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The things we care about more than SEPTA's "smart card" ... poll!
Judging by SEPTA's years of press announcements regarding the progress of its "smart card" plan, you'd think that was riders' main concern. City Paper asks: is it?
The things we care about more than SEPTA's "smart card" ... poll!
This month, SEPTA made a big announcement regarding its years-behind plan to implement smart cards instead of tokens and cash fare.
The announcement: they're still working on it.
The agency expects to award a contract this summer, but says that smart cards are still years away.
Meanwhile, in all the years it's been working on smart cards, SEPTA hasn't managed to place token machines at all of its stops, forcing riders to pay full fare instead of the discounted token rate. Many stations still refuse to take cash, even when a booth operator is present.
Are smart cards better than tokens? We suppose so.
But we're going to make a radical suggestion: Maybe "smart cards" are effectively a kind of red herring — as long as we're waiting for the improvements associated with smart cards (my city planning buddy assures me these improvements will be real, and they will be good), we are less inclinced to focus on all the improvements that aren't being made to service right now — things as small as SEPTA's posting train schedules at stations or making its announcements of delayed service easier to hear.
And so we've commissioned the following thoroughly un-scientific poll. What do you most want to see SEPTA prioritze?
1) They aren't smart cards, it's "new payment technology." You'll be able to wave your cell phone at turnstiles, keep an account balance active online, and more. We're leapfrogging smart cards.
2) The El and Subway already run 24-hours, but as bus service past 12:30 am or so. Later trains would be nice but I'm surprised so many people picked this one. There are many other 24-hour bus routes, too.
4) What stations don't take cash?
5) You missed a huge one--real time bus location tracking and associated smart phone apps.— BarryG
