Los Angeles Travelers: Save Money and Get a Tap Card

If you plan to visit Los Angeles and intend on taking any sort of public transportation, it is now essential that you acquire a TAP card. It is a plastic card that you stores your ticket. Los Angeles no longer issues ANY paper tickets. 

You must have a TAP card to ride the metrorail—the area’s subway system—without a TAP card.

Buses DO accept cash. HOWEVER if you intend to transfer to another bus or take a bus to then take the subway, you will end up LOSING money if you don’t have a TAP card.

LA County recently instituted a $1.75 fare. In that fare, you get 2 hour of transfers. As long as you don’t get on the same number bus line or same color metrorail, you do not have to pay again. Your last boarding has to be less than 2 hours after your first boarding.

For traveling with the TAP card, if you got on the red line at 2PM, you have to get on the 460 bus by 3:59:59 or you will be charged again.

Remember you cannot get on the same number bus or same color rail again. You can get off the red line at Hollywood and Highland but you cannot take the red line again in either direction without paying again.

That’s all if you had a TAP card. If you have paid by cash however, you have to pay every time you board. So if you have 5 transfers within 2 hours, with a TAP card you’d pay $1.75. Cash, you’d pay $8.75.

See how you lose money if you don’t have a TAP card. A TAP card costs $1.

You do not throw the TAP card away.

Now if you are jumping on and off, you should think about getting a day pass. Or even a weekly or monthly pass depending on your stay and amount of travel.

Also, I’ll remind you again, on weekends, Metrolink is $10 good for all travel (with a few exceptions). Metrolink is different than metro rail or metro busses. You do get a paper ticket. That paper ticket is tappable at metrorail stations. It is valid for Metrolink as well as connecting buses (with a few exceptions).

The only drawback is that you cannot buy a Metrolink weekend $10 ticket until the weekend day starts. There’s no pre-buying. And the only place you can buy it is at a Metrolink station. So getting to one probably will cost you a $1.75 additionally. Still not a bad deal. After that, remember, the $10 weekend ticket works just like an All-Day pass. No 2-hour restrictions or off/on exclusions.

Metrolink tickets cannot be loaded onto a TAP card. They are a separate system so you do need to keep the paper ticket with you. When you board a connecting bus, you just show them the ticket instead of tapping it. At the metrorail stations, you DO tap it at the turnstile or kiosk.

It’s very simple once you start riding.

Note: While San Francisco is more environmentally conscious than LA, the city still issues paper transfers. However they do have a tappable card as well. For those with paper transfers, you cannot enter through the rear doors. Those with the cards can because there are tap sensors by each door.