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BART’s excursion fare: Agency earns millions from passengers not riding trains

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Re: BART’s excursion fare: Agency earns millions from passengers not riding trains

#61

Post by CoffeeOnWrite »

enos_feedler wrote: post #56
mateo411 wrote: post #38

How often does this really happen? Maybe once per 2000 rides? It appears there is a way to get your money back although it might be annoying and bureaucratic. I think there are bigger issues we can focus on with BART. The should focus on fixing the signaling so we can get more trains through the Transbay tunnel. We should make BART more reliable and finish the San Jose extension on time and under budget. I'm very sup…

When I paid for BART parking during free hours I just flagged the transaction on my credit card as "merchant did not provide service" or something to that effect and got my money back. I guess if it involves Clipper card you can't easily do this.

Clipper has its own way to request a refund. They refund first-time excursion fees no questions asked.

Re: BART’s excursion fare: Agency earns millions from passengers not riding trains

#62

Post by [deleted] »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #41
magila wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call it malice. It's simply a rational decision. BART makes more money with the fee than without, so absent political pressure to discontinue it why would they? Also, Clipper cards have been around many years. They aren't a recent addition to BART.

>I wouldn't call it malice. It's simply a rational decision. BART makes more money with the fee than without by taking money from those weaker than it, since it is a large well financed organization and the people riding it will not be equipped to fight it (legally), that's malicious.

[deleted]

Re: BART’s excursion fare: Agency earns millions from passengers not riding trains

#64

Post by legitster »

Oh man, this happened to me on the last trip. Some of the BART layouts and signage are bonkers, and you can easily accidently go through turnstiles for the wrong line.

I tried finding someone but there was no staff. I emailed them and no response.

I now chalk it up to the "SF hates you" tax I pay every time I visit.

Re: BART’s excursion fare: Agency earns millions from passengers not riding trains

#65

Post by googlryas »

adrianmonk wrote: post #46
danans wrote: post #5

You can go to the kiosk at any BART station and the station attendant will put a sticker on your card to indicate that you are leaving via the same station you entered and allow you to exit via the emergency doors, therefore not incurring the excursion fare. This is in case you decide not to take the train, or forgot something at home. I suspect the excursion fare today is trying to disincentivize the use of the trai…

Also, it's possible (if unusual) to get value out of traveling within the BART system. For example, suppose you have a nice camera you want to sell to a friend. They live in Millbrae and commute to SF by BART. You live in north San Jose. So you agree to meet them on their way home from work, at 6pm right outside the Powell Street station. That's $16.80 for your Berryessa to Powell Street round trip. But what if you m…

They could just let you exit normally and not pay any fare if you entered the station less than 8 minutes ago, or whatever would be an amount of time that you couldn't realistically ride somewhere, enjoy another station, and then ride back.

Though I guess people would just tap in, tap out immediately but don't exit the turnstiles, then just get on a train and exit through the emergency exit at whatever station you want for free.

Re: BART’s excursion fare: Agency earns millions from passengers not riding trains

#66

Post by flomo »

sowbug wrote: post #45

When I was a kid and tried to figure out why this fare/penalty existed, I guessed it was to compensate for people who traveled somewhere to pick up an item from a friend who'd meet them at the station and hand it through the gate to them, and then they'd go back home, all without leaving the station. It all seemed like an intricate solution to a small problem.

In ye olden days, my company had a courier who would shuttle interoffice mail between the Walnut Creek and downtown SF offices on BART all day. So I could see this happening.

Re: BART’s excursion fare: Agency earns millions from passengers not riding trains

#67

Post by monkeycantype »

With the old paper tickets there wasn’t a time limit for how long it took to complete a journey, and with careful use of multiple tickets you could travel between sf and east bay and never pay more than the minimum fare. The excursion fare was the only thing stopping you riding for free, I wonder if the excursion fare was a last minute hack to close out a potential exploit.

Re: BART’s excursion fare: Agency earns millions from passengers not riding trains

#68

Post by wolfgang42 »

Lammy wrote: post #6
danans wrote: post #5

You can go to the kiosk at any BART station and the station attendant will put a sticker on your card to indicate that you are leaving via the same station you entered and allow you to exit via the emergency doors, therefore not incurring the excursion fare. This is in case you decide not to take the train, or forgot something at home. I suspect the excursion fare today is trying to disincentivize the use of the trai…

> allow you to exit via the emergency doors If you had to be allowed to exit via emergency doors then they wouldn't be very good emergency doors. They're not going to chase after you :) "Jump the turnstile, never pay the toll / Doo-wah diddy and bust in with the pre-roll"

You can still physically do it even if you’re not allowed to, yes.

(There’s at least one other situation where you might be authorized to use the emergency gates sans emergency: a few of the stations have the elevators to the platform outside the paid area for some bizarre reason, so when transiting the station by elevator you have to go through the fare gates and then immediately leave via the emergency exit to get to the train!)

Re: BART’s excursion fare: Agency earns millions from passengers not riding trains

#69

Post by elcomet »

adrianmonk wrote: post #46
danans wrote: post #5

You can go to the kiosk at any BART station and the station attendant will put a sticker on your card to indicate that you are leaving via the same station you entered and allow you to exit via the emergency doors, therefore not incurring the excursion fare. This is in case you decide not to take the train, or forgot something at home. I suspect the excursion fare today is trying to disincentivize the use of the trai…

Also, it's possible (if unusual) to get value out of traveling within the BART system. For example, suppose you have a nice camera you want to sell to a friend. They live in Millbrae and commute to SF by BART. You live in north San Jose. So you agree to meet them on their way home from work, at 6pm right outside the Powell Street station. That's $16.80 for your Berryessa to Powell Street round trip. But what if you m…

They could check that you leave the station within 5 min

Re: BART’s excursion fare: Agency earns millions from passengers not riding trains

#70

Post by sbuttgereit »

adrianmonk wrote: post #46
danans wrote: post #5

You can go to the kiosk at any BART station and the station attendant will put a sticker on your card to indicate that you are leaving via the same station you entered and allow you to exit via the emergency doors, therefore not incurring the excursion fare. This is in case you decide not to take the train, or forgot something at home. I suspect the excursion fare today is trying to disincentivize the use of the trai…

Also, it's possible (if unusual) to get value out of traveling within the BART system. For example, suppose you have a nice camera you want to sell to a friend. They live in Millbrae and commute to SF by BART. You live in north San Jose. So you agree to meet them on their way home from work, at 6pm right outside the Powell Street station. That's $16.80 for your Berryessa to Powell Street round trip. But what if you m…

Of course, you're right: it is absolutely feasible that such a valuable trip is possible and happens. You're right that a truly valuable trip is rightfully charged a fare. And finally you're also right that such trips are probably unusual. I would go so far as to say rare.

What's much more common than that rare scenario is that, after paying a fare, you get down to the platform only to find that there's a long delay in the system, there are too many people trying to get on the trains, or something similar that causes you to leave the station to find saner transport. I've been bitten by this on BART, more than once. At stations in the heart of the city you "start the trip" triggering the fare long before you can see any of the platforms to know whether or not you should enter.

Back to the point. The problem isn't that you're wrong in asserting a valuable excursion trip is possible, but that you use that fact to rationalize the charging of a fare while ignoring the much more common cases where you'd charge a fare while delivering no value for money. Once you consider the complete picture it becomes clear that the right thing to do is build policy around the common case, not the rare/hypothetical one. It would be better to eat the cost of the rare valuable trip BART should charge for so that they don't charge people for trips they couldn't actually deliver.

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