You can go to the kiosk at any BART station and the station attendant will put a sticker on your card to indicate that you are leaving via the same station you entered and allow you to exit via the emergency doors, therefore not incurring the excursion fare.<p>This is in case you decide not to take the train, or forgot something at home.<p>I suspect the excursion fare today is trying to disincentivize the use of the trains and stations as shelters by the unhoused. But others have pointed out that it is to prevent fare hacking, also.
A related really dumb thing is that in general, the signs in BART which indicate the time until the next train on a given line are not visible from outside the fare zone. This is especially relevant in parts of downtown SF, where you could take BART or Muni to go up or down market, and if there's a delay on one, you might quite reasonably want to switch to another. The added time to find the station agent and get an excursion fee waved is more than long enough to miss a muni train. (And needing to see an agent when _re-entering_ the system next time can make you miss a train again.)<p>I especially think that, if there's a service disruption, track maintenance, cancelled train, etc, BART should _automatically_ know not to apply an excursion fee, rather than hoping that most riders won't ask for a station agent to waive it.
Isn't there a hack/scam where you could (in the absence of a same-station charge) pay less or nothing to ride bart?<p>I remember people talking bout this ages ago (like, 20 years ago). You keep two bart cards going, and use the same one to enter and leave the same station. If there's a same-station charge, you can use it to enter/leave a nearby station, avoiding the higher fee for longer trips.<p>Is there a possibility that the same-fare charge is kept around to prevent this hack?
Janice Li on the BART Board at least is down for removing the fee. Though it might have to wait for 2023 for Clipper 2.0? No idea why.<p><a href="https://twitter.com/JaniceForBART/status/1555034168962138112" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/JaniceForBART/status/1555034168962138112</a><p>Rebecca Saltzman (another BART board member) says it's technical execution that prevents the change more so than the board.
This has happened to me on numerous occasions. I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t even realize it was happening to me for years as it wasn’t until I scrutinized my Clipper transaction history that I noticed it!<p>They should absolutely remove these, totally insane these fees exist in 2022.
With the old paper tickets there wasn’t a time limit for how long it took to complete a journey, and with careful use of multiple tickets you could travel between sf and east bay and never pay more than the minimum fare. The excursion fare was the only thing stopping you riding for free, I wonder if the excursion fare was a last minute hack to close out a potential exploit.
Yes, BART sucks, yada yada yada. In hindsight, not commuting by BART anymore was probably the best fucking decision I'd done for my mental health in my life. That said, charging for ingress / egress from the same station's hardly unique to BART. IIRC, this is true for mass rail transits in Taiwan and Japan as well. I presume it's to discourage non-riders from entering the station and displacing other riders: for real busy stations during rush hour it may be a real concern. That's not the case for BART, though it's got a different kind of "non-riders" to contend with...
It's funny how BART (and most California agencies) put very quantifiable costs on people who obey the rules in a way that you've foreseen, but in the meantime completely ignore farehoppers, freeriders, etc. who simply hop over turnstiles or otherwise don't follow the law.<p>I guess it's too expensive (or "not equitable") to take the time to enforce rules that you've created. And we are too nice to create firm but unpopular rules for things that do come up.
Oh man, this happened to me on the last trip. Some of the BART layouts and signage are bonkers, and you can easily accidently go through turnstiles for the wrong line.<p>I tried finding someone but there was no staff. I emailed them and no response.<p>I now chalk it up to the "SF hates you" tax I pay every time I visit.
BART...<p>As I always say: One of the richest parts of the richest state of the richest nation on this planet and we have ... BART. How is this possible?
How often does this really happen? Maybe once per 2000 rides? It appears there is a way to get your money back although it might be annoying and bureaucratic.<p>I think there are bigger issues we can focus on with BART. The should focus on fixing the signaling so we can get more trains through the Transbay tunnel. We should make BART more reliable and finish the San Jose extension on time and under budget.<p>I'm very supportive complaining about public transit and services in general, but making sure that BART provides excellent service for people who change their mind at the last moment, doesn't seem like the best use of their limited resources.
