Regional transit pass now arriving

Phase one of the pilot program ran between August 2022 and the summer of 2024 with over 51,000 participants from San Francisco State University, San Jose State University, Santa Rosa Junior College, UC Berkeley and 12 affordable housing properties from MidPen Housing.

Phase two has been rolling out since the start of this year wherein institutions work with the MTC to implement the BayPass program for their commuters through individualized contracts.

MTC spokesperson John Goodwin said the agency was thrilled to enact new beneficial changes for public transit that would hopefully make the experience more efficient, seamless, and inviting for riders across the region. He acknowledged the severe budget challenges many public transit agencies are facing and said BayPass was a small piece of the solution.

“We are selling BayPass to interested partners and are looking for more geographic diversity of participants around the Bay Area,” Goodwin said. “It is important to make transit more attractive and more competitive to driving. Make it faster and easier to use. Then more people might be interested to use transit, which is good in the long run.”

According to a final report by the MTC on the first phase of the program, students who were randomly assigned the free transit pass took more overall trips, used more transfers, and were less likely to leave school.

Low-income students with the pass increased their transit use by 27.4% compared to their counterparts without it during the first phase of the pilot.

Students at UC Berkeley voted overwhelmingly in spring 2025 to introduce a new semester transit fee for the majority of undergraduate and graduate students, starting in August. It includes a flat rate of $124 per student per semester for BayPass alongside an existing contract with Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District.

“We always advocate for increased alternative means of transportation to campus, and this program will help more students have more opportunities to commute to campus,” UC Berkeley spokesman Kyle Gibson said. “We have one of the lowest ridership rates already for cars, so this program only further helps decrease the amount of people commuting to campus by automobile.”

SFSU’s Gator Pass has been updated to include the BayPass program as of fall 2024. According to the MTC’s report, more than half of the students at the university commuted by transit, making it the most common way individuals arrived at campus.

“The expansion is a result of student feedback and advocacy from SFSU’s Associated Students, which surveyed students about expanding the Gator Pass,” said campus spokesman Kent Bravo in an email. “Now that it is an established program, BayPass will continue as long as the MTC can support it and the Student Fee Advisory Committee deems the program necessary.”

UCSF has also been expanding its program since Jan. 1, 2024. Students and some eligible employees have been regularly using the service. While three major schools decided to expand their collaboration with BayPass, SJSU was one of the phase one participants that did not elect to roll out the program to the entire student body.

Department manager of SJSU’s transportation solutions Haleema Bharoocha said the university sees the benefit of the BayPass program, but the lack of staffing in key department positions across the administration has stalled progress on implementing the program.