How Do You Get A Transit Nerd Excited?

... Put a smart-card fare collection device on his favorite bus line. That's right folks, I stepped on the 42 bus on Sunday morning and to my delight found myself standing infront of a brand new fare collection device, equipped to accept my SmarTrip card. Unfortunately I was already mid way through dumnping change in the thing so I did not have the pleasure of using the device (I was half tempted to pay the $1.20 twice simply to have the satisfaction of slapping my wallet against the sensor on a bus for the first time.

However, my excietment was dimmed when I noticed two things. First, the new collection stands no longer accept pennies. Not a big loss, but mildly dissapointing, since busses seem to be one of the last places pennies are useful these days. And second, the coin slots are smaller than the older ones, and made of plastic, which makes it increasingly difficult to toss in your change. I had to fiddle with it for a few moments to get all the coins down. While these are relatively minor detractors, one hopes Cubic will remedy these issues in future implementations. Although, considering this project was supposed to be operational across the Washington metro area about a year ago (integrating several disparate transit systems in the process), we should probably be delighted it is here at all.

And in another SmarTrip-related news, I certainly hope that by June 28, when all parking fees at Metro stations must be paid with Smart cards, WMATA has fixed the card vending machines at the Rockville, Twinbrook, and Shady Grove stations. It sure will piss people off if, the day after fares rise, they must walk to the nearest station, take the train to Metro Center and buy a SmartTrip card there because Cubic can't get the vending machines to function.

(sorry for the local nature of this post for all those outside of the DC metro area)