CharlieCard on the MTA

[mabfan]

In the midst of all the other frustrations in my life at the moment, and in lieu of a real update or a post on writing, here's today's rant about the T.

Last Friday, my CharlieCard stopped working. As the Card was programmed with an April LinkPass, this was suboptimal. A very nice T attendant at Copley Square helped me check the Card, and advised me to go to the Downtown Crossing office anytime between Monday and Friday from 8-6 to get the Card replaced or my LinkPass restored.

On Monday, I was in NYC dealing with estate issues, so I wasn't able to go to Downtown Crossing. gnomi graciously offered to go to Downtown Crossing with my Card and receipt instead, to get the problem resolved.

Unfortunately, the office was closed yesterday due to Patriot's Day, a fact they apparently neglected to tell kindly T attendants who are supposed to tell customers how to get CharlieCard problems fixed.

So gnomi went again today, in the rain, and while she was at it she brought me lunch from Milk Street as well. She almost wasn't able to get me a replacement card, though. We order our LinkPasses online and have them mailed to us, and so apparently we're supposed to complain to the online vendor, and not to the Downtown Crossing office. They also expressed incredulity because the online vendor keeps mailing us new CharlieCards instead of loading new LinkPasses on our old Cards; as I believe Nomi tried to explain to them, the online vendor doesn't seem to be offering that option yet.

In the end, they gave her an April LinkPass on a CharlieTicket for me, which means that I now actually have printed evidence on my Ticket that it's an April LinkPass, just in case it somehow fails again. But I still had to spend an extra $2 to get to work this morning, and I doubt the T plans to refund me for it.

I continue to think they should have worked out all the bugs in this system before going live with it.

Comments

[docorion.livejournal.com]

Well, they should have worked out *more* of the bugs, certainly. On the other hand, just as no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, no plan to revamp this kind of system survives contact with the real world. So there would have been some bugs in any event; they should have had a better system for reporting and fixing them (so you didn't, for instance, have to go downtown to fix your problem; you should be able to do that at your T station, IMO).

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

The bug in the system that I really think they should have worked out was the one that doesn't allow you to put next month's LinkPass on your CharlieCard while it is still holding this month's LinkPass.

To explain, if I have a March LinkPass on my CharlieCard, I can't load April onto the CharlieCard until March is over. But then I can't use the CharlieCard to get to the station where I can load the LinkPass; I'd have to buy a $2 CharlieTicket first to get there. That's why we're still buying our new LinkPasses online, and why they keep sending us brand new CharlieCards each month.

If the T wants everyone to own and use one and only one CharlieCard, they should have worked this out before activating the system.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Could you use 2 cards and alternate?

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I'd already considered doing that. But the point is that I shouldn't have to, as the T doesn't want me to do that. They want me to use one, and only one, card for all my needs.