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BART is helping lower-income riders pay their fare by increasing its Clipper START means-based fare discount from 20% to 50%, beginning Monday, Jan. 1, 2024. This means that Clipper START users will pay half the regular BART fare. 

Clipper START, a pilot program facilitated by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, offers the discount for Bay Area residents ages 19 to 64 whose incomes are less than 200% of the federal poverty level. Clipper START is accepted by more than 20 regional transit operators. Those who qualify can apply for the program here. 

Keep scrolling to read about an East Oakland-based organization's efforts to register people for Clipper START and hear about its impact on community members. 

BART offers multiple fare discounts in addition to Clipper START, including discounts for youth (50% off with a Youth Clipper card), seniors (62.5% off with a Senior Clipper card), passengers under 65 with qualifying disabilities (62.5% off with an RTC Clipper card), and a High-Value Discount (adult Clipper users who buy $45 or $60 Clipper cards when autoload is set up get $48 and $64 worth of value, or a 6.25% discount). 

Members of the Roots Community Health Center outreach team. Roots conducts outreach to promote and register community members for Clipper START.  

“When you have a Clipper card, your first thought isn’t 'I can't' but ‘What time can I get there?’” says Jamaica Sowell, who has witnessed firsthand the importance of increasing access to affordable transportation in the Bay Area. 

Sowell is the Director of Programs and Policy at Roots Community Health Center, an organization working to uplift people impacted by systemic inequities and poverty, especially in a stretch of the East Oakland community known as the 40x40, where nearly half of Black families living in poverty in Oakland reside. 

Since 2022, Roots has been conducting outreach to promote and register community members for Clipper START, a pilot program from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) that offers discounts on transit fares. To qualify, applicants must be Bay Area residents between the ages 19 and 64 with a gross annual income at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. Beginning January 1, 2024, BART’s Clipper START discount increased from 20% to 50%, meaning users pay half the regular BART fare.  

Roots Clinic has a holistic approach for supporting the health and well-being of the communities it serves. Enabling access to transportation, especially affordable transportation, is a key piece of the puzzle. 

“Mobility has a lot to do with access, including things like health care,” said Sowell. If people don’t have the means to get to the Roots’ clinics, “they’re not going to come.” 

Mobility is a central component of one's physical and mental health, Sowell stressed. Transportation, especially affordable transportation, ensures that people can access things like medical appointments, mental health care, treatment programs, benefits enrollment support, and other crucial services that organizations like Roots offer.  

But going to appointments is "just one facet” of the benefits of public transportation to community members, Sowell said. Transportation gives people easier access to civic engagement activities, like city council meetings, and takes people to parks and green spaces, where you can walk, soak up sunshine, picnic with your family, and play sports with friends. For some people, just getting out of their neighborhood for a few hours is healing in and of itself.  

“Transit takes you places outside your own block, including places you might not have had access to before,” Sowell said.  

Clipper START actively conducts outreach to organizations like Roots, which have well-established lines of communication and trust within the communities they serve. Sowell said Roots jumped at the chance to partner with MTC on Clipper START because her organization understands the specific needs of the East Oakland community. 

“When our people hear Roots is partnering with MTC and BART, it automatically establishes buy-in,” she said. “Our community members trust us and trust that we’ve vetted the program.”  

Since Clipper START launched in June 2020, MTC reports that more than 30,000 people have signed up for the program. Between 2020 and 2022, the period for which the most recent data is available from MTC, Clipper START users took more than 1 million transit trips, with most of these trips taken on BART (40% of total trips).  

“[Clipper START] makes me want to do more [with my family] on public transportation for necessity, but also for fun, like going to San Francisco for free museum days,” one user said. 

As awareness of the program grows around the region, so too does usage.  

That’s in no small part thanks to organizations like Roots, whose outreach teams promote the program at community events, apartment complexes, encampments, faith-based organizations, and door to door. Roots is exploring additional outreach avenues for the new year.  

“Being able to tap into a discounted transportation platform like this is huge for our folks,” Sowell said. “Clipper START has been beneficial in improving transportation accessibility to our East Oakland community, and we look forward to our continued partnership in the new year.” 

BART will be running special service on Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day. Plan your trip using BART's Trip Planner.

Holiday Schedule

Christmas Eve, Tuesday, December 24: Regular weekday service (5am-midnight)

Christmas Day, Wednesday, December 25: Sunday service (8am-midnight)

New Year's Eve, Tuesday, December 31: Regular weekday service (5am opening) with extended late-night service, extra staffing, and additional event trains as needed. BART will be providing extended service until 1am for late-night riders coming back from fireworks shows and celebrations. More on this below. 

New Year's Day, Wednesday, January 1: Sunday service (8am-midnight)

New Year's Eve 1am Extended Service - More Info

Our 1am extended service will be as follows:

• Three-line special service (Yellow, Blue and Orange only in both directions, for total of six trains for 1am extended service). Yellow Line will be the only line running in San Francisco and Peninsula. Blue Line will run between Bay Fair and Dublin/Pleasanton.
• Trains will be waiting at MacArthur and Bay Fair to complete timed transfers.
  • Yellow Line and Orange Line trains in all directions will be timed to meet at MacArthur Station at 1:47am in a "grand meet." This is the transfer point for riders coming from San Francisco heading toward Richmond or Berryessa or riders coming from the East Bay heading toward San Francisco.
  • Orange Line and Blue Line trains will be timed to meet at Bay Fair Station at 2:16am. Dublin-bound riders can take the Berryessa-bound Orange Line train and transfer at Bay Fair Station.
• SFO and OAK airport stations will NOT be served.
• Last East Bay-bound train running through downtown San Francisco will be at around 1:30am.
• Last southbound train heading toward Millbrae will run through downtown San Francisco at 2:10am.
• The regular last trains of the evening (Yellow, Blue, and Orange lines) will be dispatched from the end of their lines at midnight and then at 1:00am, we will run another set of last trains of the evening to serve 48 out of our 50 stations. The 1am trains will not serve SFO and OAK airport stations.

