BART plans to stop selling paper tickets by end of 2019

Bart commuters including Francisco Mendoza (middle) with her sister Carmelina Mendoza (middle right) with her 1 year old child Michael (right) buy tickets to go to Oakland at the Civic Center station on Tuesday, April 10, 2018, in San Francisco, Calif. less Bart commuters including Francisco Mendoza (middle) with her sister Carmelina Mendoza (middle right) with her 1 year old child Michael (right) buy tickets to go to Oakland at the Civic Center station on ... more Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close BART plans to stop selling paper tickets by end of 2019 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

Paper BART tickets — the ones that get jammed in fare gates on rainy days and had the annoying habit of getting demagnetized by cell phones — are going the way of the Edsel.

BART General Manager Grace Crunican said the transit agency plans to stop selling paper tickets by year’s end in a final push to get riders to pay fares using Clipper cards exclusively.

Last year, BART started charging an extra 50 cents per ride for passengers using paper tickets, and since then use of Clipper cards has grown. At present, 85% of BART fares are paid with Clipper.

“We’ve been moving in this direction for some time,” BART spokeswoman Anna Duckworth said.

The familiar blue paper tickets with the black magnetic strip have been a symbol of BART since the system opened in 1972. Over the years, swindlers have made counterfeit paper tickets or created fake tickets by cutting the magnetic strips into thinner pieces to cheat the agency out of an estimated hundreds of thousands of dollars, officials said.

An exact schedule for the changeover has not been announced, but BART plans to sell only Clipper cards at all 48 stations as early as the end of 2019. At present, the ticket machines at Pittsburg Center and Antioch stations only sell Clipper cards, not paper tickets.

New adult Clipper cards cost $3 in addition to the amount of the fare that a buyer chooses to load onto the card. Seniors, children and persons with disabilities can get discount Clipper cards online or at designated locations without paying the $3 fee.

The $3 fee “pays for itself in three round trips,” Duckworth said, with riders avoiding the 50 cent-per-trip surcharge for paper tickets.

Paper ticket with no remaining value are kept by the fare gates and not returned — another reason they are being phased out, Duckworth said.

“We’re trying to avoid paper-ticket waste,” she said.

Clipper card users receive automatic discounts when transferring between BART and many other transit providers. Golden Gate ferry riders and Muni riders get 50 cents off when transferring to and from BART.

Many other transit agencies across the U.S. have adopted Clipper-style reloadable ticket cards.

New York City charges $1 for a MetroCard. Washington, D.C., charges $2 for a SmarTrip card. Chicago charges $5 for a Ventra card. Single subway rides in Chicago using paper tickets instead of the Ventra card cost $3 — $2.50 for the fare and an additional 50 cents for the paper ticket.

Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF