T screws the pooch

[dmaze]

This morning I did, in fact, succeed in acquiring three CharlieCards at the Davis T. I showed them to a coworker today, who said, "huh, what are those?" and was surprised when I told him that you needed them to not get hosed even worse by the fare hike. I also saw this post in davis_square with more people being confused. And for that matter, if I didn't specifically know that they were handing out CharlieCards and that I wanted one, I would have registered the person as "person handing out irrelevant junk".

In between the fare restructuring and the prox card system, this really is a major change for T passengers. The T has at least given a token effort to communication, but without heavy attention to Usenet and mbta.com the vast majority of passengers (and certainly my coworkers) seem to have no clue what's going on. People might be less irate if they got told that subway passes went up about 35% just like all the other fares and got local bus access, instead of thinking that they got forced from subway passes on to more expensive combo passes which were inexplicably discounted. I think most people know there will be a fare increase but will be upset when their subway fare is $2 and not the promised $1.70 (and not $1.25); and most passholders are probably totally unaware that their free guest on Sunday is going away.

This is just a communication issue. The Diesel ran into something similar with their coffee cards, and wound up pushing back a significant change by six weeks. It's not too late for the T; they can still do things like have subway drivers announce the CharlieCard handouts. Fundamentally, it's something that has more practical impact to the typical commuter than "please report any unattended bags or packages to an MBTA employee"; shouldn't the T give it at least as much attention?

Comments

[alphacygni]

I am very irritated at the lack of a pre-drilled hole in the charlie card. Now I can't put it on a lanyard or extending clip. I have to put it in my wallet, which pretty much defeats the convenience purpose right there.

[coraline]

if you want one of those grippy-clips-on-a-extending-clip or plastic-sleeves-on-an-extending clip, let me know, i can get one from work (where we also have prox cards with no holes)

[alphacygni]

See, I already have an extendin clip and lanyard, that I am wearing every day for work anyway, since my ID card is on there. Being able to hang the Charlie card there would've been convenient. Now, I'm just back to using the wallet. Or having two extending clips, which seems a bit much.

[coraline]

what people i know do is to have the plastic holder on the extending clip, and put their ID in it with the prox card behind it... don't know if that would work for you...
(but i agree, the whole thing is irritating. i wish our prox cards had holes too. it seems that one of the common designs of prox card involves having the antenna go very close to endge of the card, stupidly.)

[nuclearpolymer.livejournal.com]

I will note that putting a magnetic name badge thing onto an RFID card does not mess up the card. It does mean you have to kind of slouch over when activating doors, but avoids the whole lanyard thing.

[alphacygni]

Actually, now that you put it that way, the plastic sleeve sounds like a potential good idea! And you can get one of these? That would be excellent.

[coraline]

i've got one! let me know how i should get it to you :)

[fredrickegerman.livejournal.com]

The grippy clips can break embedded RFID antennas if they're the run-round-the-edge variety. This happened to my badge at work, and they gave me a sleeve for it.

[jered]

Send email (or call) and complain! They're not actively being malicious...