Starting Wednesday: BART Riders Can Tap Bank Cards

Starting with tomorrow morning’s commute, BART becomes the Bay Area’s first Tap and Ride system. 

Tap and Ride will provide riders the ability to pay adult fares at BART fare gates using physical contactless credit or debit cards or mobile payment methods such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. With Tap and Ride, riders will no longer need to use a Clipper card to ride BART.  This will be an immense timesaver for riders who can now use their contactless bank cards to ride BART with zero registration or setup process required. 

Tap and Ride functionality for BART riders marks the first step in the transition toward the long-awaited next generation of the Bay Area’s Clipper® electronic transit-fare payment system being implemented by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and participating Clipper transit agencies. Contactless bank cards soon will be accepted by the nearly two dozen other Bay Area transit agencies that accept Clipper for fare payment. Once the next generation of Clipper is rolled out Bay Area wide, Tap and Ride will include all discounted fares and transfers between transit services. 

“MTC and the Bay Area transit agencies will be rolling out a number of other improvements to the Clipper fare payment system in the coming months,” said MTC Chair and Pleasant Hill Mayor Sue Noack. “This early rollout of contactless bank card acceptance on BART is an example of MTC’s commitment to making transit fare payment easier for riders across the region.”