On transit

Today, paying for rides has been simplified through the use of a Clipper card — either a physical card or a smartphone app — that you preload with funds to be drawn upon when you ride any of the 27 transit systems throughout the nine Bay Area counties. But fares still vary widely from one system to another, and even within some single systems, such as Caltrain, where the fare depends on the distance you travel.

Clipper cards have been around for years and are very much regional transit passes. The article I read simply introduced a variant on the standard Clipper card: the Clipper BayPass. This is just a Clipper card that is free to the rider, with costs paid by participating employers, schools or companies that oversee affordable housing.

Clipper and Clipper BayPass are both steps toward creating a unified transit system throughout the Bay Area, but they only go so far. For one, ordinary Clipper users still have to pay for their rides by ensuring their cards have sufficient funds. And they have to remember to tap on when they are about to board, and then — for systems where the fare varies by distance traveled — tap off at their destination. As for those of us who ride transit sporadically and don’t have Clipper cards, we’re left to figure out how to pay for individual rides on each transit system we use.

Because many of the Bay Area’s transit systems are essentially limited to a single county, planning a trip that crosses county lines and relies on multiple systems can still be difficult. There are some third-party smartphone apps that help with trip planning — including iOS and Android map apps — but the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the organization that coordinates the transit systems throughout the Bay Area, doesn’t appear to have one of its own. It’s enough to cause many nontransit-savvy folks to skip transit and simply drive.

Over the years, I’ve gotten to know Portland’s transit systems pretty well. In some ways, their systems are comparable to ours — they have heavy rail, light rail (aka streetcars) and buses. While Portland has the advantage of fewer systems and mostly just one county, they have a tighter integration between those systems, a much better system of payment, a great online trip planner and a system so comprehensive that many area residents get by without owning a car. In Portland, mass transit is practical, popular, reasonably priced — and heavily used.

TriMet — the overarching transit authority in Portland — makes using the system easy by hosting on its website both a map showing every train, light rail and bus line, plus an online planner that easily navigates you to almost anywhere in the county. Next — and this is a big one — their payment system is incredibly easy. While it does have a Clipper card equivalent (the Hop card), its users are mostly seniors, youth and the disabled, for whom it gives a 50% discount.

For the rest of us, simply tap your contactless credit card, smartphone or smartwatch — if you have an online wallet — to a Hop reader either at the stop or on the transit vehicle. No special card required. As for the fares themselves, they couldn’t be clearer; your first trip anywhere — whether it’s one stop or across the county — costs $2.80 ($1.40 for seniors, youth and the disabled). Your second trip costs the same, but at that point you essentially have a day pass. Although you must continue to tap on each time you ride, you aren’t charged again that day. Finally, if you reach $100 in a single month, you have the equivalent of a monthly pass — all subsequent rides that month are free.

A simplified payment system like Portland’s would undoubtedly boost transit ridership in the Bay Area, but I’m not holding my breath. Our systems here would all have to be fully integrated and put under the control of a single organization — which just isn’t going to happen. We’ll have to settle for today’s Clipper and Clipper BayPass cards, and perhaps watch for an official MTC-supported systemwide trip planner that simplifies transit trip planning throughout the nine Bay Area counties.