who has ‘em? a short list I was able to quickly conjure up.

New York
Chicago
D.C.
London
BART
etc.

I didn’t read the previous line of every previous comment, but I wonder what the CEO’s concern was about. I can only think of two possible issues: the user-friendliness OR the efficiency possibly a combination of both (since user-friendliness could easily impact efficiency).

a bike/handicapped lane also makes perfect sense. I don’t know enough about the TAP program to comment on that aspect of it.

and yeah the last train back to Orange County being 6:30 is an absolute joke.

p.s. seamless

This is really not that big of a deal.

Actually, the Honor system is the norm worldwide. It allows seemless transfers and gives an agency the chance to partner with the carriers they connect with.

Since we are, as Mayor of Los Angeles recently declared, a “World-Class City”, then perhaps we should be joining the likes of:

Berlin
Copenhagen
Oslo
Stockholm
Munich
Brussels
Barcelona
Madrid

And in North America:

Portland, OR
Seattle
Vancouver, BC
Calgary
Edmonton
Denver
San Francisco (POP on Muni is being implemented)
Boston (POP being implemented on surface Green Line)
Newark
Hoboken
Dallas
Houston
Phoenix

In Berlin, visitors who are attending conferences are issued tickets which they can print at home and use upon arrival (i.e. before registration) to get to the convention venue.

In Copenhagen, a train ticket to or from Copenhagen, regardless of where issued, is valid for unlimited S-train, Metro or Bus connections to/from the final destination.

Wouldn’t it be tremendous if the Los Angeles Convention Center or the Pacific Surfliner could offer something like this? But not anymore thanks to Yvonne and her fanciful “terraists”!

Maybe MTA’s way of getting the word out, signage, or hodge-podge installation practices isn’t quite normal but the basic workings of fare gates has been around for a hundred years.

Out of curiosity, do you ride the trains during rush hour? Do you travel through Union Station during those times? I only ask because as it is, things get backed up without any turnstiles in place. The way that some of the stations are designed, the foot traffic doesn’t really flow well. Even when I am walking to the Gold Line from the Red Line in the morning at Union Station, it’s not uncommon for me to have to *wait* not only to try to get to the Gold Line ticket/TAP area, but to also use the TAP stations. At Universal Studios, the current area with the TAP stations is the most narrow part of the station and I think they only have 5 “walkways” formed by the TAP stations. Universal City can get crazy when some of the buses let off there and crowds of people are going to/from Universal City. I’ve even seen the ticket machine lines at Universal City backed up to the end of the escalators/staircases.

I don’t mean to be rude, but I think you might also be overestimating some people here. If there is only one handicapped entrance and there are multiple people with strollers, bikes, handicaps or other cumbersome luggage, I can guarantee there will be people trying to get through the turnstiles with their “stuff” in hand, thereby backing things up. The turnstiles as they are setup at Union Station are also rather narrow, which is to say I can see people because of their body size or because of their body combined with purses, totes bags or whatever else is being carried, having issues wakling through the turnstiles — I don’t know if that issue is a little more prevalent here in the U.S. than Japan.

There are people that sit on the staircases in the train stations and look at you like you’re from another plant when you ask if they can move when you try to walk on the stairs. To me it’s pretty obvious that sitting on the stairs when there is a flood of people exiting the train isn’t a smart move. How exactly should people get up/down the stairs when you are blocking them? Should they leap over you? Should they just ignore you and stomp on you? Should everyone exiting the train just use a single staircase or escalator? Can you not sit on a chair someplace in the station? Are you going to get pissed off if someone accidentally hurts your, runs into you or otherwise doesn’t realize there is a person there? But obviously not everyone has the same thought process about such things.

Q: Could the taptogo.net website be any more confusing?

A: The website currently doesn’t permit a day pass to be loaded, it’s hard to figure out how much money is already on a card and it’s only in English. Also, as far as I can tell, the website will only allow riders to purchase weekly or monthly passes whereas occasional riders (such as yours truly) may want to put $20 on the card for occasional single rides here and there.

