you’re only going a few stops), then when you get off at any other city there’s another fare for that. Now with the Clipper card it is super easy to just tap a card at each location but it’d be nice to have the ability of a “transfer” and hell it doesn’t even need to be a free transfer just give me a buck off or something. But every transit is it’s own system with its own expenses and own problems so you get none of that. That said I do like the newer trains, they have screens that show you ‘exactly’ where the train is on the line as well as signs that tell you the next station, the most annoying thing about the old trains (which are still in service) is if you don’t know where you’re at you need to have metro translation hearings “mrrphmon mrrption mrrp”
Great article. I live in SF and have travelled extensively. BART is by far the worst system I have ever experienced. It is not safe and it’s filthy. It’s also a great example of extremely poor planning with escalators being out of order all the time because they are exposed to the elements and island platforms in DT SF which are overcrowded.
I was 2 years old when I rode the Key to Oakland which that was the A line, and now we have BART However – The security is still A Problem as I remember seeing BART Police at the Stations, and in the trains, and the BART Police Dogs looking Cute, as I have not seen any BART COPS as were seeing a problem of Homeless sleeping in the cars from SFO to Concord, and Metally Health people smoking in the last car and people jumping over the SF Station gates – Where are the cops??? And every year fares goes up? Is That BART for the 21st Century??? And still were promise that BART would be a 24hour Metro – And were still waiting, and what to we have Lyft, and Urber and how do we know that the drivers are working for these companies, anyone can place their logo’s on their cars, and Pretend to work for them until it is too late…
Filthy? Yes.. but I still think its a really good transit service when it comes to rapid transit and service wise, if only safety and cleanliness was better maintained, passengers might flock to it again, especially as it goes through the crazy dangerous city of Oakland with crackheads all over the place
Nothing like getting stabbed by a homeless drug addict on your daily BART commute, only to find out the assailant was released on zero bail before you even get out of the hospital. Cities like SF would make mass transit more viable if they took care of the crime problem. Instead, since a portion of their constituents are either wealthy NIMBYs who can afford to displace themselves from crime or the beneficiaries of crime itself, no action is taken, and the city is forced to make car commuting terrible for the working class in order to generate ridership, rather than making the metro system more palatable to begin with.
Being from the Bay area I can tell you the problem with bart is essentially its beginnings Bart has never been financially self sufficient they have always needed to acquire funding from the federal government and property taxes from surrounding counties of which it serves because of that the overall system planned as such could never be built because the amount of money’s required to do so wae astronomical they were against the transbay tube at 1 point because it would cost too much money Everyone does like the fact that electrification of alternatives to Bart are finally becoming a reality Cal train will be electrified hopefully by either the end of 23 or 24 Also the work is in progress and it is a very slow long-drawn-out process to complete phase 2 of the silicon Valley expansion of Bart major construction however won’t be starting for at least 2 years
Tremendous waste of public funds. I am a former BART Director. The agency is massively mismanaged and is able to operate only with sales tax revenue and federal and state subsidies. Japan runs far superior street railway systems under PRIVATE OWNERSHIP. I believe that BART should to totally PRIVATIZED, Japan has already wisely done.👎