Latest news with #MetropolitanTransportationCommission
CNBC
01-07-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Bay Area commuters get free rides Tuesday morning due to Clipper card outage
Commuters in and around San Francisco rode into work for free on Tuesday morning due to an outage in the Clipper card system, which is used to handle payments for train, bus and ferry rides. "ATTENTION: The Clipper system is experiencing an outage on all operators this morning," the Bay Area Clipper account wrote in a post on X. "Please be prepared to pay your fare with another form of payment if required by your transit agency." Many buses were waving commuters on without asking for payment, and at Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train stations, the faregates were open, allowing travelers to walk through for free. Clipper is owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which manages transportation for the nine-county Bay Area. The service is used by hundreds of thousands of tech workers in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. The MTC website said there were 1.35 million unique Clipper cards — physical and digital — used in May, the highest monthly toll for the year and the most since December 2019, before the pandemic. A fact sheet from the MTC says Clipper is used by 800,000 transit riders a day across the region. BART, in particular, has undergone dramatic changes in recent years, most notably installing fare gates starting in late 2023, with full deployment expected to be completed by the end of this year. In the first five months of the year, average BART station exits totaled between 170,000 and 182,000 a month, according to its website. Those numbers are way down from the pre-pandemic days of 2019, when averages were generally above 400,000 a month. The MTC has plans to roll out an updated system called Clipper 2.0, which it says will be a "customer-focused, cost-effective fare collection system" with a "flexible platform for future fare structures." Features include use across the various mobile operating systems, updated communication and "expanded retail, online and mobile sales." The update, however, has been routinely delayed, leading to tense confrontations at recent Clipper executive board meetings.
CBS News
01-07-2025
- CBS News
Clipper Card system outage impacting transit systems throughout Bay Area
Bay Area transportation officials announced Tuesday that the Clipper Card system is experiencing outages, impacting commuters throughout the region. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which operates the system, confirmed on social media that the system is out on all transit operators as of 7:15 a.m. ATTENTION: The Clipper system is experiencing an outage on all operators this morning. Please be prepared to pay your fare with another form of payment if required by your transit agency. — Bay Area Clipper (@BayAreaClipper) July 1, 2025 At the Embarcadero BART station in San Francisco, the fare gates were opened as commuters were unable to use their cards. Officials with Caltrain and Muni reported similar issues. Clipper Card officials did not provide an estimate on when the system would be restored. Tuesday's outage comes as several transit agencies, including AC Transit, Caltrain, Muni and the San Francisco Bay Ferry, were implementing fare increases. This is a breaking news update. More details to come.
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
'Obsolete' toll booths to be removed from 7 Bay Area state-owned bridges
The Brief Open Road Tolling is coming to all seven of the Bay Area's state-owned toll bridges. This means the existing toll booths will have to be removed from these bridges. Up first is the Richmond - San Rafael Bridge. Work should be completed by early 2026. OAKLAND, Calif. - The removal of the toll booths for the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge is slated to happen at the end of May, officials with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission - Bay Area Toll Authority say. What we know John Goodwin, assistant director of communications for MTC-Bay Area Toll Authority, on Friday said the plan is for "now-obsolete" toll booths for all seven of the Bay Area's state-owned toll bridges to be removed, as the spans will convert to open-road tolling over the next three to four years, he said. This will help prevent traffic from bottle-necking. "The Richmond-San Rafael Bridge simply will be the first. The construction timeline is not set just yet," said Goodwin. Officials say the open-road tolling system will streamline the driver experience once the toll booths are removed. As for the first bridge to undergo the toll-booth removal, Goodwin says it's unlikely anything, including excavations, foundation work, and gantry erection, will be visible to passing motorists until this summer. The schedule calls for the work to be completed on the Richmond - San Rafael Bridge by early 2026. MTC- Bay Area Toll Authority shared conceptual renderings of what the open-road tolling could potentially look like. Instead of toll booths, an overhead structure called a gantry, equipped with technology to process tolls, will go up. Since there will be no toll booths, drivers won't have to stop and cars will flow freely. SEE ALSO:Bay Area bridges due for collapse risk assessment in the event of ship strike: NTSB report According to MTC, implementation of open-road tolling has also been shown in other regions to improve traffic flow and reduce vehicle emissions. Goodwin says the 'go-live' targets for other bridges include Antioch and Carquinez in 2027; Benicia-Martinez, Dumbarton and San Mateo-Hayward in the first half of 2028; and the Bay Bridge in late 2028.
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
BART running out of emergency funding, facing potential shut down
(KRON) – Bay Area Rapid Transit has announced that the transit system is facing a 'fiscal cliff' and may run out of emergency funds in 2026. BART believes the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic 'decimated' transit ridership. After the pandemic, remote work has become a norm for many. According to BART, prior to the pandemic money from passenger fares and parking fees covered nearly 70% of the cost to run BART service and now only 25% of operating costs are covered by fares. The Bay Area has the highest work-from-home rates in the nation, according to BART. Oakland man jumps over gate of Macarthur BART, causing delays At the beginning of the pandemic, BART received nearly $2 billion in federal, state and regional emergency assistance to keep trains running. However, the funding is set to run out by spring 2026. BART listed the potential consequences of its fiscal cliff: 60-minute train frequencies 9 p.m. closures Station closures Line shutdowns No weekend service Mass layoffs Increased traffic congestion Negative impact on state climate goals Priority populations disproportionately impacted No BART service altogether The transit company is collaborating with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and other stakeholders to tackle the financial challenges. BART said a regional tax measure will likely be on the November 2026 ballot. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
