Charlie cards

[bgum.livejournal.com]

So whose idea was it to make the Charlie cards (which supposedly will be universal in a year) so that they don't work at turnstile gates (e.g. Davis, Porter)?

I bought a $5 (4 swipes) ticket at Prudential, but when I tried to use it to go to work the next day, lo and behold, I had to jump the turnstile. They do have what look like magnetic strips to swipe with, but they, like many things with the MBTA, don't work.

Or am I the only one having such luck?

Comments

His fate is still unlearn'd

[dmaze]

Also remember that the first station to be converted was Airport. "I'm in from out of town, I'm planning to take the T around; how does it work? Aah, I buy one of these ticket things, I'll put four trips worth on it"...and then you discover that it works nowhere else in the system. More recently, clueful housemate was going to Braintree, and knew that she needed extra tokens to get off there and that her subway pass wouldn't do the trick, except that Braintree is a Charlie station and the machines there wouldn't take her otherwise-useless tokens.

The ne.transportation newsgroup has been complaining about the Charlie implementation since it was in the naming stage. I haven't seen a whole lot in mbta on the subject, but that also tends to be a lot quieter (and to my knowledge doesn't have lurking Globe reporters).

Re: His fate is still unlearn'd

[fredrickegerman.livejournal.com]

The apparent inability to use a token to buy or add to a Charlie card is particularly galling. This would at least make tokens the lowest common denominator until the conversion was finished.

Re: His fate is still unlearn'd

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

The machines that take cash to spit out a Charlie ticket apparently take tokens (I have not yet tried this as I never end up going in-bound from Kendall; but the signage on those machines now says "Cash or token")

The MBTA differentiates between Charlie tickets and Charlie Cards; Charlie cards will be prox-cards that will make it faster for regular commuters as you will just wave (or touch, I'm not sure) rather than having to feed in or out.

In the meantime the MBTA has very confusing lingo, since both the monthly passes and the add value passes are called "Charlie Tickets" but only one of them works in unconverted stations.