Welcome to Akit.Org, home to the Complaint Department and started on February 7, 2002. Featured on: SFist, Curbed SF, SF Citizen, N Judah Chronicles, SF Examiner, SFGate, Rescue Muni, SF Appeal, Pacific Citizen, NBC Bay Area, SF Weekly's The Snitch, Streetsblog SF, and Muni Diaries.
"Akit is the man. He knows Clipper." (spenta) "It’s a fantastic blog for any San Franciscan." (Kevin) "Your blog is always on point, and well researched!"(Nina Decker) "Everyone's favorite volunteer public policy consultant..."(Eve Batey, SF Appeal) "You are doing a great job keeping on top of Translink stuff. Keep up the good work!" (Greg Dewar) "...I don't even bother subscribing anywhere else for my local public transportation info. You have it all..." (Empowered Follower)
On Saturday, I burned some time in downtown and stopped at the Embarcadero station to hop on the California Cable car. When I got to the top of the escalator at the mezzanine level, I noticed a huge line at the Clipper customer service desk.
I had to scratch my head at the huge line and said to myself, "dang, that's the line?"
I also quietly laughed because I just handled a purchase to my Clipper card in just under a minute, and it's only a few feet away from the booth.
The Clipper Customer Service Desk They are used for customers who wants to add value and passes to their card, apply for youth and senior cards, have questions about Clipper, replacing lost/stolen cards, and fix any problems with their account.
I did notice a few with paperwork in hand to apply for specialized youth & senior Clipper cards, but a handful looked like they were in line to purchase their monthly transit passes since the new month is just a few days away.
For those of you purchasing passes or needing to add Clipper e-cash value, there's an easy way to do it... go to the self-service automated machines within the Embarcadero station! There's even a banner over the Muni ticketing machines and the third party sales booth behind the line describing what Clipper services they can do (the third party booth was closed that day).
The automated machines can do...
Muni - Purchase e-transit passes and e-ridebooks for ALL participating agencies, and add e-cash (minimum of $5). Accepts cash, credit cards, debit cards, and commuter benefit cards.
BART - Add Clipper e-cash only (minimum of 5 cents). Accepts cash, credit cards, debit cards, and commuter benefit cards.
If you carry transit benefit checks (vouchers), you still have to claim it at the customer service desk, or you can go upstairs to the Walgreens.
So, don't suffer in line if you need to buy a pass or add e-cash! All Muni underground stations can get you what you need (if only e-cash, use ANY BART station).
BART's extension to SFO has been popular for travelers with decent prices that's less than a shuttle van and taxi, and gets passengers from the airport to downtown SF within 30 minutes. On the weekends, I notice the trains coming from SFO packed full of visitors and their luggage when I board the train at Daly City.
BART now offers visitors an option to pre-pay for their fare and pick-up their tickets at a counter nearby the main gates at SFO in terminal "G." The voucher page is a little hidden in the BART website, but once you find it, you click on the link and can buy the voucher online from a third-party official contracted vendor of BART.
You can purchase one of three options, a round-trip BART ticket from SFO to downtown SF stations, East Bay I (stations in East Bay, but closer to SFO), and East Bay II (stations furthest from SFO station).
Once you purchase the voucher, you print it and bring it to the nearby counter at the BART gates to claim it for BART tickets. The tickets will contain cash value similar to purchasing a ticket at a vending machine.
What's so bad about it? It sounds simple, pre-pay and you get your tickets at a customer service counter.
Uh huh. How about the cost?
Here's a great example: The printable voucher for a round-trip ride from SFO to a downtown SF station (Civic Center, Powell, Montgomery, and Embarcadero) costs $18. There's no service fees, print-at-home charges, etc. It's just $18.
But checking BART's fare table, a ride from SFO to a downtown station costs $8.10, so a round-trip ticket would cost $16.20.
This means, BART is ripping tourists and visitors off by taking an extra $1.20 in profit for the online voucher program.
Based on the website, there is no details if the $18 voucher purchased online will give the passenger a $18 BART ticket, or a ticket valued at $16.10, but either way, if a passenger is only riding BART to and from SFO, it's a definite rip-off to purchase the voucher.
Just remember visitors, BART ticketing machines accept credit cards too, so save that $1.80!
Just a few days ago on Friday, January 13th, the Operations Committee of the MTC met to talk about their usual business, and specifically, spending money on Clipper.
