Kid Clipper Cards for Summer Fun on Transit

Summer is here, and it's a great time to take little ones interesting places on CalTrain, SamTrans, and BART, or to turn older kids loose to explore the county.

You can simplify transit use for kids by getting them a Youth Clipper Card, which lets them ride all of our local transit agencies without having to carry change (and can help prevent phone calls along the lines of "Mom/Dad, I'm in (wherever) and I don't have money for the bus home!")  You can preload a clipper card with money for fares and tickets, or set up autopay, making it kind of like FasTrak for transit.

Adults can get a clipper cards at retail locations like Walgreens, but for kids it's trickier--they have to go to SamTrans HQ in San Carlos (the large, dark, glass building with the electronic clock/thermometer on it), during business hours, fill out a form, present an ID proving eligibility (a school ID is the obvious choice, but they accept drivers licenses, CA state ID cards, and even passports).  Then "Clipper Central" will process the paperwork and mail a card.  It's not exactly convenient (Clipper has done better outreach to kids in SF and the East Bay, and has promised more for the peninsula--let's hold them to that) but it works.

Using the card is fairly simple; on SamTrans you just put it on a reader when you get on the bus;  on BART you put it on a reader on the faregate when you get on and off.  CalTrain is a little tricker--think of it as a "virtual BART faregate system" where you have to remember to find a reader, somewhere on the platform, and tag on when you start your trip and off at the other end.  On is intuitive, off is easy to forget.  If you forget to tag off, and remember that pretty quickly, you may be charged for riding to the end of the line--make sure to call up Clipper and get that corrected.