Clipper 2.0 Leaves AC Transit Cash Riders Behind

A red umbrella sheltered Silvia Matias and her 3-year old daughter Maria from a light December drizzle. With Maria wrapped around her back, Matias waited for the 73 AC Transit Bus at the Eastmont Transit Center in East Oakland.

“Thanks to God and the bus, I can get anywhere,” said the 23-year-old, who uses AC Transit every day to run errands and get her 6-year-old son to and from school.

Matias doesn’t have a Clipper card, the fare-payment system accepted by all Bay Area transit agencies, so she pays with cash. A day pass for herself costs $6 and $3 for her son — amounting to a budget of $45 a week, which adds up for the single mom.

“I’d like to pay less for the bus, because I don’t work, and every day I have to buy a day pass for $6,” Matias said.

Since Matias uses cash, she pays 75 cents more for the two day passes than if she and her son used a Clipper card or contactless bank card. She also misses out on a weekly fare cap available only to Clipper users or people who use a contactless bank card — all of which could save her $7.50 a week.

Transit advocates say long-awaited upgrades to the Clipper system, known as next generation Clipper or Clipper 2.0, which made a glitchy debut on Dec. 10, are worsening disparities for AC Transit riders like Matias. The upgrades have brought discounted transfers and fare caps to cardholders, making it cheaper for Clipper users to ride AC Transit.

Advocates, like Sarah Syed, have welcomed these new features but have pointed out that cash riders are being left behind.

“No rider should have to pay more just because they are paying with cash,” said Syed, director of AC Transit’s Ward 3, which includes the Eastmont Transit Center. “ We need to fix this unfair, two-tiered system. It’s hurting those who are most vulnerable.”

According to data from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which administers the Clipper system, 51% of all AC Transit trips were made with a payment method other than Clipper from June 2024 to May 2025. AC Transit cash riders are also more likely to be lower income or Black or Latino, Syed said.

According to Syed, when the MTC rolled out Clipper in 2010, AC Transit created discounts for Clipper users to incentivize riders to switch to the new program. More than a decade later, these discounts are no longer making switching more people to Clipper, she said.

“There is a willingness to access it, but there are too many accessibility issues and the discount does not overcome those,” Syed said.

On Dec. 10, Syed introduced an agenda planning request to the AC Transit Board of Directors, asking the board to consider taking up the issue of fare policy reform at a future meeting. The required number of three board members endorsed the request. Syed expects the board to take up the issue again in February or March 2026.

Low-income riders and residents of historically marginalized communities, like deep East Oakland, face numerous barriers in using Clipper, according to Laurel Paget-Seekins, the senior transportation policy advocate at Public Advocates, a nonprofit civil rights and economic justice law firm.

“The system doesn’t work for people who are low income and unbanked and live in neighborhoods that don’t have access to reload their card,” she said.

Paget-Seekins said numerous areas in AC Transit’s service area, including the Eastmont Transit Center, lack access to Clipper reload stations. The system can also be cumbersome for people living paycheck to paycheck, as Clipper requires people to pre-load money onto their cards, and the system’s automatic reload feature requires a minimum of $20, Paget Seekins said.

Public Advocates is calling on AC Transit’s Board to equalize cash and Clipper fares, and to create a way for people who use cash to purchase a $25 weekly pass, mimicking the $25 weekly fare cap that exists for Clipper and contactless bank card riders.

Adding more Clipper reload stations would require action by the MTC.

“We at the MTC believe the discounts available for Clipper customers – very much including Clipper START – encourage Clipper use; and that the free and discounted transfers now available with the next generation Clipper system will further encourage use of Clipper on both traditional plastic cards and mobile Clipper cards,” said John Goodwin, MTC assistant director of communications, in an emailed statement to KQED.

Goodwin responded to transit advocates calling some parts of Alameda County “Clipper reload deserts” – saying “they may be somewhat less arid given the high penetration of smart phones among households throughout the Bay Area.”

Goodwin cited the 2024 American Community Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau, which estimates 95% of Alameda County residents have a smartphone.

Staying out of the rain under a bus shelter at Eastmont Transit Center, Jenine Garcia, sitting in her wheelchair, waited for the 40 bus with her boyfriend, Rene Harrison. Garcia said they have been living in homeless shelters for a couple years, and were on their way to the Bay Fair BART station to find a bank to cash a check.

Garcia said she has a Clipper card loaded on her phone, but it ran out of battery, so for this ride she planned to pay a full cash fare.

“I started using Clipper because I felt it was more convenient, but it isn’t when your phone dies,” she said.

Even if her phone was charged, she said she wouldn’t be able to use Clipper until she got to a bank, put money on her debit card and then loaded the card online.

“It’s not fair at all,” Garcia said.