Other than the agency spending money on preparing for VTA's full transition into Clipper, I'm going to stick to the big topic at hand, "Phase III" of Clipper.
As you may recall, Phase II of Clipper was to have all major transit agencies in the Bay Area join the Clipper consortium and it has been successfully done with card readers on every bus, train, and train/metro station in the Bay Area.
Phase III of Clipper is to expand the program into the smaller transit agencies. To make the expansion more efficient and cost effective, they have been broken-up into regions of where the transit services is provided. The regions are: East Bay, Napa-Solano, 101 Corridor, and Ferries.
The Ferries group is supposed to be the first, but there hasn't been any news of any new developments. One reason why the ferries will go first is because it requires fewer Clipper equipment (readers, add value machines) versus a single transit [bus] agency that requires extensive amounts of equipment and labor to be installed on every single bus.
Who Gets Clipper First for the Buses? The MTC is proposing to the Operations Committee to pick the Napa-Solano region to be next with Clipper. The region covers the following agencies:
SolTrans
Fairfield-Suisun Transit
Napa VINE
Vacaville City Coach
Rio Vista
The MTC is also considering to install Clipper equipment to Union City Transit and Marin Transit.
The MTC has hit a big bump in the amount of Clipper equipment left in their inventory; ERG, the manufacturer of the Clipper card equipment, does not make any more of the equipment that is currently used on the buses of the major transit agencies. Either the MTC gets lucky to procure whatever is left from ERG in Australia or will need to look for new equipment.
The lack of equipment forced the MTC to choose the region that would best fit the remaining equipment in storage, therefore Napa-Solano is the proper choice. Depending on what is leftover, Union City and Marin Transit may also be added for installation; these two agencies are being treated differently because Union City Transit is an extension of AC Transit, and Marin Transit is an extension of Golden Gate Transit.
What About the Other Transit Agencies? Since there's a lack of equipment in MTC's inventory to cover every single bus for the remaining agencies, they'll need to look elsewhere.
Cubic, the contractor for Clipper, will need to seek new equipment. As the report states, the newest generation of RFID transit fare equipment now includes real-time cellular communications, which means, rapid communications between the equipment and the Clipper network, and without the 5 day waiting period common with online and phone orders with the current technology operating on the major agencies.
The new equipment they are looking at is what's going to be used in Vancouver and Chicago this year when they roll-out their new farecard programs. MTC and Clipper plans to start piloting the new equipment this now until March at no cost to the MTC to see if it will work well with the current Clipper technology in use now.
If the MTC likes the new equipment, they'll likely make a proposal at the March or April Operations Committee meeting and provide the plans for the 101 Corridor and East Bay groups.
Penalty for Paper Tickets Essentially, it's going to a penalty on the people who buy paper tickets at their train stations. They are proposing passengers to pay an extra 25 cents per zone for one-way tickets, and 50 cents per zone for day passes. Another way of saying it, it's a 10% fare hike for paper ticket users.
However, Caltrain will not impose the additional fee on those who uses Clipper cards to pay for their rides (e-cash).
By operating on a different fare structure for cash vs. Clipper e-cash, it does cause one unique problem:
For those who rides more than two times in one day, Clipper e-cash does not give you a day pass; therefore if you ride three times with Clipper, you get charged three one-way rides.
At least with a paper day pass, you have to pay an extra 50 cent penalty per zone covered, but you get UNLIMITED rides within the zones covered.
End of 8-Rides This is going to stir more controversy than the paper ticket hike.
I have argued the 8-ride system for Caltrain on Clipper is pretty much a stupid move, and I have suggested that all passengers who rides Caltrain using Clipper should get an across the board 15% discount on their train fares by paying for one-way rides with Clipper's universal e-cash purse.
Well, it didn't turn out the way I expected it.
Caltrain's proposal is to end 8-ride, therefore Clipper users can pay with e-cash for their single trip rides. But as mentioned from above, Caltrain's 25 cent per zone fee for paper ticket makes it sound like you will still receive a discount, but if you were to spend time and crunch the numbers, you are about to get very screwed over.
Caltrain's way of saying it on their website makes it sound cool the 8-rides will die a painful death, but you'll be paying more. Example:
A two zone 8-ride: $32.25
New Clipper only 2-zone one-way e-cash per ride: $4.75
Multiply new 2-zone Clipper one-way e-cash fare by eight: $38.
Divide 32.25 into 38, you get .849. A simple way of saying it, 8-ride passengers being converted to Clipper e-cash one way fares only will be paying for a 15% fare hike.
However, if an ex 8-rider uses Clipper, they won't pay the 25 cent per zone paper fee, but if the passenger switches completely to paper tickets only, it will be a 25% fare hike (15% hike for ending 8-ride, and 10% hike for the paper charge).
Akit's Opinion Regarding the paper ticket fee (10% fare hike): This begs the question, why hasn't Caltrain and Clipper devised a way to let people essentially 'earn' a day pass when they ride two one-way trips (a.k.a. "pass accumulator")? VTA is planning to do this in the near future where if a passenger rides their buses/trains a certain number of times, the rest of the rides for the remainder of the day is free.
Caltrain also has very few Clipper add value machines, they've only installed them in a few major stations. They refused to modify their paper ticket machines to handle the job, so now people will have to carefully monitor their Clipper e-cash balance, or consider autoload (which I don't recommend).
Regarding the end of 8-rides: It's a screwjob for the 8-ride users as they lose their 15% off and pay the 'normal' cash fare like other Joes and Janes do today and when the proposal becomes reality. It's an even bigger screwjob for those who decides to skip Clipper completely and pay the paper ticket fare, therefore getting a 25% fare hike.
This ain't cool at all. They kicking their most loyal passengers in the butt, while their casual passengers get a break.
Caltrain's proposal is bad; whomever wrote it will sure get a lot of 8-riders angry. Here's how I would have handled it:
Follow how Golden Gate Transit did it. Instead of raising fares, kill the 8-rides and give all Clipper card passengers an across the board 15% discount on one-way e-cash fares; this will compensate for the end of 8-rides. This attracts more ridership as people who infrequently ride it will notice a 15% discount for them too.
Do not add 10% penalty for paper tickets.
Start doing a transition every six months until you meet the goal you established; either reduce the 15% to 10%, or all fare categories gets a hike of 25 or 50 cents per zone.
By doing the three steps, it makes it sound much better by easing the pain of a hike, but they way they proposed it, it's like getting kicked in the nuts, then kicked in the face seconds later.
The "Caltrain Screwjob" If you are wondering why I called it the "Caltrain Screwjob," it's similar to professional wrestling's infamous "Montreal Screwjob." You can read about it here.
If you feel upset that you'll be paying a 15% to 25% fare hike, I encourage you to complain to Caltrain. Their e-mail is: changes@caltrain.com or for alternate methods, click here. Make sure to call these changes the "Caltrain Screwjob" so they know Akit encouraged you to contact them and you stand beside him.
It's a big piece of news that's not getting a lot of media attention. Who wouldn't want extra access?
The "A" Muni Fast Pass The Fast Pass provides passengers the opportunity to ride BART within San Francisco with no additional fare. It's been a big hit for those who lives near a SF BART station and needs to reach their workplace in downtown SF or attends City College of San Francisco because it gets them there quickly without the hassle of riding a bus.
But for SF State students, it's been a hot issue as the "A" pass does not cover Daly City Station; even though SF State is within San Francisco, Daly City is the closest station to the university campus. This forces students to choose to pay for BART in cash, or save money by taking a longer ride by utilizing Muni.
What's up with Daly City BART? Daly City station is a very unique station as it lies right on the border between the two cities. Since BART declares Daly City Station not part of San Francisco, Muni does not have the privilege to allow their passengers to use their "A" fast pass, and all BART passengers who rides a train crossing the city border pays a surcharge, which costs a rider of a total of $2.95 to go from Daly City to Powell, and vice versa; while a ride starting and ending within SF is just a mere $1.75.
To compensate for the surcharge, Muni offers all exiting BART passengers a coupon (or Clipper e-transfer) to ride Muni's 28, 28L, and 54 lines for free away from the station, and a free ride back within 24 hours of the coupon issued.
SF State has also contributed to help people get to their campus with a free shuttle service where they run mini buses from the BART station to 19th Avenue & Holloway, and vice versa.
Combining the efforts of Muni's 28 and 28L, and the SF State shuttle has provided students a free way to get to the main campus, even though they pay a premium for the BART service to reach Daly City.
What would happen if BART allows the "A" pass to be accepted at Daly City?
Benefits to passengers:
BART passengers who lives near Daly City and only rides BART to SF now has an unlimited ride option and would obviously save tons of money with a flat rate pass.
