“It’s amazing, it’s a big deal, and it improves your life a lot”: New wave of BayPass enrollees laud the program, BayPass extended for students through 2025

Students at four universities will have their BayPass travel benefits extended an additional year due to high demand and the program’s popularity. A new wave of employees are gaining access to the Clipper BayPass Program. And existing BayPass holders share their positive reviews in a new MTC video.

Matthew Hui (right) and Nicholas Yee (left) seen riding Caltrain. They both receive Clipper BayPass as City of Menlo Park employees. “There are so many agencies and so many systems here, but having the BayPass they all just become the same thing. I can just get on and ride it.” Hui said.

The Clipper BayPass Pilot Program, which provides users at participating organizations with unlimited free travel on all buses, rail, and ferry services that accept Clipper, is an important step towards greater fare integration in the Bay Area. 

The program has been a massive success, both in terms of increasing transit ridership and its massive popularity amongst BayPass holders. Clipper BayPass is an important example of how fare integration (and other improvements providing coordinated, convenient service) helps both residents get around in an affordable manner and Bay Area transit agencies regrow ridership. 

Clipper BayPass for students extended an additional year to 2025 

Due to the strong success and high demand from students, Phase 1 of the Clipper BayPass Pilot Program has been extended for an additional year as announced at the March Fare Integration Task Force meeting. The program was originally scheduled to end this summer for students at UC Berkeley, San Jose State University, San Francisco State University, Santa Rosa Junior College, and residents at 12 MidPen Housing properties. 

Phase 1 of Clipper BayPass Pilot Program originally provided some 50,000 people at four Bay Area colleges and affordable housing residents with unlimited regional travel on public transit. Currently, Phase 1 has 13,000 participants as many students have graduated since its 2022 launch. On average, BayPass Phase 1 users are taking 40% more trips and 74% more transfers when compared to their peers. Phase 1 was set up as a randomly controlled experiment so that the statistics gathered would provide statistically significant data.

The initial pilot phase is fully funded by MTC, but long-term agreements will require universities to self-fund their participation. This one-year extension is intended to provide universities with the additional time needed to secure the approval and funding (typically through a student referendum) to purchase BayPass for all students, according to an MTC report from March 2024. 

The one-year extension will cost $2 million in public funds. Higher-than-anticipated usage in the first two years of the program means $1.5 million is needed to address the existing budget gap. Thankfully, MTC has already identified $3.5 million in State Transit Assistance Population-Based funds for the program’s continuation. These funds are used to reimburse transit agencies and the overhead costs of operating the program. 

Clipper BayPass expanding to more employees, affordable housing residents 

Some 1,525 employees at San Francisco International Airport and 500 employees at Open AI will be the newest recipients of the BayPass program. Additionally, affordable housing residents at MidPen Housing’s Kiku Crossing community in San Mateo and Foon Lok East community in Oakland will also gain access to the unlimited regional travel benefit. 

“The people who have it love it. We had huge buy-in when we announced it. It was like the largest uptick we’d ever had people respond to something immediately when we sent out the notification for enrollment,” Erin Gore, UCSF’s Senior Vice Chancellor of Finance and Administration, said in a new MTC video on Clipper BayPass.

 “Work for employers who value sustainable transit and who are willing to get the BayPass program at your company. It’s amazing, it’s a big deal, and it improves your life a lot.” said Skylar Herrera-Ross, Alameda Transportation Management Association employee.

The City of Menlo Park upgraded their single-agency Caltrain GoPass to Clipper BayPass and now about half of the City’s 200 employees have signed up for the Program. “With the BayPass it makes it seamless to take any transit that accepts Clipper so it was a natural fit and something we were really excited to join,” said Nicholas Yee, Transportation Planner at the City of Menlo Park. 

Yee noted that BayPass saves the City of Menlo Park money because they no longer have to pay for additional commuter checks on top of the Caltrain GoPass program. 

“It is such a gift. I have to move my car once a week so I don’t get a parking ticket. I am not using my car at all. Everytime I use it I am like ‘thank you.’” said Gordon Goode, a UCSF employee and BayPass holder. “Oh my God, please keep it next year. Honestly it is never lost on me. There is not a day I don’t use it that I don’t think ‘wow what a nice gift.’”

Dayne Nicholls lives two blocks from the ferry and receives BayPass through the Alameda Transportation Management Association. “After trying it for about a month, it would be something that I think at my level, being a member of the HR team, to have a conversation with our bosses and say ‘hey this is a benefit that I have seen work tried and true,’” Nicholls said.

San Francisco State University expands BayPass to all students

Beginning this Fall, all students at SFSU will receive Clipper BayPass. Previously, only 9,000 of the university's nearly 24,000 students had access to the regional transit benefit. Bobby King, SFSU’s Director of Communications, said that the university was approached by MTC in October 2023 to expand BayPass benefits to all students. 

The BayPass is especially important for SFSU students as 49% live in San Francisco with the remainder scattered across the Bay Area. As a result, some 88.5% of SFSU students are commuters. The new BayPass proposal will only cost SFSU students $130 per year, according to King. This is cheaper than the $180 per year fee students paid for the campus’ existing “Gator Pass,” which provided students with free Muni access, a 50% discount on BART rides to and from Daly City BART, and free Samtrans rides in the Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 semesters. 

This unlimited regional pass has the potential to save students hundreds or thousands of dollars on transportation costs. BayPass is also a much more affordable option as an on-campus, Monday-through-Friday parking pass costs $500 a semester (and the additional high cost of car-ownership).

SFSU students first gained access to local transit benefits when the Gator Pass was introduced in Spring of 2016. The benefits and costs would change each year as the university negotiated with transit agencies. SFSU’s campus-wide adoption of BayPass represents the largest and most ambitious transit benefit program for a Bay Area college. 

Students expressed “overwhelming support” to expand Clipper BayPass to all students, according to Karina Zamora, Assistant Governance Specialist of SFSU’s Associated Students. The Associated Student Board and university held open forums and conducted a survey to gauge student’s interest in expanding the program – the results showed that students were overwhelmingly in favor. Based on these results, a proposal was immediately taken to Associated Students who were very enthusiastic and agreed to support an Alternative Consultation process in Spring 2024 to add Clipper BayPass benefits at a reduced fee. The Clipper BayPass proposal was subsequently approved by SFSU President Lynn Mahoney in June 2024.

Next Steps

In late 2024/early 2025, students at Phase 1 universities will pursue funding mechanisms to secure long-term participation in BayPass. Additionally, companies and other institutions are still able to apply for BayPass on a rolling basis. If you want to get BayPass via your employer, the interest form can be found here.