A Clipper card system glitch Tuesday forced Muni, BART, and other Bay Area transit systems to allow passengers to ride for free on a day when fares were increased across parts of the network.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which runs the Clipper card system, said it did not know what caused the failure.
By 1 p.m., authorities said on X that the Clipper card issue had been resolved.
The outage coincided with scheduled fare increases on Muni, Caltrain, the Golden Gate Ferry, and Golden Gate Transit. Per the changes, effective Tuesday, Muni riders who use the Clipper card or the Muni mobile app pay an extra $0.10 per ride, and the base fare on Caltrain went up by $0.25. Golden Gate Transit and Ferry said “most” fares were up by $0.25.
“I find the timing of this happening on July 1 to be very curious,” said MTC spokesperson John Goodwin. Cubic Transportation Systems, the company that operates the Clipper card with the MTC, was investigating, he added.
But later in the day, Goodwin said that the timing of the outage and fare change was a coincidence.
An improved version of Clipper, which would allow riders to pay by tapping a debit or credit card, had been scheduled for last year but was put on hold. Goodwin said it is expected to launch sometime this year.
A former BART board director slammed the agency for the fiasco.
“Nice to get a free BART ride this morning, but this is terrible,” former board president Rebecca Saltzman posted on Bluesky. “Clipper 2 is years later than planned — holding back critical fare improvements — and Cubik can’t even keep the original Clipper system running.”
Fare gates were wide open at BART stations during the morning rush as agents waved through riders who instinctively looked to tap their Clipper cards to enter.
Signs alerting riders to the situation were taped at fare gates.
“CLIPPER CURRENTLY HAS AN OUTAGE THROUGHOUT THE REGION. PLEASE PROCEED THROUGH THE FARE GATES,” a message at the Powell Street entrance read.
“This is amazing,” said Sophie Aissen, after commuting for work from El Cerrito del Norte to Powell Street on BART. “I feel bad because they’re going to lose a lot of money on this.”
“This is cool,” said Rose, who declined to give her last name, as she waited for a train to SFO for a flight home to Austin, Texas. “Too bad I don’t live here.”
BART has not responded to questions about how much revenue would be lost due to the outage. Recent data showed that Tuesdays are typically BART’s busiest days of the week.
Goodwin said he expects that BART and other transit agencies to ask to be “made whole” for the fares that they did not collect, but he was unsure of how that would be negotiated.
At West Oakland, a BART employee said, “The AI is angry today” and propped open the gate for everyone with a friendly “Good morning.”