“Take public transit to the Warriors’ championship parade,” they said, “It will be easier,” they said. But then BART trains quit stopping at Embarcadero and Montgomery Street, and the Clipper Card app was on the fritz for many users.

The folks at BART seemed to realize they had a very hairy day in front of them a couple hours before the Warriors championship parade today in downtown San Francisco (and KGO was streaming the Warriors parade live online for free all day). The images below were taken at the Dublin BART station Monday morning, with the line to buy Clipper Cards spanning several city blocks. But honestly… shouldn’t they have anticipated this? These things are known to draw a million people!

The mayhem only got worse, as by parade time, the crowds outside the Embarcadero Station were so large that BART just quit making stops at Embarcadero.

Less than ten minutes later, the trains quit stopping at Montgomery Street too, making riders get off at Union Square or Civic Center Station and walk up the street. (Though stops at Embarcadero and Montgomery Street Stations were restored by 12:20 p.m.)

But another unanticipated mess arrived when the Clipper Card app had itself a morning meltdown. “The Clipper app is experiencing some issues with payment and purchasing,” the transit service said via a tweet just before 10 a.m. “We have an internal team currently investigating and apologize for the inconvenience.”

That situation got worse some 45 minutes later, as Clipper followed up with “The Clipper mobile system is experiencing unprecedented demand due to the Warriors parade this morning. If you are experiencing issues adding or reloading a card on your phone, please keep trying until successful as we are seeing purchases going through.”

Yet several users on Twitter (just a few of whom are seen above) reported that the app kept charging them full price for the ticket, without granting the ticket. So “please keep trying until successful” was not a productive strategy, and just bought additional fares they could not redeem.

As of press time, BART is back to calm-before-the-storm mode (though the system  will likely be a zoo again later in the afternoon), while Clipper’s technical difficulties continue.

But at least BART is managing to generate a little goodwill with their wacky cartoon BART car vessel at the parade.

Related: SF Preps For Warriors Mania [SFist]

Image: @SFBART via Twitter