Palo Alto joins all-agency BayPass

On April 7, the Palo Alto City Council approved an agreement to join the all-agency BayPass pilot, with $94,640 purchase of all agency transit passes.  The City had previously participated in the single-agency Caltrain GoPass to support sustainable commuting, but found that many employees work in city locations further from the Caltrain station and/or live in places that aren’t on the Caltrain corridor.

The agreement is more evidence of organizational demand for transit pricing that covers multiple agencies. The program will provide the city with quarterly aggregate ridership data, including total ridership, types of transit used, and travel frequency. This will provide evidence of demand for services in addition to Caltrain, such as Dumbarton Express across the Bay, VTA and SamTrans for shorter trips and connections, and BART for employees who live near that service.

The contract period runs from May 1, 2025 through December 31, 2025. If the pilot is successful and the City continues the contract, the program is projected to cost $150,000 annually. 

The City of Menlo Park, adjacent to Palo Alto, was one of the first employer customers of the BayPass.  The City of Menlo Park had subscribed to the GoPass before the pandemic, but preferred the multi-agency BayPass when it restarted its commute programs, because its workers need a variety of agencies. In Menlo Park, employers have found that a third to a half of employee trips using the Bay Pass use agencies in addition to Caltrain, according to MTC.  

Dumbarton Express Bus connects Palo Alto with Union City BART