{"id":381751,"date":"2026-07-01T05:10:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T05:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/381751\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T05:10:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T05:10:36","slug":"ac-transit-fares-increase-wednesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/381751\/","title":{"rendered":"AC Transit fares increase Wednesday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last year, the AC Transit board of directors <a href=\"https:\/\/oaklandside.org\/2025\/03\/11\/ac-transit-is-considering-20-bus-fare-hikes-the-first-since-2020\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">approved<\/a> fare increases for the first time in years, to take effect over two summers. This Wednesday, July 1, the second of those fare hikes takes effect, raising the cash fare for local single rides to $3, up from $2.75.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The fare when paying with a Clipper card or any contactless payment will be $2.75, up from $2.50. Youth and Seniors remain eligible for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.actransit.org\/discounts\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fare discounts<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first increase, which took effect last July, raised the cash price of local single rides from $2.50 to $2.75 and Clipper card fares from $2.25 to $2.50. It was the first time fares had gone up since 2019. Transbay fares rose by 50 cents, from $6 to $6.50.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The prices of local day, weekly, and monthly passes will also increase, as shown in the table below.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">AC Transit, like BART and other Bay Area transit agencies, recently upgraded its entry system to <a href=\"https:\/\/oaklandside.org\/2026\/01\/23\/clipper-2-0-off-to-a-rocky-start\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Clipper 2.0<\/a>, which also allows people to tap credit or debit cards at fare terminals. That system upgrade has had its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/sf\/article\/clipper-outage-unpaid-bill-22290490.php\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">hiccups<\/a>, with some people unable to access their Clipper funds or accounts. An update on that situation was provided by the Clipper card distributor, Cubic, last month, when the company said it\u2019s still migrating rider accounts.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to AC Transit communications director Robert Lyles, the fare adjustment will take effect \u201cwhen service begins that day,\u201d meaning the morning of July 1 \u2014 not at midnight the night before.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The rise in fares comes at a time when AC Transit has said the cost of running the agency for its 3 million monthly customers has \u201cskyrocketed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.actransit.org\/press-release\/ac-transit-board-considers-potential-service-reductions-amid-funding-crisis\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">press release<\/a> earlier this month, the agency updated the public on its latest financial outlook, saying it had \u201ca projected $200 million deficit over the next four years.\u201d The transit agency is backing a November sales tax <a href=\"https:\/\/oaklandside.org\/2026\/01\/28\/bart-bay-area-transit-ballot-measure-signatures-billions\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">measure<\/a> to support mass transit in the Bay Area, saying it has the potential to provide a consistent source of funding that could help AC Transit avoid serious service reductions.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the same time as the agency is raising prices, it has also launched a marketing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.actransit.org\/press-release\/ac-transit-implements-next-step-in-fare-plan-july-1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">campaign<\/a> about fare payments. The agency has added a \u201cFare Required\u201d message in multiple languages on 500 vehicles to remind people to pay their fare. \u201cWhen fares go unpaid, those dollars are lost and must be made up elsewhere through budget reductions, reserve funds, or additional funding sources,\u201d the agency said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gform_required_legend\">&#8220;*&#8221; indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year, the AC Transit board of directors approved fare increases for the first time in years, to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[32931,46545,45595,143,145,144,3766],"class_list":["post-381751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-ac-transit","tag-bus-rapid-transit","tag-fare","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-transit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}