There are no clipper machines at any station. Walgreen across the street from 4th/King sells monthly and 8-rides. I believe there may be a place at both Palo Alto and San Jose to buy via Clipper. Also, WTF:

“If at least 50 percent of the one-way tickets are paid for with Clipper by March 1, 2013, then Caltrain will not implement a second increase,” she said.”Otherwise, beginning July 1, 2013, one-way zone fares will increase by 25 cents and Day Pass zone fares will increase by 50 cents,” she added.

mikesonn

Also, zone-upgrades are only available via paper, but the only people using them are monthly pass holders who all use Clipper. WHAT!?

gogregorio

The Public Press article about Plan Bay Area was an interesting read with lots of different viewpoints.

I think ultimately, we need more housing in Bay Area urban centers, even if we’re building more housing than we actually “need”. I know that this would cause home prices to fall, and could certainly be hard on the net worth for homeowners, but the reason home prices are so intimidatingly high is because we don’t have enough homes.

Not building enough homes in the core contributes pretty strongly to sprawl; people get priced out and decide to move to the suburbs, where housing is more abundant and cheaper. This isn’t something we want for out future; it’s the failed experiment of the 20th century. It’s time to build more housing in our cities–and the housing that people need, too. We don’t need more $300k condos in downtown San Jose, because the people who can afford them don’t want to live in downtown San Jose. We need housing stock to meet the needs of all of our population.

Abe

We need apartments.
rental apartments.

Anonymous

The Caltrain fare system is completely ridiculous. They should just adopt the BART fare system, with the same mileage-based formula, and no penalty for transfer between BART & Caltrain at Millbrae. Replace the existing ticket vending machines with Muni-style vending machines which issue ‘limited use’ tickets for those who don’t want to use Clipper, and also allow Clipper top-ups. Forget about the zone system, 8-ride tickets or monthly passes.

Richard Mlynarik

Forget about the zone system, 8-ride tickets or monthly passes.

Damn straight! Forget about how the most successful transit systems in the western world operate!

What we need are more barriers, more costs to ride faregates, more smart cards, and more profits for the scammers who sell them.