No Clipper card? BART in line for cash windfall
BART’s stated goal in adding a 50-cent surcharge on paper tickets is to encourage riders to switch to Clipper cards, which are easier and cheaper for the transit system to handle.
But the change, which took effect Jan. 1, will also be a gold mine for BART — bringing in millions of extra dollars a year from riders who don’t make the switch.
For years, BART and other Bay Area transit agencies have been trying to wean riders off traditional paper or magnetic-strip tickets, which are easy to scam and require machinery that is costly to maintain.
“Have you ever seen the inside of a BART fare gate?” said BART board President Rob-
ert Raburn. “It looks like a Rube Goldberg design, with all of these pulleys, belts and wheels.”
For years, Raburn has been pushing for a paper-ticket surcharge to help push riders over to the Clipper system. The idea went nowhere until last year, when BART was looking down the barrel of a $30 million deficit.
“We were in a crisis, and we were looking at everything from raising fares to cutting service,” Raburn said.
Suddenly, the board votes were there for the surcharge.
So now, every trip taken with a strip ticket will cost an extra 50 cents — adding a dollar to every round-trip commute.
BART number crunchers estimate the surcharge will bring in an extra $5.6 million in the next six months.
Right now, about 70 percent of BART riders use Clipper. By June, BART expects about half the holdouts to get the message and pay the $3 to get a Clipper card.
But that still leaves about 15 percent of riders using the strip tickets, which would mean another $3 million for BART in the second half of 2018.
All told, BART is looking at a windfall of about $8.6 million this year.
But it could be worse for riders — the surcharge for using paper tickets on the subway in
Washington, D.C., is $1.
Who’s in? As San Francisco’s mayoral machinations roll out, two key dates are on the horizon that will crystallize who is in and who is out of the race.
On Tuesday, Aaron Peskin will call for a Jan. 16 vote of his Board of Supervisors colleagues to decide who should be interim mayor until the June election.
And with no caretaker in the wings with the needed six votes, the odds have gone up that the winner will be a declared candidate for the full-time job.
That means acting Mayor London Breed, Supervisor Jane Kim, former state Sen. Mark Leno, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, former Supervisor Angela Alioto — or any of the dozen lesser-known candidates who have taken out papers to run.
By Monday, that list may also include Assemblyman David Chiu
and city Assessor Carmen Chu.
Just like the suggested caretakers, however, none of the would-be mayors has six votes on the board. (Sitting supervisors such as Breed and Kim can’t vote for themselves.)
Who wins if it stays that way, and no one is named interim mayor? Breed, who gets to stay acting mayor — and inherits the perks of incumbency leading into the June election.
Which brings us to the second key date, Jan. 30 — the final day for candidates to withdraw from the mayor’s race and not have their names appear on the ballot.
One person who could go that route is Herrera. He took out candidate papers last week, then promptly went on radio silence, leaving town for a planned family vacation through the weekend. Not exactly what you do to build excitement for
your brand-new campaign.
Those close to Herrera, however, tell us he believes the only path for him to win in June is to get the jolt from being named interim mayor.
Others may follow suit, depending on how the polling and the politics play out.
Happy New Year: Paul Pelosi Jr., son of House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, appears to be quite the nonpartisan partyer.
At least judging by the pair of Instagram photos of himself armin-arm with first daughter Ivanka Trump, celebrating the New Year at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf resort.
Besides the president and his daughter, guests at the Florida beach club bash included Ivanka’s husband and White House adviser, Jared Kushner, Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr., and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
Newsweek reported that the price to ring in the New Year at Mar-aLago was $750, up 30 percent from last year.
The junior Pelosi, who is involved in various business ventures, didn’t return our call seeking comment. But older sister Christine Pelosi says family members were hardly surprised that he popped up at Mar-a-Lago.
“He is just an adventuring guy,” she said. “Maybe he had a golf game.”
San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email matier andross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross