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Mon 18 Sep, 2006 06:50 pm
This is my new campaign against bureaucratic stupidity. So far I have written a letter to the Metro (mostly seen below), and a couple of letters to the MBTA. I am not sure what else I will do, but this kind of thing bothers me.
Does anyone want to add their voice?
Charlie Isn't Very Smart
It is easy to cheat the new Charlie gates the MBTA has installed. When the gates open for someone using a pass or ticket, you simply walk in behind them. Charlie detects this and beeps disapprovingly, but seeing as frequently stations are unattended by any real MBTA personnel, no one with a beating heart pays any attention.
But I am not writing about cheating the MBTA. I pay $71 for a monthly pass so I can have unlimited use of subway or bus services and I have no need to cheat the system.
Last week I entered in the North Cambridge entrance of Alewife station just as a train was leaving. I decided there was probably time to buy coffee at the Dunkin Donuts that is just outside the other entrance to the station. After buying my coffee, I found I was unable to enter-- Charlie claimed pass ad "Already been used". Apparently, the system is programmed that a pass can not be used again until 20 minutes have passed.
After looking for and not finding any person with the MBTA to speak with, I was faced with three choices. I could pay for a ride (defeating the purpose of a monthly pass), wait 20 minutes or I could walk behind another customer and face the beeps. I chose the latter which is why I know it is so easy.
I am trying to see the logic behind this. The two entrances to the Alewife station are several hundred yards apart and are separated by Fresh Pond Parkway. I guess this system would deter scofflaws who, instead of just walking through an unattended gate with another person, want to cross four lanes of traffic and wait 19 minutes to save $1.25. Certainly the main effect is that customers who enter through the wrong gate, or who simply want a newspaper or a cup of coffee while waiting for a train are needlessly inconvenienced.
It seems clear to me that a five minute delay, with the restriction limited only to one entrance would be at least as effective deterring casual scofflaws who insist on using a pass twice. It is highly unlikely that the 20 minute, all entrance restriction has any benefit.
Of course, all of this would be solved if there was simply a real person who could mediate between a paying customer and the soulless machine. Before Charlie came I always was always able to find a person who was usually quite reasonable.
Replacing human beings with machines is rarely a good idea for an organization that claims to care about customer service.
It is an unfortunate fact of life, ebrown, that the machines are taking over.
Soon we will be like the opening scene in "The Terminator", furtive humans cowering in shadows trying to remain undetected from the ever-vigilant and dangerous machine.
God help us.
Ooooohhhh, is that what they have been doing! Hmmm...
The time delay thing is just stupid (and there is no mention of it on the MBTA WWW site!). They never had any delay for the old monthly passes and I didn't see a whole lot of people handing their's to other customers to get them a fre ride on the T.
The MBTA advertises their passes as "Unlimited Use". If someone is paying for the monthly Charlie Card and is supposed to get unlimted use with it then give them true unlimited use! Someone should sue them for false advertising.
fishin wrote:The time delay thing is just stupid (and there is no mention of it on the MBTA WWW site!). They never had any delay for the old monthly passes
Actually they did have a time delay with the old passes. I know because once I had to pee so bad that I got off one stop early to use the rest rooms - yes it was really bad for me to use those germ ridden bathrooms, but I did have a few cocktails in me. Any way I tried to get back through the gates, but my T pass wouldn't work. The T employee informed me that they will not work again within so many minutes (something like 15 minutes). He let me through.
I agree there should be a real person there for not just this reason, but a variety of reasons. I also did do that follow me through the gate thing when I brought my daughter - usually children under a certain age are free or at a discount rate. She is at a discount rate, but there is no one to buy a ticket from at a discount rate.
As the MBTA pointed out in their response to my complaint, this has always been the policy. It has always been stupid, but it hasn't been an issue before.
Linkat is exactly right-- the difference is that Charlie takes the people out of the equation. I never had a problem showing the collector my pass and just going through before Charlie came along. Now the stupid policy is enforced by a machine.
It is bureaucratic rules unmitigated by human intelligence that bugs me.
i commute by bus every day.
a quick swiping motion was all it took for the old card-readers to scan passes.
you hardly had to slow down as you boarded.
the new card-readers they've recently installed on most buses have slowed the process considerably.
you have to feed the pass into the mechanism, it gets read, then it gets spit back out.
the bus i take costs $2.20 -- many people don't have passes, so their only choice is to feed dollar bills into the slot.
if the dollars' corners are folded, the machine won't accept them -- slowing things down even more.
during rush hour, the driver will often allow pass-holders to board without having their passes scanned, in an effort to speed up the process...
one thing i'd like to add, but that goes for all of america's public transportation: it infuriates me that i am expected to have exact change on buses here, yet there are no change machines or ticket machines in sight. i've seen one change machine in boston, on the D line at the end where I don't normally go. I was advised to ask other passangers for change. WTF? Either they should have machines that sell the charlie tickets and give change, or machines that give me a change out of 5, 10 or 20$ bills. Or both. How hard is it? Don't you go raising your fees on me when your services are turning for worse! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
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