I believe it's intentional, because was the same for me. I still managed to get up into Upper New Ark. There's an "all-knowing" hobo in the homeless section of slums (south of the Don's place, in the top left corner if i remember correctly) that u can talk to who will tell u random yet useful information in exchange for a certain item(s). One such info is that the junk vendor secretly sells three kinds of low or poor quality counterfeit passes that can get u into upper new ark (they don't always work though). U may need to talk to him a number of times to get that info. When u get a massage from Lin Lin with one of them on u, and she'll offer to take u to the tattoo artist in who can turn them into top quality counterfeit passes that always work for a price (u can learn to do it u're self with an ink pen if u have a high enough 'nim'). They're single use passes, so u'll need a new one every time u go up.