A new and more user-friendly website will be debuting within a month, says Jane Matsumoto, the MTA’s deputy executive officer for TAP operations. The new version is currently being edited and tested, she said.

Q: Will the new website be in English only?

A: Matsumoto says that the new website will also be in Spanish when it debuts. When I suggested that was perhaps very shortsighted given the diversity of people that can be found on an MTA bus, Matsumoto agreed. “You’re not getting any argument here,” she said, adding that the decision over language was controlled by the MTA’s marketing department.

MTA Spokesman Dave Sotero quizzed the marketing folks about the language issue and was told that the agency focuses on English- and Spanish-language materials because demand for other languages is not nearly as high.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/03/is-the-tap-card.html

THE WEB PAGE WAS REDESIGNED.

WHERE’S THE SPANISH???!!!???

(although Boston is not a Cubic installation, despite Cubic’s suing to keep their monopoly in the US market)

And did anyone see the line at the Metro windows at LAUS today at 1pm?? They stretched all the way back to the “LAX Flyaway” sign on the ramp up to Patsaouras/Gateway Bus Plaza.

Could it be because it is the first Monday in August (the FIFTH MONTH since the TAP card was expanded to include Passes) and TAPTOGO.NET still is not in any language except English???

@ M: To me, this is the big gaping hole in the “people will jump the turnstiles, so why bother?” theory.
We have these laws in place DESPITE the fact that people will always do these sorts of things. We spend money on motorcycle cops, radar guns, education programs, etc. despite the fact that we know that people still speed. So, rhetorically, why bother having the laws at all? Why not scrap it all?
Because ultimately we all know it’s better to try to do something than it is to do nothing.

Getting back to your original point, I think the whole “it will slow traffic down” thing is being completely overblown. People are acting like a bunch of Chicken Littles here.

I hate to keep referencing Japan, but seriously. Little old ladies know how to make it through the gates without stumbling all over themselves. Baby strollers don’t get trapped. When I visit, I’ll admit that I’m a tad slower than the average commuter going through the gates, but at the same time, I’m amazed at the speed of those who know what they’re doing.

I think the thing that bugs me the most about this debate is that it reminds me of the Expo Line crossing gate debate. People will not randomly wander across the railroad tracks when the Expo Line opens and they won’t act like imbeciles just because turnstiles have been added.

Hopefully, in the future MTA will be able to produce those for week-long passes for tourists and such. TAP won’t be too bad afterall, after it settles in for a couple years.

Something I think you are missing is that the LA MTA is adding a decent amount of complexity to a system that was working pretty well and the benefit is not obvious to us, the riders and taxpayers. It seems to come along with a huge monetary cost, the details aren’t being explained, the gates don’t seem to offer the solutions that are being claimed, the ticket systems in place will be required to change in multiple ways (Metrolink, paper passes, etc.), there are questions about personal privacy that come up with some of the new proposed systems, this system will remove a human presence from the stations and there are legitimate concerns about flow of people with new obstacles in place. Don’t you think people might be very curious about what was going on if there were checkpoints added at random places throughout the freeway? Don’t people get backed up at border control sites? That’s what’s running through my head. It’s also one thing to deal with those things once a month or however often infrequent riders go on the train, but for people that use these trains every single day, it makes you wonder. When I tried talking to one of the officers one day about the ticket checks, one said “well you have to go through this sort of thing at the airport”. What? Sorry, but if I had to deal with airport security and whatnot every single day, multiple times a day on my commute, I can tell you I would get a new job and STOP the daily hassle of that commute as fast as possible.

You can then reuse it or not reuse it depending on how long you need it. It works really well.

@ Erik G.: You make some interesting points. I’m not sure I totally agree with you, but that’s the point of a blog, right? :)

The paper ticket question/ SUICA question is one that I myself have wondered about. It seems to me that it ought to be relatively easy for the MTA to solve this problem. Of course, there are a lot of things they do in Tokyo that I think to myself “why can’t we do it like that?”