• BART’s Trip Planner has been updated to include the extended service trains.

   

Parking at BART on Holidays

Parking is always free after 3pm and on weekends. Parking will also be free on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. This applies to all BART stations except for Milpitas and Berryessa/North San Jose, as they are operated by VTA.

All other parking rules will be enforced.

Parking at BART for Holiday Travel

Airport parking can be a hassle and is always expensive, except at BART stations. We offer inexpensive multi-day parking (see options below) at many stations with easy online reservations. Purchase parking on the Official BART App or pay by website. 

To accommodate the increased demand for Reserved Parking at Millbrae Station during the holidays, Reserved Parking is allowed on any level of the garage for reservations with a start date between December 23, 2024 – January 10, 2025. Reserved Parking at San Bruno Station is also allowed on all levels of the garage during the holiday season.

Single/Multi-Day Reserved parking is for consecutive overnight stays of up to 20 weekdays. You will need to provide the license plate of the car you plan to drive and a phone number. Reference our guide for paying for Single/Multi-Day Reserved parking here.

Monthly Reserved parking is for stays of up to 24 hours at a time, charged on a recurring monthly basis, and provides a guaranteed space until 10am. This is not to be used while travelling for several days in a row.

Reserved parking signs are blue + white or yellow. During the holidays we experience a higher demand in Reserved parking; if there is not a reserved spot available when you arrive, park in the Daily Fee area and you will not be cited. Daily Fee parking is only allowed in the Daily Fee area. 

Find an overview of parking at BART at bart.gov/parking. 

Taking BART to SFO or OAK 

Traveling by plane for the holiday? It’s easy to ride BART to the airport. You can take the train directly to San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and Oakland International Airport (OAK). Plan your trip and find fares by using BART’s online Trip Planner and read our comprehensive guide on riding BART to the airport.

Another option for travel to SFO via BART is to purchase Multi-Day Reserved parking on the Official BART App or  website and drive to Millbrae Station or San Bruno Station, then take a quick ride to SFO Airport. 

Stay Safe

Save these numbers in your phone:

• 510-200-0992 to text BART Police dispatch to discreetly report criminal activity
• 510-464-7000 to call BART Police in an emergency (It’s faster than calling 911)

We also offer the BART Watch App--a free mobile app available on the App Store and Google Play that allows you to quickly and discreetly report criminal or suspicious activity directly to BART Police.

You can reach the Train Operator using call buttons in each car located by the side doors on the new trains.

Note your train car number when contacting police or the Train Operator. The train number is located above the doors on the inside of each end of the train car.

BART will have extra safety staff working on New Year’s Eve.

Holiday Fun

BART-themed holiday cookie decorating templates

BART Kwanzaa coloring sheet

BART Pandoru coloring sheet

BART Hanukkah coloring sheet

BART Christmas coloring sheet

BART’s customer satisfaction rate has hit its highest mark in ten years and surged six percentage points in two years according to the latest comprehensive biannual survey of BART riders.

The 2024 BART Customer Satisfaction Survey found that 73 percent of respondents are “very or somewhat satisfied with BART” compared to 67 percent of those questioned in 2022, the last time BART conducted the survey.  

In addition to general questions, respondents were also asked to rate 24 service attributes on a scale of one to seven. Ratings for 17 of the 24 metrics improved in 2024. Cleanliness of trains and stations, on-time performance, presence of BART police, personal security, enforcement against fare evasion, and addressing homelessness all showed improvement.  

“These results confirm our Safe and Clean Plan is transforming the BART experience and making our system cleaner and safer,” said BART Board President Mark Foley. “We recognize there is still room for improvement; however, our focus on enhancing the customer experience is yielding positive results. It’s encouraging to see the survey responses that echo what I’m hearing from riders as I travel through the system.”  

Some other findings:

• 80 percent of those surveyed said they would recommend BART to a friend or out-of-town guest, up four percentage points from 2022.
• 67 percent agree that BART is a good value for the money, up three percentage points.
• The average rating for train interior cleanliness increased by a whopping 14 percent.
• The average rating for station cleanliness increased by eight percent.

Only the availability of space on trains for luggage, bicycles and strollers and availability of seats on trains declined, unsurprising given the increase in overall ridership since 2022 and BART’s move to run shorter trains to enhance safety and save on energy costs.

BART has surveyed its riders every two years since 1996. More than 4,600 questionnaires in English, Spanish and Chinese were distributed onboard a representative sample of train runs last autumn.  

The survey results were presented to the BART Board of Directors at its annual Board Workshop, Thursday, February 27, 2025. View the full presentation here.  

BART also asks about customer satisfaction in its ongoing Passenger Environment Survey. That survey is about a rider’s specific trip. The latest customer satisfaction rate from that survey is 83%.