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Thursday, March 29, 2012

This Crazy Train's Presto Chronicles, Chapter 16: Bringing a guest along for a ride


In Chapter 2, I mentioned how Presto users who ditched the monthly GO Transit pass also lost the privilege of bringing a guest on board for free, as the graphic I drew above illustrates.

This morning I was chatting up my regular GO Bus driver (who looks like Santa) and I mentioned I'd be taking my daughter out tomorrow to hit up the Pickering Town Centre. She wants to try out the new pedestrain bridge spanning the 401 because she thinks "it would be cool." I also think it would be cool, too.

I asked him if I could buy a day pass from him for her to which he said I could use my Presto card. Don't get excited because he didn't say she'd be free. Because the card is an e-wallet, it can be used to pay for cash fares for people other than yourself.

I asked how that worked. He said he hadn't tried it yet. Guess whose gonna be his guinea pig tomorrow?

I'm bringing cash just in case the machine explodes.

"Can't compute! Error! Error! Error!"

Cue smoke.

5 comments:

Dakota said...

I thought you could not tap again for 15 minutes to avoid double tapping. I am not 100% sure though. Anyone know for sure?

C.J. Smith said...

Apparently the driver can over-ride that function. Sorry, should have said he mentioned that.

I can't wait for tomorrow to see all this go down. Might even videotape the transaction if Santa doesn't mind.

Dakota said...

Thanks CJ, that makes sense.

lswgirl13 said...

My son came downtown with me a few months back and I wanted to double-tap but had to buy him a ticket instead. It's all got to do with the reduced/free rides on Presto. Think about it, you and your spouse tap on 4 times a day you get your reduced/free rides in half the time.

Martina said...

Yeah it won't work for the reason lswgirl13 said. Plus I don't know if those giant scanners the constables have can handle that extra information. :P

In a totally unrelated note, I'm trying to convince everyone who takes the train to write to Presto and Go Transit to allow people to have the option of paying for a full monthly amount up front so you don't need to tap on each ride. I don't see why they can't do that. My friend heard from one of the constables that they will be switching to Presto only this summer. One of them told me one day that they're also switching to a no warning policy for ticketing. My guess is that it will happen at the same time to catch all the people who forget to tap on after using only monthly passes for years. Just some food for thought...