But, the point is, this is not an unsolvable problem. You get paper tickets with magnetic strips and you make sure that the fare gates can accept them. Maybe it takes time to make the fix, but it is doable.

A lot of the turnstile/ fare gate “problems” ARE SOLVABLE. Tricky, perhaps, but we are at the beginning of what is ultimately going to be a long process. We shouldn’t be losing our heads about any of this. We shouldn’t be freaking out about it.

We still have time to make fixes. If the stations need staffers, the MTA needs to get people in there. If the turnstiles don’t work, find out why and fix them.

Look at where Metro Rail was in 1989, or even in 1999 and compare that to where we are now. Or, look at where we are now and compare that with where we expect to be in 10-20-30 years. We have gotten larger. We are getting larger. It’s been a long process, but we are getting to the point where we are no longer the runty system we once were.

Our future is on rail, and that future will include fare gates of some sort of another.

James mentioned Suica. Their fare gates accommodate Suica *and* paper tickets. I had a Suica card, but I used paper tickets when I left my card in the hotel room one day. It saved me from backtracking.

You do know that not all of the stations can and/or will have gates, right?

So there will still have to be fare checkers.

And the new turnstiles can only read TAP cards, not paper tickets like their Cubic-cousins in London, so in the near future paper tickets will be completely phased out. No TAP card? You cannot ride.

Finally, you do know that the stations will remain un-staffed, right?

Stuck with a non-functioning TAP card? Trying to get your baby carriage out of the station, but the fare gate won’t open? Tough!

You’ll have to wait 15 minutes for a human to arrive.

Perhaps we should call it the TrAP card?

God help LA Metro if there’s a stampede.

Maybe it’s because I’m both a fan of rail transit and a fan of anime. But I’ve noticed that both fandoms contain more than their fair share of people who scream bloody murder at minor little changes.

You can tell people are getting desperate because they keep pulling the “Cubic is evil” card, the lawsuit card (see Erik G.’s post above), the terrorist card and NIMBY-esque tricks such as Prop. 65 and CalOSHA. (seriously, CalOSHA?) And all this for a minor little change.

That’s what this is. Seriously. A minor little change that will irritate the fanboys (yes, I said fanboys) for a few months, and will be forgotten about when Metro comes up with the next idea to rub us the wrong way.

I’ve taken the subway in Tokyo, London, San Francisco and Washington; most recently in Tokyo, and the fare gates weren’t such a big deal.

They had guys there to answer questions. They allowed for paper tickets and for plastic cards. They had special gates to let bicycles, wheelchairs, etc. in. These were busy systems and yet somehow, the fare gates were able to keep up with the traffic. Even if one gate encountered a problem, there were enough other gates that people were able to get through.

I can tell you that SUICA was the most awesome thing that I have experienced. SUICA is what TAP should aspire to be when it grows up.

At the same time, I’ve ridden the Red Line plenty of times. I’ve had my ticket checked a few times, and I have gone from Universal City to Long Beach without having anybody ask me if I had a ticket. And that got me wondering: why did I even bother to buy a ticket?

Yeah, people can jump turnstiles. That just makes the fare evaders easier to find. Should the police randomly check tickets should they try racial profiling, or should they chase after the guy who was caught on tape jumping over a barrier?

Right now the MTA is building new rail lines and planning even more rail lines. When the Expo Line is finished and the Purple Line begins its slow march to the sea, when the Gold Line to Azusa is in the planning stages, when the Crenshaw line comes into play, will the MTA have another fare checkers to keep up with demand?

The turnstiles are at the Alameda Street side, not the Pasatouras (sp?) plaza side. Unless they have worked over the weekend on them.

LAUS:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8579276@N05/3781594525/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8579276@N05/3782410770/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8579276@N05/3781607089/

Wilshire/Normandie:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8579276@N05/3781587589/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8579276@N05/3782394454/sizes/l/

And here’s a neat new screen at Wilshire/Western: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8579276@N05/3781575019/