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| Re: Intermediate Station Fare Payment on SIRT (was:Re: Scrap pecking order with R44-SI) (307297) | |||
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Re: Intermediate Station Fare Payment on SIRT (was:Re: Scrap pecking order with R44-SI) |
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Posted by randyo on Wed Sep 6 02:46:57 2006, in response to Re: Intermediate Station Fare Payment on SIRT (was:Re: Scrap pecking order with R44-SI), posted by David of Broadway on Sun Sep 3 15:41:43 2006. One of the reasons that the SI ferry was made free was because, the "brains" in the MTA couldn't figure out a way to program the metrocards to provide for more than one transfer. Passengers who use the subway can make as many changes they wnt within the fare controls, but passengers who must also use buses have not only the incinvenience of transferring from a bus to a subway but if they should also need the take 2 buses to a subway line, they lose the transfer from the 2nd bus to the subway ine unlsee they have an unlimited ride card. Another drawback to the present system is that the 2 hour window starts as soon as a passenger uses the card the first time. Given the worst case scenario, if a passenger entering the system in midtown to upper Manhattan around midnight enroute to the Marine Pk section of Bkln, and just misses a train, he now loses 20 min of that window before he even starts moving. Depending on what connections he may or may not need to make, it may take an hour for him to reach Flatbush Av where he needs to transfer to a bus. He is now 1hr/20 min into his window. Since the midnight headway on the B-41 bus is 1/2 hr mainline and 1 hr to the branches, his transfer privilege could very well expire if he just misses a bus which based on my personal experience is highly likely. This situation also exists in other boroughs as well since with the exception of the B-42/Canarsie shuttle, no bus runs a headway that exactly matches the subway and most midnight bus headways are 1 hour. When I explained this difficulty to the "genius" who occupied the position of director of service planning for buses, he said that it works for "most passengers." Well, forgive me but since ALL passengers are presumed to pay fares, if it does not work for ALL passengers, then it is a faulted system. All that would be needed to correct the situation is either to extend the 2 hour window during the midnight hours and small reasonable cushion before midnight and after 600 AM to allow for extended headways on the buses as was done on the buses in the dayy of paper transfers. Going from a bus to a subway is not such a problem since the use is not registered until the passenger actually boards a bus. Another solution would be to have a device on the exit turnstile which would start the clock on the ability to use the transfer at the time the passenger leaves the subway to get a bus. Hopefully, someone with a lick of sense in the MTA will read this post and take the necessary action. |
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