Lately I’ve been thinking a bit about WMATA’s plan to eliminate paper transfers for bus-to-bus and rail-to-bus trips. Yes, because I am a totally cool guy who spends time pondering these matters.
This topic has been covered in more detail by others, but basically the deal is that starting January 4th, you’ll need to have a Smartrip card to get the transfer discount. The discount will happen automatically within the three-hour transfer window and the bus-to-rail versus rail-to-bus discount disparity will be eliminated. Overall, I give it a ”woo!”
One aspect of the switch that I’m not clear on, though, is its effect on charging multiple bus fares to one Smartrip card (this matter is of grave importance, obviously). Currently when Katie and I take the bus I tend to swipe my card twice to pay both our fares, since I get those sweet sweet SmartBenefits from my friendly government. Also, Katie has a tendency to misplace her card (don’t tell her I told you!)
Anyway, so after this change goes into effect, we presumably won’t be able to do this, right? Because after I swipe my card for one fare, it’ll be in “transfer mode” and won’t allow another swipe to pay Katie’s fare. Or at least the driver wouldn’t let me swipe it again, lest Katie get a free ride. This is all correct, yeah?
If so, it’s kind of a bummer. A very minor one, sure, but a bummer nonetheless.
Further confounding my understanding of this issue is the fact that the last time I tried to pay for multiple bus fares on my card, I was rebuffed by the driver. He told me in no uncertain terms that I could only pay for myself, and that Katie and her Mom (who was visiting at the time) would have to come up with cash for their own fares.
Luckily no one was forcefully ejected from the G2 that day, but that’s weird, right? I mean, I know I’ve paid for both of us before. Was this driver just being obstinate? Does this have something to do with the upcoming transfer change? Someone please straighten me out!
*UPDATE: So a commenter says that Smartrip transfers have always been in effect, meaning that my second swipes weren’t registering any deduction afterall. Embarrassingy, I did not know this; I guess we don’t really do bus-to-bus transfers very often. I swear though that we’ve done this multiple times, like four or five, and the bus drivers have never said anything when Katie walks past without paying and I say I’ve got us both. So weird.
La foto es de Flickr.
WHAT?! Swipe your card twice?
whoaaaaa, you can’t do that. as soon as you touch your card once, it goes into transfer mode. you’ve never paid twice. if you touch it again it will beep but deduct $0 from your card. even though they are eliminating paper transfers, electronic transfers have always worked via smartrip.