Do the math: $2.95 one way from DC to Powell, times two (for round-trips), times 20 working days in January 2012 (not includes January 2nd and January 16th for holidays) = $118.00. By using a $70 pass, a passenger saves $48 a month, or $576 a year.
Faster access for SF State students, meaning reduction in loads for Muni Metro's M-Ocean View and 29-Sunset lines (these are alternate ways to connect to SF State; M-Ocean View for downtown BART stations, and 29-Sunset for Balboa Park BART).
Since no SF BART station has a parking lot, now there's a station that has one along the "A" pass boundaries. Perfect for those who attends games at AT&T Park and wants their car waiting for them after their BART ride, like me.
Samtrans passengers who rides the feeder buses to Daly City also benefits with the flat price pass savings when riding BART.
Negative reaction/problems:
Increase in passenger loads on Muni's 28 and 28L lines.
Increase in passenger loads on the SF State Shuttle.
With a lower cost to ride BART and increases attraction to ride to work in downtown SF, it may cause higher demand for parking at the station's parking garage and lots.
The possible end of free paper transfers for the 28, 28L and 54 Muni lines. If Muni is in a major financial problem, they'd likely kill the Daly City free ride transfers because it costs up to $4 per passenger for the free rides. Muni has to somehow compensate for the switch.
Muni could decide to maintain the coupons for the Muni lines, but only offer the 25 cent discount, just like all SF BART stations have.
Samtrans passengers may use BART Plus for unlimited rides on Samtrans and Muni, but doesn't give unlimited BART rides within SF/Daly City.
Akit's Opinions In my opinion, I think it's a great idea. It's a great way for SF State students to get to campus. This will also encourage more people to use Clipper to ride BART and Muni to get to/from campus.
Since I have a "M" pass, adding an extra $10 for the premium would help me during baseball season since a round-trip ride on BART from Daly City to Powell station already costs $5.90 round-trip. I would park my car at the station (free parking after 3PM weekdays and all-day on weekends), and take the train to/from the game.
That's the first words I blurted out loud when I just exited the metro yesterday morning before 9AM. To those I offended by saying the f-word in public, sorry.
Here's what happened: I had to visit a local x-ray center to get my teeth scanned, so I took the M-Ocean View metro from my workplace at SF State to 14th and West Portal. When the train got to 14th Avenue, I exited the train, looked both ways to make sure it was okay to cross, and noticed a grey SUV approaching at about 300 feet towards the train in the right lane (the train was in the track lane on the left).
There was enough time to reach the curb with the assumption the SUV would stop as well (even if the SUV was approaching, I could walk fast enough to cross), so I hopped off the train and was about eight feet away from the sidewalk/curb.
Instead of the SUV stopping, it decided to keep driving through the stopped metro train with inches to spare from clipping me. To make matters worse, two other passengers stepped off the train (exited) and saw the SUV pass by IN FRONT OF THEM. That's when I yelled out, "HEY, WHAT THE F--- ARE YOU DOING?!?!"
Instead of the SUV driver admitting to a mistake and quickly coming to a stop, it decides to quickly stop at the intersection and speed off very quickly down West Portal.
As for me yelling out the f-word, I sure had a lot of people staring at me, but hopefully they knew why; that idiot driver could have mowed down up to three people, including myself.
--------------------
This brings me to the topic of the day: Why are people disrespecting the "Do Not Pass" laws when a light rail and cable car is stopped at a designated stop to discharge and accept passengers?
Every time I ride the metro or the California line cable car I see it every time, some prick driver deciding to speed through while the vehicle is stopped to discharge and accept passengers.
It seems to be worse on the California cable car line because tourists sometimes don't look both ways and you get a bunch of rude drivers who just doesn't obey the law; in one case, I was a driver, and stopped for a cable car discharging passengers. The taxicab behind me decides to blow his horn at me, so I give the driver the finger as more passengers discharge from the cable car.
Even Stanley Roberts of KRON took on this issue with this video report:
The law states that if a metro train or cable car is stopped to pickup/discharge passengers, a driver must stop behind the vehicle to allow the passengers to board and exit without fear of being hit. A driver can attempt to proceed/pass a railed vehicle on the right side only when the vehicle starts moving.
In some circumstances, the boarding island will have a sign saying it's OK to pass, but at a reduced speed. You find these on Ocean Avenue for the K-Ingleside line where you can pass on the right, but only at 10MPH when the light rail vehicle is stopped at the island. In other cases, you can pass at full speed because the island has barriers to separate pedestrians from vehicles (e.g. St. Francis Circle metro stop, see photo by clicking here).
