Author: jeff

Clipper and WageWorks off to a rocky start (updates)

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IMG_2007
Photo by raider3_anime

Update (2:44 p.m.): SF Appeal has a article up explaining how Clipper is blaming all these sundry errors on a “software glitch.” Windows 98, anyone?

Update (10:27 a.m.): The Clipper website appears to be working again. The cards mentioned in the original post below, well, we’ll get back to you on that.

Update (9:12 a.m.): As of this moment, the Clipper website … wait for it, is down. We’ll update this update as soon as we confirm that it works again. If that happens.

Original post:
Today was the first day for hella new Clipper cardholders. Many of them thought they had loaded their monthly passes onto their card via WageWorks, a commuter-benefit management company, or something like that. But boy, were they wrong.

Basically, the way WageWorks works: Your company offers you a pre-tax savings on your monthly pass, and hires WageWorks to manage the procurement and delivery of that pass to you. Used to be, they’d mail you your Fast Pass a week or so before the beginning of the next month. All was dandy.

Enter Clipper.

In an attempt to get ahead of the inevitable passing of the paper Fast Pass, WageWorks told its clients that rather than waiting until November (the first month without a paper “A” pass), they would have employees get Clipper cards now, and load their August passes onto them. WageWorks asked employees to get cards and to then, via WageWorks website, to register their Clipper cards and indicate the preference for a monthly pass. Oh, wouldn’t it be nice …

The ever-diligent Akit has an account of, well, the way things went down today. The point: People boarding BART and Muni thinking their passes were loaded on their newish Clipper cards were in for quite a shock.

SO! All you WageWorks workers/Clipper cardholders out there, hang onto any receipts from money you might have to spend on transit. If you had set your pass to load onto your Clipper card and then find yourself getting charged to ride, something is wrong. Very wrong.

Also, the cynic in me will need to wait and see whether those Clipper reimbursements actually happen, not to mention within the company’s promised seven (7) business days.

Category: News Tags:

From Inside Transbay Terminal (updates)

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Farewell, Transbay Terminal
Photo by Telstar Logistics

Update (August 4, 7:36 a.m.): Chris Roberts has a nice gallery and story up about the Transbay Terminal over at SF Appeal.

Update (August 3, 12:20 p.m.): California Beat has a great article detailing the history of the terminal, along with more awesome photos.

Original post: Looking through many of the photos of last week’s final official peek inside the Transbay Terminal left me feeling nostalgic. I felt like I was really looking into San Francisco’s past, a sad, failed relic of what was once so idealistic and, I’m sure, awesome. Transbay was a place where transit systems converged, where worlds collided, mingled, ignored one another because they had places to be. It was like a sorry attempt at Grand Central in New York. Oh, the potential.

The building will soon be demolished to make room for a high rise and high-speed rail station. In the mean time, you’ve got to check out the photos from the last official tour of the Transbay Terminal.

Check out those antique Corn Flakes, all those goddam payphones, the bar set with Martini glasses and a shaker or two, a drunk tank (no comment), all from the set taken by the talented  Telstar Logistics, who also took the photograph above.

Read more

Category: diaries, Photos

N-Judah with an aversion to westward travel

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Last night, @sunaena alerted us to a bit of a mishap (intentional understatement) on the N-Judah. Here are her tweets:

9:09 p.m.: commotion in the N outbound.Door is stuck and power is out. Greaaaat!

9:16 p.m.: after rolling backwards for a sec the door has finally opened.


I’ve been on an M-Ocean View whose steps got stuck as they were being lowered (coming out of SF State and into Ingleside). We sat there, and sat there, and sat there, steps mid-retracted, doors flinging open and closed. Half of me wanted that Muni Metro car to go all Transformers, with me in it.

It’s never fun when Muni breaks. But sometimes we just have to make the most of our half-functional transit system.

Let us hear some of your more unusual breakdown stories in the comments.

Category: diaries Tags:
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