Especially when they have a monthly pass covering the fare. It’s not the passenger’s fault, it’s the design of the system, so ST should treat all these people like they’re tresspassing and stealing service and deserving of a fine. The design of the system should make the easiest and most intuitive thing the right thing, and that’s what Link fails on. Or sometimes I don’t say anything because I don’t want to be a pedant.Īll of this except the refusing to go back up if you haven’t paid is honest mistakes, not willful fare violation. I worry that they’ll get a stern lecture from an inspector but what can I do, I tried to explain it to them. Or they don’t understand the reader’s beeps and think it registered when it didn’t, and I try to explain it to them but they don’t understand and they go down anyway. And the constant threat of a $124 fine and being banned from Link, when it’s impossible to tap 100% of the time even if you try very hard to.Īnd average riders won’t put up with all this they ask me on the platform how much it is and I tell them they should go up and get an ORCA card or ticket and they say that’s unreasonble to go back up and down so they don’t. And there’s always a low-level anxiety that maybe I forgot or maybe it won’t show up on the inspector’s reader even if I did tap. Tapping in is so unconscious I don’t remember if I did so, so sometimes I go from the platform or mezzanine to the surface to tap twice more to make sure. By the time I remember I’m already on the 268 or 269 heading east so it’s too late. Likewise, I occasionally ride Sounder to Kent, and I’ve forgotten to tap off there because the readers aren’t visible in your path and I’m unfamiliar with the station. I’ve gone out of Beacon Hill Station on the surface and forgotten to tap out because the readers are off to the side out of eyesight. Even devoted tappers like us sometimes forget, and the positioning of some of the readers makes it easier to forget than remember. I agree that the process should be more frictionless.” That’s what we have here. But Jarrett also said, “I do not defend steep fines or discriminatory enforcement. I think most of us want to give ST good ridership data by tapping and showing our origins-destinations. It and all its supporters have got to shape up or get off my payroll. Refusal, or worse inability to fix this is cut from same blanket of habits that got those passengers killed at Dupont. Think State Senator Bob Hasegawa and I agree about Bernie. Would rather discuss it on the radio with Dave Ross rather than Dori Monson, but… beggars-and-choosers. I’m furious I can’t afford either the court challenge or the political campaign this matter really deserves. For what they’ve done to an otherwise perfect fare system, let alone to me. However, my present liability to criminal charge and penalty over a wrong number of “taps,” multiplied by the pig-headed stubbornness of the people who uphold this system, makes it my goal right now to see every one of them lose their jobs. Same reason I try to make sure my elected representatives all share frequent e-mail exchanges. But Jarrett and I are on same wavelength as to the “feel” of active cooperation with the transit system whose part-owner I am. Pretty much like money used to be, but without the handling expense. I’d be a lot happier to use a card traceable by time and location, but not to me personally. What I’m seeing out of this country’s politics and administration these days, between change of generations- older talent retiring about ten years early because they can’t stand their workplace, and younger people whose work-load’s been rendered staggering from short staff, poor training and misbegotten new equipment… Especially somebody completely innocent “nailed” by mistake. Wonder what the actual stats are as to people being located, identified, and prosecuted due to a card-tap.
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