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

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

That's not what they told us in January. Hmm....

[autotruezone.livejournal.com]

Really? Who told you that? There are discussions of the issue at http://charlieonthembta.blogspot.com/2007/01/hopefully-this-is-isolated-case.html and at http://www.badtransit.com/index.php?/site/comments/another_way_that_the_mbta_just_doesnt_add_up/

At both URLs, the same individual reported as follows:

According to the MBTA (and the Globe on January 28), “T officials are encouraging folks to put their February passes on their CharlieCard now to avoid lines. You can do this for any month, beginning on the 15th of the preceding month. There's no need to wait until this Wednesday, the 31st.”

He then goes on how to describe how he did this before the end of January, but then was denied entrance by the faregates. In both ensuing discussions, a number of people reported the opposite experience, and the original poster reported that the next day, his January pass was working fine, so the original incident seems to have been a one-time glitch.

But in summary, you can add the new month's pass before the old one expires.