reason number... I've lost count... that John Inglish is the most hated man in SLC

[smileyeagle1021]

As a reminder, John Inglish is the CEAsshole of the Utah Transit Authority (responsible for the disastrous route redesign three years ago that added nearly 15 minutes to any east/west trip that crosses TRAX, and basically killed local service south of 5,400 south, the county line is at 14,600 if memory serves).

But, now for the latest asshatry.
All education passes must be electronic, and students must pay a $20 activation fee. Now for added fun, it takes a week to activate... umm... what... I have to pay a $20 activation fee, then pay individual fares for a week after that?
The old paper passes had no activation fee and were valid from the moment you got it. I'm so glad that our fearless leadership has taken something that wasn't broken and broke it.
Of course this is made worse by the fact that last week they raised fares (without announcing it).
Yeah, there's a reason why the name John Inglish brings up an irrational seething in so many Salt Lakers.

[Midorikawa]

For this reason I refuse to use public transit unless I have to. I'd rather bike to/from work than deal with that. ...Granted, I SHOULD be biking to work since work is just over 2.5 miles from home. I used to bike further when I went to college in Texas - just over 5 miles each way. There's also not much for public transit where I live in Orem, outside of shuttles to Utah Valley University, which is in the opposite direction of where I need to go.

Sorry you have to deal with such idiocy. heh. >_<

[smileyeagle1021]

Actually service in Orem is amazing... if you want to go to or from Salt Lake (I should know, I intend to use the bus primarily for getting to and from school).

[bhskittykatt]

That's one cool thing about our university. You can activate them right then and there on campus. Also, they've started including the cost in their fees, so everyone pays for their pass when they pay their tuition. Of course, our transit authority is pretty awesome (a few years back I think they even got some national recognition).

[Midorikawa]

Actually service in Orem is amazing... if you want to go to or from Salt Lake (I should know, I intend to use the bus primarily for getting to and from school).

Yeah, but I'm a smalltown guy who has nothing to do with salt lake, save for the airport when flying home, or if the wife drags me up to salt lake. For everything else, there's a car. :-P

[Dreamstalker]

I'm so glad that our fearless leadership has taken something that wasn't broken and broke it.

The MBTA has been doing that for quite awhile...if they're not breaking something outright, they're breaking it by "fixing" it (the new Green Line cars come to mind).

[Polenicus]

All education passes must be electronic, and students must pay a $20 activation fee. Now for added fun, it takes a week to activate... umm... what... I have to pay a $20 activation fee, then pay individual fares for a week after that?

...

That just shows the level of commitment and care they have for students, doesn't it?

Are these monthly passes? If so, does that mean you have to wait a week EACH MONTH for the pass to go active?

Regardless, what the hell is wrong with a paper pass and requiring student ID? Or just activating the things on the spot? We can activate cell phones, credit cards, etc on the spot, so the technology exists, and I'm guessing that regular electronic passes don't have this lag. So why with students?

I'm guessing this is wholly to buy them time so they can verify the student IDs, likely expecting to ferret out a huge loss resulting from an underground Student ID forgery ring. And I'm sure this bold move of theirs will save them tens of dollars each year!

... That and get them an extra weeks worth of fares out of the student's pockets. Nothing like soaking the poor for a few extra bucks! Nom nom nom!

[Dreamstalker]

The MBTA has two types of RFID-card passes: stored-value (add money as you go) and monthly unlimited use which you pay a flat fee for ($20). Monthly is only cost-effective if one is using the system twice a day or more (5x for reduced fare).

My reduced-fare pass is a stored value as my job downtown tends to be sporadic, also I don't like going down to the pass office anyway, forget the 1st of the month as everyone and their dog will be there to get a new pass that must be done that day.

When I lost my pass, it was reissued as a monthly (I had $30 on the card when I lost it and a monthly reissue cost $20, so the extra $10 just vanished*). I ask the clerk about this and he gets condescending (look, I didn't want the monthly pass specifically because I knew I had more $ on the card) >_<

The next day I find out that for some reason, my pass isn't being read. Whether it's the physical batch of cards or the computer coding that's screwed up, I don't know. So I go back down to the pass office where I find a huge line; none of the monthly reduced-fare passes are working at all.

The hard part was convincing the clerk that no I did not want the monthly pass (see all these people milling around? they are here because the monthly passes do not work!).

* On the news that night there was a piece about how revenue is falling due to fare-dodgers...

[smileyeagle1021]

Polenicus it is a yearly pass, and supposedly as long as you renew at least a week before the year is up there won't be any problem. The problem is that UVU only has mag strip readers and UTA uses RFID readers, so UVU has to run the card through the mag stripe reader (the RFID is implanted in the student ID), get the serial number, and then send that number to UTA to update on each of the bus's readers as a valid serial number. UTA doesn't update all the readers every day (there are cards that are instant activation, put those are programmed onto the card directly, not into the reader), which is why we have to wait for the activation to finish.

[Chromatix]

Over here in the Promised Land of Public Transport (aka the Capital Region of Finland), everything is done with contactless smartcards. These can be issued in a few minutes for a few euros, and start working immediately.

The same card holds both value and period tickets simultaneously (eg. I have a subscription ticket for Helsinki itself, but I have to use value to buy tickets to Vantaa, Espoo, etc.) and only needs to be renewed when they physically chage the card format, which happens once a *decade*.

They just renewed it within the past year, and for several months it was possible to exchange your old card for a new one at any place where you could buy value onto it (eg. the ubiquitous R-kioski chain) - all of the value and periods were transferred seamlessly. Also, no charge.

[Dreamstalker]

The main thing I hate about our smartcard system is that you can't use them to buy tickets on the commuter rail (which is part of the MBTA).