TAP

One of the best transportation bargains on offer in Southern California is the Metrolink’s Weekend Day Pass. The agency, offers a ticket on Saturdays and Sundays that allows the holder to ride anywhere on Metrolink’s service, albeit reduced from weekday offerings, for just $10.

(Note: Anyone wondering about Dana's adventures on the Coast Starlight can find updates with pictures on Streetsblog LITE. - DN)

Metro is in the midst of addressing one of the last Transit Access Pass bugaboos beyond the fixes I described previously: the rather poor quality of service provided by Xerox, the vendor staffing the Regional TAP Service Center.

We are on the last lap approaching the end of my long exertions as self-appointed chief TAP (Transit Access Pass) watchdog for our region, my friends. This long troubled program has finally unequivocally turned the corner and is fast approaching victory lane. Kudos and plaudits from all quarters are raining down on David Sutton who laist recently dubbed "the guy at Metro in charge of TAP operations." Sutton built on the yeomen effort mounted by Matt Raymond (until recently Metro's Chief Communications Officer) who first was handed the unenviable task of fixing TAP after the TAPucrats who labored ten years and spent millions in creating TAP mishandled it in such egregious fashion that one feels as if Raymond was one day handed a broom and told to tidy up the mess left behind by the elephant herd that TAP had become. We now have an actual date for the gate latching that feels real (June 2013) AND promised expansion that will fulfill the long promised potential of the technology (from 9 agencies to 24) in the next 12 months. Who'd have thunk it?

(UPDATE: From the comments section, Steve Hymon from The Source writes: We belatedly got a post up at 12:45 today on the blog. For anyone reading, passes can still be purchased at https://secure.taptogo.net. Note the S after the http.!)

Whenever I travel in and out of LAX, I do my best to Metro my way there.

"Did you TAP your card?" I asked my friend.

Here are updates on two issues I have been paying close attention to: TAP and the LOSSAN takeover of the Surfliner.

My last Metro Transit Access Pass (TAP) related post detailed the vexing situation regarding TAP and Metrolink's patrons and the ongoing inability of Metro and Metrolink to find a means for Metrolink riders to be able to pass through the Red and Purple Line station gates after they are locked. I couldn't hide my incredulity that after all these years of dancing around this situation the solution being proposed involved temporary paper TAP cards being distributed by hand to Metrolink patrons daily for three months after which temporary plastic 30-day TAP cards would be provided by Metro for distribution to Metrolink’s riders who purchase a monthly pass.