December 7, 2022, In fall 2022, Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC) began a collaboration with Bay Area public transit agencies and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) on a two-year pilot program aimed at studying the benefits of a transit pass that provides access to all transit services in the 9-county Bay Area, called Clipper® BayPass. While only students who originally registered in fall 2023 were eligible, the program has now been extended and is now available to students who enroll in spring 2023. This Clipper BayPass provides free public transportation in Bay Area counties, wherever Clipper® cards are accepted.
The Clipper® BayPass makes it easier for students to get to classes, work, and home, and to explore all that the greater bay area has to offer. The program will run for two years and is available to the first 5,000 students who sign up. SRJC students remain eligible through the summer of 2024, as long as they remain enrolled in SRJC.
The Clipper® BayPass enables unlimited free travel on all Bay Area transit services, and participants are encouraged to use it for all of their travel needs. Participating agencies include:
- AC Transit
- BART
- Caltrain
- City Coach
- County Connection
- Dumbarton Express
- FAST
- Golden Gate Ferry
- Golden Gate Transit
- Marin Transit
- Muni
- Petaluma Transit
- SamTrans
- San Franciso Bay Ferry
- Santa Rosa City Bus
- SMART, Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit
- SoldTrans
- Sonoma County Transit
- Vine
- VTA
- WestCat
- Wheels
The Clipper® BayPass was initially made available to students at SRJC, San Francisco State University, San Jose State University, and the University of California’s Berkeley campus. The later expansion will include select residents of San Mateo County housing complexes. The intention of the program is to study the effect of an all-transit pass on public transit use, with research based on information generated by the Clipper® System, as well as through student surveys. Findings from the study will inform the development, pricing, and implementation of future institutional pass products.
MTC is the transportation planning, funding, and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. MTC operates the Clipper® system on behalf of the region’s transit agencies.
More information is available at clipper-baypass-faq
