Go Home Already: Shouts and Murmurs
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Fire at 17th and L NW Forces Evacuations
This story about a New York City bus driver who was stabbed to death over a bus transfer. Horrific. You can be sure plenty of people will complain and struggle against the new SmarTrip-only transfer regime about to be put in place on Metrorail and Metrobus, but if it prevents even one incident like this in our city, it will have been worth the growing pains.
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I don't know why anyone hasn't posted about it yet, but in addition to the SmarTrip only transfers coming in January, they're also introducing the balanced transfer from bus to rail finally. It's going to be 50 cents each way instead of 90 cents from rail to bus only. Overall most people doing a round trip should save a dime a day.
Um, if somebody is inclined to knife a bus driver over the driver not giving out a paper transfer, don't you think that jackass is just as likely to knife the driver for not accepting an invalid paper transfer?
inloganO, I think you must have just missed my post about that.
What Reid said. There are plenty of alternative arguments for knife-wielding lunatics to get into with bus drivers, many of them related to SmarTrip cards.
"but if it prevents even one incident like this in our city, it will have been worth the growing pains. "
So you believe in the growing movement throughout society to punish the innocent majority for the transgressions of the very few.
Where will such thinking end?
There's no alternative argument for the huge reduction in fraud that will inevitably follow paperless transfers.
Like I need another excuse to avoid Brooklyn. If I wanted hiptards, lousy pizza, and stabbings, I can go to Adams Morgan.
Oops. I guess I didn't pay much attention until the press release came out like a week ago.
I don't want to sound like an East Coast elitist, but I think they should make buses SmarTrip only, period -- no cash. If you look at the time it takes to board a bus, most of the time is taken by people trying to put bills and coins into the fare machine.
Got that right. And once they've made it SmarTrip only, they need to start charging old farts a $10 fee to use checks at the grocery checkout. When they're not taking forever to sign their damned name, they're screwing the amount up and cutting another check. Or they're arguing about the price for a single stick of butter or the discount on a dented can of Campbell's Cream of Failure Soup for One. Can we just round all these people up and put them on the X2 and drive them off a cliff?
I realize this is way too much to ask WMATA, but I dream of the day SmartTrip cards work in convenience stores and vending machines. Anyone who's spent time in Hong Kong with an OctopusCard knows what I'm talkin about here.
alex3, making all buses SmarTrip only would severely limit use by casual riders. As a general rule, it's good for transit systems to be easily understood and used by everyone, not just regular commuters.
Of course, I think Metro could go farther to encourage SmarTrip use. They could start by upping the fare if you use cash - and not by a measly 10 cents per ride, but by a meaningful amount that will encourage people to buy SmarTrip cards even if they only use the system occassionally. London does this - it costs twice as much to ride the bus if you use cash rather than an Oyster card. That's a real incentive.
The Octopus card is the greatest thing in the history of civilization. Busses, subway, 7-11s, movie theatres, supermarkets, taco vendors, it works with everything.
Any time someone falls back on the old "even if it only prevents one Nasty Incident Which Any Decent Person Would Condemn, then it's worthwhile" it's a sign that they just can't be bothered to come up with any legitimate arguments on behalf of their position.
Preventing One Bad Thing from occurring (especially when it's something that might not have occurred ANYway ... how many killings over bus transfers have there been in DC?) is NOT sufficient justification for massive changes in laws and policies. I happen to be in favor of this particular move, and look forward to taking advantage of Bus-to-Metro savings, but ridiculous arguments like the one made in this post just annoy me . . .