[danans]

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 trains and stations as shelters by the unhoused. But others have pointed out that it is to prevent fare hacking, also.

[axit]

Usually works but sometimes there's no one at the kiosk.

> I suspect the excursion fare today is trying to disincentivize the use of the trains and stations as shelters by the unhoused.

Time limits around entry exit could be useful here, where you can exit within 10 minutes of entry there is no charge. Reason for exiting at the same station for me is the train is delayed by 30 minutes and I forgot to check the next train before entering the station.

More stories on excursion fare: https://twitter.com/graue/status/1554998671384756229

[etrautmann]

exactly - it seems braindead obvious to me that there should be a 5-minute window for exiting without charge. Not implementing such an obvious and trivial feature can only be interpreted as deliberately taking money without delivering value for riders because....it's possible?

[jonas21]

Until recently, BART used magstripe tickets where all information was stored on the ticket itself. It might not have been possible to implement a time window with that.

That doesn't explain why they didn't add this when migrating to the Clipper card, but I feel like "nobody thought to change it" or "we wanted to reduce risk by not introducing changes while migrating" seem like more likely explanations than malice.

[magila]

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.

[candu]

"I wouldn't call it _malice_. I make more money robbing travellers on the King's road than not doing so, and it's very unlikely I'll get caught!"

Assuming a value system in which certain acts are wrong even if not observed / punished, some acts can be rational _and_ malicious.

(This isn't intended to say anything either way about BART's actions here, which are obviously not the same as literal robbery; I'm mainly disputing the idea that rational acts can't be malicious.)

[andrewxdiamond]

I’d take it further and say this isn’t intentional at all.

Having worked in, for, and around governments, this was almost certainly an oversight that hasn’t been a big enough of a fire in comparison to the other fires.

Making a public stink about it makes it a bigger fire though, so the system is working as intended!

[bryanrasmussen]

>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.

[jonas21]

While Clipper cards have been around for a while, it was a very long migration process. BART didn't stop selling the magstripe tickets in vending machines until 2020, and continued to use them for discounted fares through the end of 2021 [1].

[1] https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2021/news20210908

[panarky]

A decision that increases revenue X dollars is not rational if it also increases costs 10X to deal with customer complaints and bad publicity.

[CoffeeOnWrite]

Neat link. From BART’s tweet response:

> You can request an excursion fare refund with Clipper.

This is true and wasn’t mentioned in the article, but should have been.

[adrianmonk]

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 met inside the station instead? For your purposes, that's fine too. You can hand them the camera in either place. Should that trip be free because you enter and leave the BART system at Berryessa? I would say no, because getting to SF was valuable to you, plus you used a seat on two BART trains.

[sbuttgereit]

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.

[jonny_eh]

It's amazing the lengths people will go to in order to defend an unfair status quo.

[adrianmonk]

The point of my comment wasn't to take a position on whether the excursion fare is good or bad. That's a trade-off with pros and cons. Your position is that the cons greatly outweigh the pros, and you make a very reasonable argument for that.

However, what the original article said is different. It said the excursion fare "exists solely to make money" and "it is a scam" (emphasis mine). As if there is no conceivable rationale at all for the existence of excursion fares and the only possible way to see it is that BART is simply greedy.

BART may be greedy, or maybe they're just not seeing the balance of pros and cons. I don't know. I thought the article went overboard in being so confident that BART's motives are definitely nefarious.

TLDR: It's not that I'm favor of the excursion fare; it's that I'm against articles with hyperbolic melodrama.

[googlryas]

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.

[Psyonic]

"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."

Sure, or just jump the turnstiles and exist through the emergency exit on the other end, which I already see people do frequently.

[googlryas]

Sure, but jumping the turnstiles is clearly ipso facto breaking the rules. Re-tapping where you entered but not exiting immediately could be explained away. I bet far more people would cheat if they only had to tap to exit and not exit, versus jumping turnstiles.

[elcomet]

They could check that you leave the station within 5 min

[paulgb]

> 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.

What if you use the phone app and don't have a physical card with you?

[CoffeeOnWrite]

The sticker is just a plain sticker. I would assume they'd let you put it on an alternate surface..

[clintonb]

The sticker doesn’t matter. The phone maintains an open “transaction until you swipe it at your destination. It’s not clear what happens if you leave the the station without swiping, and return a few hours/days later. I suspect they still charge you for the excursion fare, or a higher amount.

[digianarchist]

TTC stations in Toronto will not allow you to enter using Presto at the same station you have already entered. I assume this is to prevent "pass backs" but it also affects those that have entered on the wrong side of certain stations.

The solution in absence of an attendant. Jump the barriers.

[aix1]

What's a "pass back"? I'm guessing some form of fare dodging, but could you explain the mechanics?

