Why I jumped a San Francisco BART Fare Gate (2024)

My Clipper Card—well the Google Pay version of my Clipper Card—scanned fine, but the fare gate wouldn’t open. This has happened to me before, and OF COURSE, it would happen again today in the midst of holiday prep. Frustrated, my heart racing, I jumped the gate like a novice hurdler and hustled down the escalator to find an SFO-bound train screaming into the station. The 10-car, 2-door (read: old) train came to a stop, the doors opened and I hopped on. It wasn’t until I finally slid into a seat and heard the doors close that I exhaled.

I really didn’t intend to steal from BART. I’m car-less—like many Bay Area residents—and I am a big supporter of San Francisco’s great public transit system(s). I could have waited for an agent I suppose, but I would have certainly missed my train and my Mother was waiting for me at the airport.

I decided to send a direct message to the normally responsive San Francisco BART Twitter account.

I never got a reply, but I did ultimately get some answers.

When I arrived at the Civic Center BART station I scanned my phone on the Clipper icon and the blue checkmark on my screen signaled the data exchange had taken place. Normally the gates open at this point, and the screen displays your Clipper Card balance. But instead, the gates stayed closed and the small screen gave me a cryptic message… “SEE AGENT”. I scanned my phone again, the same blue check on the phone, and once again the screen said “SEE AGENT.”

Right then, the person at the gate next to me received the same message, “SEE AGENT.” He looked at me, I turned and looked at the glass-enclosed box where a BART agent would normally be seated, the box was empty. I heard the train beginning to approach 2 stories below the street, it was decision time. The guy next to me knew too. As if choreographed we made eye contact, looked ahead and hopped the fare gate, then ran downstairs to the train arriving below.

The journey from downtown to the airport takes about half an hour so I had ample time for damage control. As the train approached Daly City — with my Twitter inbox still empty — I sent another DM to BART.

As we sped toward the end of the line it occurred to me that I might have to break the law again to exit. The first bit of my two-fold anxiety centers around getting a ticket, or a fine. Secondly, I really wasn’t looking forward to my conversation with the BART agent on the other side. To say, this wasn’t the first time my Clipper Card had been met with a locked fare gate and the last time didn’t go very well.

“I’ll let you in this time man, but this is your problem. Do you understand me?” the agent said loud enough for everyone nearby to hear.

Shortly after the rollout of Clipper Cards on Apple Pay those of us with Android phones got our chance to try the Google Pay version, but on this particular day, it was not working. “SEE AGENT” flashed across the screen. My Clipper showed a balance and yet, no entry. He let me in, and I made my train.

When I returned later that night that same BART agent was still there, and my card naturally repeated the same behavior. The agent made me feel like I had done something wrong, and stupid. He never did explain to me how I could fix “my problem,” but he seemed to delight in embarrassing me.

Upon arriving at SFO I went straight to the gate agent, who told me her name was Liz. After I nervously explained the whole situation Liz scanned my Clipper Card, checked her handheld computer screen and the exchange went something like this.

“Oh so when you were on BART yesterday you didn’t exit scan,” she said. I definitely wasn’t on BART the day before so I pushed back, “I rode Muni yesterday with no issues, I haven’t been in the BART system for a week until today.”

“Oh, well I can see Muni too,” she said continuing to scroll.

“North Berkeley?” she asked. Now we were getting somewhere, that was in fact the last place I exited BART. I confirmed this for her and she replied, “Well, you must not have scanned out.”

I told her I was almost certain I did. She looked at me—seemingly a little frustrated—“Well that’s what happened.”

She pressed a button and unlocked my Clipper Card. After Liz let me out she wished me a great day. No fine, ticket, embarrassment or drama. Liz took the time to do customer service right.

What I learned from Liz at the airport is, if BART doesn’t have a record of you exiting their system, your Clipper Card gets locked from re-entering it. The only way to unlock it is to talk to a BART agent (who may or may not be helpful depending on the day). You’ll also have to pay a full BART fare, which for me was $9.65.

Basically, make sure you scan with your Clipper Card each time you enter and exit the BART system. Don’t follow someone through a gate because you’re in a hurry, or the gate was broken, or you too might be faced with a difficult choice of whether or not to jump the fare and make your train.

I recommend not doing that, but we all have to do what we have to do.