The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (CA) introduced its new fare gates with a media event earlier this week. But as Muni makes the transition to the regional Clipper card, area activists are calling for better outreach to local communities. “We’ve heard a lot of concern from our senior members,” Deland Chan, a planner for the Chinatown Community Development Center told Streetsblog. “There has been very little direct outreach in ethnic newspapers. I think what needs to happen is a full on saturation of information specifically targeted to ethnic media.” The Metropolitan Transportation Commission,which managers the Clipper card, said that the agency was concerned about outreach to all communities, but acknowledged that the Clipper customer support center did not have Chinese-speaking representatives on staff. (Customer service agents use a third-party translation system to communicate with callers who speak Mandarin or Cantonese.) “We want everybody to embrace the convenience of Clipper, regardless of whether they speak English or not,” said MTC spokesman John Goodwin. “This is something that is absolutely important to us. We want to get this done as quickly as possible.” Link to full story in Streetsblog San Francisco.
Comments on this entry are closed.