clm-509c573ee7812a3c
quantitative
One card has paid fares on about two dozen Bay Area operators since June 2010
Permanent project revision
Revision 2026-08-21-source-dates · effective 2026-07-26
Superseded. A later revision exists: 2026-08-22-cross-city-sourcing →
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sha256:047366317f8c92f7e18a1e8ceab0f2db46ed1686b1cdc3cb3fe9562eb0ede6d3
replace /snapshot/projectFingerprint — Updated projectFingerprint to the current sourced project record.replace /snapshot/sources — Updated sources to the current sourced project record.The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.
clm-509c573ee7812a3c
quantitative
One card has paid fares on about two dozen Bay Area operators since June 2010
clm-dbc9318428300495
descriptive
but MTC runs the card, not the prices, which every agency still sets for itself
clm-174bed501b84879c
quantitative
A $461M rebuild promised full customer transition by 2023
clm-6e53bd2c831c7bc6
quantitative
It launched on 10 December 2025 with bank-card payment and the region's first cross-agency transfer discount
clm-c860a3dd3a11e099
quantitative
A transition planned to take no more than three months was 'coming up on six months...and counting' by 26 May 2026, when Cubic missed the 30 May date to bulk-migrate more than 10 million cards
clm-90ec5ec96336af23
quantitative
KQED, reading MTC documents in March 2026, counted 10 major incidents and over 33 hours of outages since launch, 1.3 million of roughly 15 million cards migrated, $3.4M spent keeping the old system alive and $7.6M on extra customer service against 35,000 calls a month
clm-27c346bd497d3daa
quantitative
The number pointing the other way is also MTC's: 1.7 million discounted transfers, worth over $5.2 million to riders
clm-0278ab7e002d67b5
quantitative
on 1 July 2026 nine operators asked MTC to pursue contractual remedies against the vendor
clm-74e1ef0b3b9b9dfb
descriptive
Clipper made two dozen operators legible to a rider without touching what any of them charge
clm-697031244a86558b
descriptive
so when the region finally wanted a cheaper transfer, it could not instruct the agencies, only buy the discount from them with regional money
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sha256:047366317f8c92f7e18a1e8ceab0f2db46ed1686b1cdc3cb3fe9562eb0ede6d3
src-17370eb56016119aThe authority's own launch announcement for the renaming of the TransLink system to Clipper in June 2010, the basis for yearStart 2010. The precise date, 16 June 2010, is carried by Wikipedia rather than by this release.
src-8b5ed93914635949The load-bearing document for both the money and the promise. Contract to Cubic Transportation Systems: 'up to $165 million for capital equipment plus $222 million to extend Cubic's operation and maintenance of the system through 2032', plus '$74 million to provide a 15 percent contingency and to cover estimated sales taxes on equipment purchases', total $461 million. And the original schedule MTC set for itself: contract start autumn 2018, first improvements 2019, mobile payment app 2020, complete redesign by 2021, full customer transition by 2023. Cubic was the incumbent and the sole bidding team.
src-7ac3bc14ac59afa0Sentence-level source for the slippage in the authority's own words. MTC Executive Director Andrew Fremier: 'A transition that originally was expected to last no more than three months is now coming up on six months...and counting.' Cubic missed its 30 May 2026 target for the performance requirements needed to begin bulk migration of more than 10 million existing Clipper cards. Same release carries the positive figures used in the impact field: 1.7 million card transfers processed and over $5.2 million in transfer discounts for riders using more than one agency.
src-40812fcc1e081ff9Established press reading MTC and Cubic reporting; the source of every failure number in the impact field. Cubic reported 10 major incidents totalling over 33 hours of outage since the 10 December launch, including a 3-hour-48-minute failure on 26 March and an earlier 12-hour-plus outage affecting fare inspection devices. Only 1.3 million of approximately 15 million cards had been migrated. MTC allocated $3.4 million to keep legacy Clipper running into March and $7.6 million for expanded customer service against 35,000 calls a month, well beyond contracted capacity; a July 2025 outage cost BART $386,005. MTC on remedies: the contract 'provides certain methods of redress for underperformance by Cubic. Staff are currently engaged in evaluation of our options.' Note the card-count conflict: MTC says more than 10 million, this article says roughly 15 million; the entry uses MTC's own, lower figure.
src-9248359680a2a073What the failure looked like to riders six and a half weeks in: system crashes blocking account access, failures upgrading existing accounts, ticket machines taking money without crediting cards, fare inspection devices not recognising paid fares, autoload malfunctions, and accounting irregularities for the agencies. One rider had been locked out of an account for 48 days after five calls to support. Confirms the $461 million contract figure independently of MTC.
src-2d09b44bc98aba78The currency check and the strongest recent development: nine operators, including the four largest, wrote to MTC calling on it to 'pursue all contractual remedies' against Cubic over its 'problematic implementation of the Clipper 2.0 system', ahead of a closed MTC board session on possible legal action. Trade press behind a paywall; headline and lede confirmed at search level, body not read. No outcome of that session was found as of late July 2026.
src-674518a7035acf86Independent urban-policy institute, and the source of the governance finding the entry is built on. 'There are 27 different transit operators in the Bay Area and each sets its own fare policy, resulting in a hodgepodge of different fare structures, products, discounts and prices across the region', while MTC manages Clipper itself. On why earlier integration failed: 'MTC explored regional fare coordination nearly a decade ago, but the study was hamstrung by the requirement that solutions not negatively impact the revenues operators earn from fares — a condition that is mathematically nearly impossible to meet.' And the verdict in the title: 'While Clipper has removed a barrier to traveling on multiple transit operators, it did so only by masking this complexity.' Dated 2017, but nothing found since contradicts it, and the 2025 transfer discount is the first regional fare instrument in the eight years after.
src-c97412f4f585cdb1Operator source for how the programme is actually governed. The board was formed by a memorandum of understanding between MTC and the transit agencies and seats top executives of MTC, AC Transit, BART, the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District, SFMTA, SamTrans and VTA, plus two representatives of the remaining MOU parties. It 'works by consensus to establish goals, a budget, and work plan, and provide policy, oversight, direction and authorization of significant business matters for the Clipper fare payment system.' Chaired in 2026 by Julie Kirschbaum of SFMTA. The page states no legal authority and no opt-out provision; MTC Resolution 3866, which requires operators to make Clipper their primary fare payment system, and Government Code section 66516, which lets MTC adopt rules to coordinate fares, both appear in MTC material at search level but could not be opened, so neither is claimed in the entry.
src-e09fb101d95705e7The authority's current statement of regional fare policy, and the source for a negative finding that matters: there is no fare capping and no public all-agency pass. What exists is the no-cost and reduced-cost transfer pilot, timed to the December 2025 Clipper rollout, and the Clipper BayPass, still a pilot in its second phase. Fare policy is advanced through a Fare Integration Task Force of ten agencies; the page describes MTC as partnering with operators and nowhere claims authority to set their fares.
src-d6ed7e813ea6676bAdvocacy organisation, used for the mechanics and the calendar of the transfer discount: '$2.85 off the fare (up to the amount of a local fare) for each transfer made within two hours of their first tap', live 10 December 2025, approved by MTC on 27 March 2023 as an 18 to 24 month pilot. Also the equity gap that this entry carries: the discount is automatically available to people paying with credit and debit cards, while low-income, youth and senior riders cannot yet get their discounts through contactless payment.
src-6d8afa966e1c5c79Sentence-level source for the excluded group, and the reason the entry does not repeat the Los Angeles cash-rider framing: 'Discounted fares through Clipper Youth, Senior, RTC, and Clipper START programs are NOT available through contactless bank card payment. Riders must still use their discount program-issued Clipper cards.' No source found in this review states whether cash-paying riders receive any regional transfer benefit, so the entry makes no claim about them.
src-5ae5be91ee4e6280Tertiary, used only where operator sources were unreachable, and flagged as such. Carries the rename date, 16 June 2010, from TransLink; the count of 24 agencies across the nine-county Bay Area as of October 2022; the $3 adult card fee introduced on 1 September 2012 and waived when the card is registered for Autoload at purchase; BART's start of contactless bank card and digital wallet acceptance on 20 August 2025; and the full Clipper 2.0 cutover on 10 December 2025. The operator count is quoted inconsistently across sources — MTC material has said 22, clippercard.com says 24 transit services, SPUR counts 27 operators in the region as a whole — so the entry says about two dozen.
src-7f8310b4ce7d20e1Participating-operator FAQs are the accessible source for the balance rule, and it is the opposite of the Manila pattern: cash value loaded on a Clipper card does not expire, while time-limited passes and tickets do. clippercard.com's own FAQ page returned 404 to automated fetching. No forfeiture mechanism for stored value was found.
src-3b86bcee45049a71Currency and the funding fight behind the fare policy. SB 63 authorises a November 2026 regional sales-tax measure estimated to raise about $1 billion a year for Muni, BART, AC Transit, Caltrain and others, with a maintenance-of-effort requirement on the major operators, and MTC lists inter-agency free and reduced-price transfers among the rider improvements it would fund. The transfer discount now running is a time-limited pilot on set-aside regional money, so whether it survives is a ballot question, not an operational one.