Clipper Expands to Union City Transit

Union City Transit will accept Clipper cards loaded with cash value or a 31-day pass good for unlimited travel. Riders can get a card and add value online at clippercard.com, at City Hall in Union City, at Penny Wireless and Lucky Check Cashing in Union City, or at nearby Walgreens and Whole Foods stores. Clipper customers also can add cash value to their cards at any BART station ticket machine.

Once they have a card with value, riders simply tag their cards to a card reader at the front of the bus, and Clipper automatically charges the correct fare, applying any appropriate transfers and discounts. Youth, seniors and passengers with disabilities can apply for discount Clipper cards to receive automatic discounts based on eligibility.

 “We are so happy to welcome Union City Transit to the family of agencies accepting Clipper,” said Carol Kuester, director of Electronic Payments for MTC. “It will be especially convenient for people who ride Union City Transit and AC Transit or BART since Clipper automatically keeps track of your transfers. You can set up your Clipper card to automatically reload, and you can use your transit benefits with Clipper. These features make the card a much more attractive alternative to cash.”  

Clipper is a service provided by Bay Area transit operators and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.

Clipper already is accepted on AC Transit, BART, Caltrain, City Coach, County Connection, Fairfield and Suisun Transit (FAST), Golden Gate Transit and Ferry, Marin Transit, Muni, Petaluma Transit, SamTrans, San Francisco Bay Ferry, Santa Rosa CityBus, SolTrans, Sonoma County Transit, Tri Delta Transit, VINE, VTA, WestCAT and Wheels. The Clipper network will expand again later this year to include Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART), which will accept Clipper when it starts operation.

Transit riders use Clipper for fare payment on half of all transit trips in the Bay Area, and the card was used for an average of more than 790,000 trips each weekday in February. Nearly one-third of all registered Clipper cards are signed up for Autoload, which automatically reloads value on the card when it runs low.