With curbside congestion growing and passenger numbers to airport stops dropping, the San Francisco Bay Area’s BART transit system is proposing a lollipop to lure air travelers back onto the trains: a special fast pass to the front of the airport security lanes.
The airport’s security staff—the ones who point you to the right lanes and do a quick check of your boarding pass before you get in the TSA line—would scan passengers’ Clipper cards, the Bay Area’s transit pass, to verify the passenger had arrived by transit, and then send them through a special lane straight to the TSA screeners, much like private setups such as Clear do.
The idea isn’t completely new; Boston’s Logan Airport started giving out a special “orange ticket” on the airport bus that gives holders access to a TSA Priority Lane. One weakness in such schemes: The more successful they become, the slower the priority line will get.
