Saturday, December 23, 2006

UPDATE 12/23 "adding value to Charlie Cards if you only ride a bus"

Was on the #66 bus this morning and started talking to the driver about the CharlieCards. I told him I was happy to find out you can add value to the card and his reply was "on the radio they are telling us not to allow people to do that, otherwise we will have long lines"

He also told me that out of garage (The Cabot) while some of the boxes are programmed to allow adding value, others have been disabled.

So I would suggest that we all email the superintendent at Cabot to find out what the policy is going to be.

Carrie Dubose

Superintendent Cabot Bus Garage

275 Dorchester Ave.South Boston, MA 02127

By email: CabotSuperintendent@mbta.com

One thing is clear. If riders all decide to fill their cards on the buses instead of retail locations the boarding times are going to be long. It took me about 30 seconds to load $5 on a card to test the system.

Also everyone should keepin mind that whatever you deposit into the farebox will go on the card, there is no way to get change on a bus.

previous posts
UPDATE 12/21 "adding value to Charlie Cards if you only ride a bus"

12/20
adding value to Charlie Cards if you only ride a bus

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey this comment doesn't exactly relate to this post, but I can't send it to the MBTA, because they wont respond but here it is:
There is a major flaw with the student CharlieCards. These cards are supposed to deduct half fare on weekdays until 8 P.M., which they do, and they are also supposed to deduct full fare when after 8 PM or on the weekends, but they do not do this. Now students need to carry two CharlieCards with them, a student one for weekdays and a regular for weekends, but wait theres even more of a problem. Both these cards cannot be kept in the same wallet on weekdays, becasue they will deduct fare from both cards, a total of 1.85, (under 2006 fares). And as a High School student myself, I will point out how hard this will be to for High Schoolers, considering most don't keep track information about the T compared to commuters.

Anonymous said...

I can certainly understand why the T doesn't want you adding value to your CharlieCard on the bus. They seem to be going to great lengths to make sure there are retail locations on bus routes where you can add value (and/or passes). I have also seen where they are posting the three closest retail locations on bus stop sign schedules. This is a good thing for riders... the buses are slow enough even when everyone boards quickly.