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Comment by kelnos | Hacker News Reader

Ugh, looks like this only works if you pay for the Waymo with a Visa card, and also use that same Visa card to pay for transit. I don't use a credit card for transit in SF; I use my Clipper transit card.

I get that integrating with the Clipper system is a lot more difficult, but... c'mon.

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Yes. Smartphone vendors and CC prefer that you use contactless rather than a physical Clipper card, then they have data on your transit use, also the CC network gets transaction fees.

FYI there was a very informative recent panel episode of Forum: "KQED Investigates Botched Clipper 2.0 Launch" (8/24/2026, audio + transcript)

> KQED’s Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman joins us to talk about his investigation into what went wrong. Clipper 2.0 – a revamp of the payment system used across the [Bay Area] region’s 22 public transportation systems. The new version was supposed to allow seamless rides between systems and coordinate discounts and other programs. But..."

https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101915014/kqed-investigates-b...

I do use a contactless Clipper card, on my phone. I don't think this bit is relevant: getting Visa to correlate transactions is probably a lot easier for Waymo to get done than integrating with Clipper to see if you've ridden transit in the past two hours. That's the same if you use a physical card or one on your phone.

I didn't disagree with you. I'm saying the key findings in that Clipper 2.0 postmortem were much bigger than any single incentive program like this Waymo one would have been. Hence I can see why Waymo avoid integrating with Clipper.

It said "one of the most complex fare payment systems in the world: 22 different transit agencies across nine counties in the Bay Area... [with thousands of fare categories]" And it's a single-bidder $500m contract that was 3 years late.

I'm also a fan of dedicated stored-value cards (they're generally much more robust during network or backend system outages), but I can really see the point of offering both in cities like New York or San Francisco.

Tourists trying to tap their credit or debit card and then arguing with the bus driver for a while, holding everyone up, used to be a quite common sight in SF.

Why do you use clipper? There is no benefit to clipper anymore over a credit card, right? And just the disadvantage that you need to reload it.

I mean it does save the public transit utility a lot of money in transaction fees so I'm happy to deal with it for that. But the main benefit is pre-tax transit benefits if your company offers it. It can go into a clipper card easily.

The point still stands. Regular transit users generally don't pay per ride, they use monthly passes. Or aren't those a thing in San Francisco?

It's possible to implement weekly/monthly passes on credit/debit cards too via capping, but it's indeed a bit more annoying and unpredictable. For example, NYC MTA weekly capping breaks if you ever remove and re-add your card to your phone. (And I can understand how not all transit agencies want to offer capping.)

Habit, mostly. I also have several hundred dollars of pre-tax transit money on my Clipper card from when I had that benefit at a previous job (and set the paycheck deduction way higher than I should have at the time), and I still haven't used it up. I assume there's rightly no way to get cash back for this, since then I could keep the tax deduction and spend it on anything. (And even if I could get the cash back, likely it wouldn't be worth the hassle vs. just continuing to use the Clipper card. The card is on my phone, so it's not like the experience would be any different.)

Also I don't mind saving SFMTA a bit on transaction fees. I'm sure the total transaction fees are lower with me periodically topping up my Clipper card, than if I used a credit card for every ride. I expect me doing this is probably only saving a few dollars per year at most, but it makes me feel good to support my local transit authority even in a tiny way like that.

Last time I used BART, I had no idea you could use a credit card at the turnstyles. They've changed how this works like 20 times, and it never worked well.

Have they? It was hugely delayed, but all you do is tap your credit card like a clipper card. I don’t think they changed it.

Daily and monthly passes are only available on Clipper. Credit cards can only be used for full fare single rides.

https://www.sfmta.com/getting-around/muni/fares

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