Those old paper BART tickets hiding in the depths of your wallet or buried in a random drawer have now taken on the status of historic artifacts.
That’s because, while they were once an instantly recognizable symbol of the transit system and token of Bay Area life, BART’s familiar blue tickets are going the way of cloth seats and carpeted trains as the agency moves into an all-Clipper card future.
You can still use any paper tickets you already have to ride BART, but the system last week completed a more than year-long project to phase out the sale of new tickets within stations. Only a few new blue tickets remain at the Lake Merritt station’s Customer Service Center, BART spokeswoman Anna Duckworth said Monday, and that supply won’t be replenished once it’s gone.
Instead, riders will have to buy Clipper cards from vending machines installed at each stop if they don’t already have one. At $3 apiece, the change might make for some unhappy tourists.
But it’s a one-time fee, and BART officials say switching to Clipper-only sales will save riders money in the long run. A 50-cent surcharge is deducted on each trip using a paper ticket so the Clipper card pays for itself after three round-trip journeys. Plus the reloadable plastic card is more durable, can be used to ride transit systems throughout the Bay Area and won’t get jammed in BART’s fare gates like the paper versions sometimes do. There is no service charge to buy a youth or senior Clipper card.
BART began ending the sale of new paper tickets with a pilot program at four stations in August of 2019, and on Dec. 7 finished the conversion at all of its stops.
The system’s fare gates will continue to accept paper tickets, and Duckworth said there are no plans to stop taking them any time soon. But with the exception of the “add fare” machines, where you can add just enough money to exit a station after a trip, you won’t be able to keep replenishing the value of paper tickets like you once could.
The change only applies to the standard blue adult paper tickets — BART continues to sell new discounted paper tickets for children, seniors and people with disabilities.