In my case, 14th Avenue and West Portal didn't have a barrier, only a boarding island that only covers half of a one car train, therefore the "do not pass" law applies.
Drivers who violates the law: What's your damn hurry? Is it worth a $250 fine and a point on your driving record? Is it worth facing a judge in traffic court and possibly spending time at traffic school? It is worth raising your insurance rates? And is it worth possibly hitting a pedestrian, paying their medical bills/funeral costs, getting arrested, prosecuted, and spending time in jail? Hell no.
So do me a favor drivers, when a metro train or cable car is stopped and passengers must exit by crossing a traffic lane, just stop behind it. All I need is more x-ray radiation to check for a broken arm, leg, and other stuff.
Shen Yun... you've seen it literally on nearly every Muni bus, shopping mall kiosks, full page ads in newspapers, and they justify that they are a great program by selling tickets for orchestra level at $100 a pop and only being in town for just a week.
The reality is, ain't worth your money and your time.
I saw it today and I feel duped.
Why do I feel duped? When people see the ads for Shen Yun Performing Arts, it seems like the show is all about dancing and showing the cultural history of the Chinese people. It's like the greatest show spectacle around if they can dish out tons of dough on tons of bus ads, signage, promotions, and mall kiosks. Heck, they were even promoting the San Francisco show at the Great Mall in Milpitas with an aisle kiosk.
That's until I got my ticket. My folks paid for the tickets so I got one in my hand at the moment I was to enter the War Memorial Opera House, and it said: "SF Falun Buddha Study Association presents..." and I was intrigued if it was being supported by Falun Gong/Falun Dafa or maybe just some organization that has a name similar to Falun Gong.
I shrugged it off and went to my $100 seat in the orchestra section.
Then the show begins, the first few parts was interesting, showing their dances and cultural history; that was until they started force feeding the audience with politics and religion. Surely enough, the hosts of the show was talking about Falun Gong and people getting persecuted; and even simulations of people clubbing Falun Gong practitioners.
Once it hit that, it started getting awkward to be watching the show. What the hell did I spend my $100 on? Why didn't the advertising tell me that it's just a show to help promote politics and religion? Did I get the bait and switch? Was I duped? I sure was. Then the stories of prosecution and beatings kept going in other acts mixed with acts with nothing mentioning or relating to Falun Gong.
To give you something similar: Ever been in a situation that made you real uncomfortable?
I remember going to a church service for a five year anniversary of my late grandmother's passing away because my parents made me go, I felt almost immediately very uncomfortable and literally stormed out of the building almost in tears. It wasn't because I did not respect the church or its religion, I just didn't feel like I belonged there; I felt like a fool trying to say the verses out of the song book, and being pressured be indoctrinated into a religion I had no interest in. My parents was pissed, and I told them why I didn't want to be there; all I wanted to do was to pay my respects by putting flowers in my grandmother's niche in Colma. My parents respected my reasons and my wishes, and I visit my grandmother's niche every few weeks with a fresh bouquet of flowers.
What Shen Yun did was cram stuff down my throat, and making it worse, I paid them $100 to do it. They were misleading. If you brought your kids to see that show, they would be asking you why the heck are people hitting other people with batons? Is it appropriate for the young ones? No.
I wonder why the show tickets was so expensive and they only stay for a very brief period; once people finds out about being force fed the politics and religion, and being mislead through their advertising; they are long gone (with your money). Newspapers would review the first night's show and likely there would be some negative publicity, and be published the next day; but thousands of tickets was purchased before the show even came to town, and are non-refundable, and the rumor mill of the regular people telling others it ain't worth it is pointless because with such a brief time at each city, they are already on their next stop. If they did shows non-stop for a month in one location, they would barely sell any tickets after just a couple of weeks.
I've got nothing against freedom of speech and religion, but if you don't tell people what you are selling, you are just duping them and you get a lot of people pissed off. At least I know that if I am going to a funeral, some type of religion will be embraced; Shen Yun on the other hand didn't tell me they will be talking about Falun Gong and the Chinese government busting their ass on the stage; I was expecting some wonderful dancing and promotion of the Chinese heritage.
And to take it home, I sat through the whole show, even though it really felt awkward; but the six people sitting on my left, didn't come back to their seats after intermission.