These are the kind of little things that make me not want to use public transportation if I can help it.<p>This was common for me in Philly. I'd pay to get onto the station platform then spend 30 minutes waiting for a train that is supposed to come every 10. Then upon realizing it would never come I'd end up with the double penalty of not getting a refund from SEPTA as well as having to pay for an Uber. Only to the get chewed out by my boss at comcast for walking in at 9:45.<p>Meanwhile all the people coming from the suburbs with an hour long delay would get a pass just because they don't live in the city.
When I was a kid and tried to figure out why this fare/penalty existed, I guessed it was to compensate for people who traveled somewhere to pick up an item from a friend who'd meet them at the station and hand it through the gate to them, and then they'd go back home, all without leaving the station. It all seemed like an intricate solution to a small problem.
Two things about excursion fares:<p>1. The MUNI "A" Fast Pass doesn't charge excursion fares inside SF. If you commute regularly in SF, the Type A Fast Pass is a great option, especially if you can get a subsidy from work.<p>2. Otherwise, a Bart attendant can scan your ticket, see that you recently entered and let you out for free, and fix your account so you can get back in without hassle.
Alooong time ago before this kind of same station exit fee existed, it was very widely know among teenagers that you could buy a ticket with the lowest amount required so that you could exit the station and so what would happen would a bunch of teenagers would buy cheap tickets and then do all kinds of money saving maneuvers such as tail gating their friend or a stranger through the exit gate while holding their ticket in their hand just above the machine etc, so that they did not consume any fare at the far side yet still had a ticket visible and weren't jumping over the gate. It was super widely know and many kids would tour the whole bay area for super cheap on weekends if they had nothing better to do.<p>I'm just saying this is why they came up with that fee.<p>Obviously any adult with a real job wouldn't stoop to such antics.
It's been quite a while since I rode BART (I interned in SF in 2014, and visited briefly again I think in 2015), but I remember noticing that in the list of fares for different stops from the given station you're in, riding to the end of the line was actually cheaper than stopping at the airport (the second-to-last stop IIRC) on one of the lines. Basically, since they knew more people would get off at the airport than the stop past it, they charged more to get off there. I never did ride all the way to the end of the line, but I assumed that they made sure to hike the price from that stop to the airport as well so you couldn't purposely go there, get off, and then reboard to save a few bucks (although I imagine the time spent doing that wouldn't really be worth it to most people anyhow).
I think this is a really great opportunity to mention that all policies need two important criteria: an audit date, and a mandatory (and renewable) sunset date.
In the Netherlands (where I live) most stations have gates. When you check in with ov-chipkaart [1], 10 or 20 euro are debited until you check out and the fare is settled. However, you have 60 minutes to check out at the same station without being charged. Is that so difficult?<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OV-chipkaart" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OV-chipkaart</a>
I recently paid for BART parking garage during free hours because there is no sign anywhere that tells you which hours paid parking is enforced. I looked it up after I paid for the spot and realized I didn't need to. I imagined the reason for this was the same. They are making extra money by not informing when you don't need to pay, why change it?
One solution here is that you can actually talk to a bart agent and they provide you with a sticker that you can use to get out without tapping. You show the sticker at the next reentry to get in without tapping again.<p>The problem though, more often than not, the agents are missing from their booths. Also doesn’t help if the exit and reentry are two different stations.
As someone who is not familiar with this transit system, but familiar with my own....this is criminal ... I would have a fit to be charged for not using the service.....<p>we have a different system. timed tickets....or monthly passes or day passes....wtf is this robbery.<p>no offense...but this is the opposite of free market principles at work...this is straight extortion
This could be prevented by posting wait times for the next set of trains clearly on the entrances, on most stations is only available inside the gates.<p>New york does this but san francisco hates you, so they dont.