UC Berkeley Students Approve Referendum to Fund Clipper® BayPass for All Students

Students at the University of California, Berkeley, last week approved a referendum to increase annual student fees to provide approximately 50,000 undergraduate and graduate students unlimited travel on any of the 24 Bay Area transit agencies that accept Clipper® for payment. 

Winning 90% overall approval by voters, the referendum will give all UC Berkeley students access to Clipper BayPass for two years beginning August 2025, which marks the start of the 2025-26 academic year. The pass will be available through the summer for all students who were enrolled in the Spring semester, even if they are not attending class in the summer.  

UC Berkeley students currently pay a fee each semester for ClassPass, which students may use for unlimited rides on AC Transit buses and campus-run Bear Transit shuttles. Students now will also have access to unlimited travel on all bus, rail and ferry services in the Bay Area with Clipper BayPass.  

MTC, in conjunction with all Bay Area transit agencies participating in the Clipper fare payment system, launched the Clipper BayPass pilot program in August 2022 to study the impact of a single pass that will provide Bay Area residents unlimited access to all bus, rail and ferry services in the nine-county region. Phase 1 provided unlimited access to a group of 50,000 Bay Area residents and students. Clipper BayPass has now expanded to Phase 2, reaching more than 80,000 residents. Clipper BayPass is being sold to interested organizations who would like to offer their employees, students or residents an unlimited Bay Area transit pass. Current partners include UCSF, San Francisco State University, the City of Menlo Park, the City of Palo Alto, Open AI, Robinhood, Piedmont Gardens, San Francisco International Airport, and others.  

To date, Clipper BayPass participants used their passes for more than a combined 6 million transit trips. The Phase 1 program evaluation found that students with access to Clipper BayPass took 30% more transit trips than their peer students who only had access to a single agency pass.