Following in the footsteps of Muni, which already penalizes passengers for using cash to pay for the bus, BART's board voted this week to add a 50-cent surcharge to fares on paper tickets, all in an effort to get the one-third of BART riders who still use them to switch over to Clipper cards. As the Business Times reports, BART chose to do this rather than to impose new fare hikes for their 2018 budget, and the fees will begin being charged next year.
"We do have to get away from the paper ticket culture," said board member Lateefah Simon, per the Business Times. "At Powell Street, on a daily basis, our BART staff will tell you they’re fixing machines."
Arguing for the push toward Clipper cards, fellow board member Robert Raburn was quoted as saying that the current magstripe-card reading machines are "products of the ’50s and ’60s," and he says that until everyone is using Clipper cards they can't roll out transfer deals between transit systems.
This move by BART comes just weeks after we learned that Muni is starting to phase out their iconic paper transfers in favor of disposable magstripe cards.
BART ridership dropped five percent below projections last year, following on a series of technical problems that took cars out of service, and made the already overcrowded and overtaxed system even more unpleasant for passengers.
Meanwhile, that Fleet of the Future remains forever in the future, though they're promising a couple of new trains will be gracing the BART system by the end of this year. The entire fleet of trains won't be replaced, however, until late 2021.
