Results tagged “smartrip”

Metro formally announced today that SmarTrip users can add value to their cards at select CVS and Giant Food stores. Last year, WMATA made SmarTrip cards more widely available for sale at CVS and Giant, but now customers can also choose to add money to their cards at both chains while they check out.

Pretty great news for those of you who regularly travel between D.C. and Baltimore: transportation officials say they've reached an agreement that will allow SmarTrip users to use the cards seamlessly on the Maryland Transit Administration system in and around Baltimore, WTOP reports.

Just like November 5 saw a run on post-election editions of the Washington Post and New York Times, Metro says it is doing brisk business with their commemorative Barack Obama inauguration SmarTrip card.

It's a big week for SmarTrip cards, leading up to the even bigger week beginning Jan. 4, 2009, when the electronic farecards will be required in order to take advantage of bus-to-bus, rail-to-bus or the new bus-to-rail transfer options within the WMATA transit system.

Metro's Board today approved charging rush-hour fares and parking fees on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2009.

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.

Metro hasn't yet formally announced the sale of a special edition SmarTrip card commemorating the impending inauguration of President-Elect Barack Obama, but this image was circulated at this morning's regular Board of Directors meeting, along with details on their production schedule and cost.

WTOP and Infosnack are both reporting that Metro's Board of Directors will consider a proposal this week that would allow CVS to sell SmarTrip cards. CVS would sell the cards for $10 (they'd be preloaded with $5 on them), and at no cost to Metro. In exchange, CVS and Metro would come to a cross-promotional arrangement. Infosnack calls the move a "win-win for Metro, CVS and riders." We're all for making SmarTrip easier to buy at more and more locations, but feel compelled to question whether making any purchase at a CVS can honestly be associated with concepts like "ease" or "convenience." Perhaps Metro's board has never been to a CVS?

Michael Perkins of Infosnack Headquarters emailed us last night to let us know that he discovered something interesting while listening to last week's Customer Service Operations and Safety Committee board meeting. It seems as if Metro's $5 price point for SmarTrip cards might be slightly profitable for the agency. Certainly, this isn't a total bombshell. But it could be a bit of a prickly matter since Metro decided to eliminate paper bus transfers come January, thereby leaving bus riders with no other option but to purchase a card. Of course, there aren't any hard figures yet on exactly what percentage of that $5 is profit for Metro - and, as Michael notes, we won't see any until the next board meeting on November 20, if we see any at all. Advocates for lower-income residents will likely be very interested to see what kind of numbers John Catoe and crew bring to the table.

We knew this was something WMATA had been considering for some time, especially with the agency's big push toward emphasizing universal adoption of SmarTrip cards, but today it's official: Metro is eliminating paper transfers in January.

The notion that we'd all like to do more with our SmarTrip cards isn't new - we've been calling for such improvements for quite some time. So, it was understandable that we were encouraged by reports released last winter which indicated SmarTrip cards would be able to be automatically reloaded like E-Z Passes by the end of 2008.

We've got to hand it to WMATA for coming up with plenty of fun, low-budget ways (in some cases, extremely low-budget) to encourage Nationals fans to take Metro to the new ballpark. Among their various efforts, listed on WMATA's special Nationals page, Metro is currently selling a limited supply of Nationals-themed SmarTrip cards. The two designs, one with the team logo and the other with an image of the new ballpark, are available for $5 each (the same as a regular SmarTrip card) from Metro's online store.