The cash-only Add Fare machines inside the BART fare gates are soon going to be a thing of the past, as BART has decided, at long last, to catch up with the last century.

One of several big takeaways from Thursday night's BART Board meeting — the others being a $96.5 million contract to replace 41 aging escalators in downtown SF, and some new efforts to crack down on fare evaders — is that BART General Manager Grace Crunican announced the update to the Add Fare machines, a couple of which have already happened at Embarcadero Station.

BART says this is all part of an effort to get everyone to switch over to Clipper cards.

Yes, folks, you soon will not have to ask permission from a station agent to exit to either a) add fare to a Clipper card using a credit or debit card and then go back inside the gates to exit again, or b) get change for a $20 because those goddamn Add Fare machines can only give a maximum of $4.95 in change.

Oh wait — that latter part is still true if you have cash but no small bills and you're using a paper ticket with a magnetic stripe, which apparently can only be reloaded with cash.

I repeat: The magnetic stripe tickets still will require cash at the Add Fare machines.

As the Examiner reports, updated Add Fare machines are getting installed at all San Francisco stations between 24th Street-Mission and Montgomery Street Stations by April 15.

Here's how Twitter has reacted to the news...