[duskwuff]

I imagine it refers to entering the station using a ticket, then passing that ticket to someone leaving the station. (And, presumably, relying on someone else doing the same thing at the other end?)

[digianarchist]

Correct except fares are not routinely checked on the TTC so once you've entered you shouldn't experience any issues.

[Psyonic]

Assuming anyone is there, sure. I've changed my mind about BART late at night (next train was delay 30m, going to take an Uber instead) and had no one there to talk to.

[rahimnathwani]

The system will have a record of you entering at one station, but no record of an exit.

Will that result in a charge or other problem?

(On the London Underground, it would result in a charge, as the system is designed to assume you exited somewhere but somehow managed to leave without tapping out.)

[tialaramex]

One thing that surprised early Oyster users on LU was that the new system knew about routes. If you live in Zone 3 and you travel to a Zone 3 station on the far side of London, you could buy a weekly paper ticket that's not valid in Zone 1, and it'd let you in (in Zone 3 it's valid) and out (in Zone 3 again, it's valid) despite your train passing straight through Zone 1. However after switching to Oyster weekly the computer would look at these journeys and go, er - no, the sane routes use Zone 1 so a ticket needs Zone 1 validity...

On day one there was no noticeable symptom. But if your Oyster only had a season ticket for outer Zones and your route was via Zone 1 the system had surcharged you, and when you tried to travel the next day the Oyster has negative balance, you can't use it until you pay off the excess. This infuriated some travellers, when in reality they had actually been cheating (presumably in most cases without realising) previously.

Today Oyster can actually track if you insist on taking the long route, you tap pink validators at key interchanges you'd need to pass through to do your slower and less central route avoiding Zone 1, and the system will go OK, fair enough, you really did go the long way so keep your money. I expect very few people do this.

[rahimnathwani]

> presumably in most cases without realising

I doubt this. Even as a child I knew that a travelcard must be valid for all the zones you travel through. Of course, if challenged, someone knowingly cheating would claim they didn't realise.

> you tap pink validators at key interchanges > you'd need to pass through to do your slower > and less central route avoiding Zone 1"

Wow! I had no idea this was a thing. I moved away from London in 2010, and now I'm curious to know whether this was implemented before or after I left.

[Symbiote]

It was introduced on 6 September 2009: https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2009/septem...

I used this frequently at some point, but it is now so long ago I can't remember where. Especially with many London Overground routes, it's not necessarily slower.

[Gibbon1]

You know what? You've made a good argument to scrap the fair machines and make public transit free.

[CoffeeOnWrite]

You’re correct. When you try to enter next the turnstile will error out with “see agent”. That’s when they fix your card and peel the sticker off. Which highlights the total ridiculousness: they’re asking riders to see an agent twice!

[rahimnathwani]

> they’re asking riders to see an agent twice

Even worse: they're asking NON-riders to see an agent twice

[underwater]

Ergo, affected passengers need to see infinite number of agents for each trip taken.

[danans]

> Even worse: they're asking NON-riders to see an agent twice

Presumably on the second entry you will be riding the train.

[rahimnathwani]

Maybe, but the number of times you need to see an agent is still 2x the number of failed ride attempts.

[tialaramex]

In this particular context by the way (enter and exit same station, assume you just tapped in and out as you would normally) LU may actually charge "Same station fare" and the rules are pretty esoteric.

https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/how-to-pay-and-where-to-buy-tickets...

[Edited to add: Stupid web site doesn't have working fragment markers, click "Same Station Exits" near the top... ]

In practice, as it explains elsewhere on the site, these charges are mostly to discourage attempted fare evasion, and if you're a regular user who just does this once in a while it'll delete the journeys after it decides this isn't suspicious after all, otherwise you need to talk to a human if you really didn't travel anywhere.

[rahimnathwani]

The 'same station exits' section of that page is fascinating. The great thing is that most people will never need to worry about this, so they discourage fare evasion without inconveniencing honest passengers.

I wonder: if there were better enforcement of fares in San Francisco, would public transport be better? Right now, I almost never use public transport in SF because ~100% of my journeys would take 2x to 3x as long as they do by car. This is very sad for me, having previously lived in two cities with excellent public transport (London and Beijing).

[danans]

When you leave without going through the turnstile your card is locked and you can't re-enter via the turnstiles. That's what the sticker is for: it tells the station agent that you should be able to re-enter via the emergency exit.

[Glant]

Looks like this comment from another chain is your answer https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32442280

[wsinks]

No - any time you have a problem you talk with a BART agent at the gate and they sort it out for you.

Are they not present sometimes? Yes. Are they slow / overrun by people? Sometimes. But that has little to do with the fare.

[Lammy]

> 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"

[wolfgang42]

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!)