Monday, December 14, 2009

Pay your fare! Or else! Unless you can't.

Back on October 29, I told you the story of the uninformative signage on the MBTA's Green Line and also mentioned the stern warnings about fare evasion presented to the public on those signs. Well, now I have my new Flip videocam and have documented that warning. But stay tuned till after the warning. Then you get a view of the fare box in my train. The dollar bill payment slot is not functioning, so the driver has inserted a dollar bill into the slot to prevent people from using it.

And who says MTBA riders are not honest? Even as the train pulls away several stops later, you can catch a glimpse of the dollar bill hanging out of the machine, having been left in place by dozens of ethical riders. (If you cannot view the embedded video here, you can follow this link to see it on YouTube.)

3 comments:

e-Patient Dave said...

Oh, heaven help us, Paul's become a video producer.... watch out, world!

Edward Wiest said...

As a Charlie Card-carrying denizen of T buses and Green Line cars, I have regularly seen drivers/operators exercise considerable discretion on questions regarding the collection of fares. Of course, what may be good for customer relations may not be optimal in terms of the collection of revenue, per se.

In plain English: for all the warnings it gives customers, the MBTA lets a lot of fare evasion slip by.

Anonymous said...

Dave;

I had the same thought; he is having fun with his new toy! Numerous expose's (add accent over final e) to follow!) (:

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