> Milwaukee claims to be the inventor of the weekly transit pass
… so, really? In the 20th century? I’m _almost_ certain that the Dublin and Kingstown Railway (1834) did season tickets; remember seeing one once. Even if not that, surely some one did in the century between the invention of commuter rail and the Milwaukee one?
(The Dublin and Kingstown railway is interesting in that it was clearly designed before people had figured out what commuter rail was _for_; on launch it was every half hour on weekdays… and every 15 mins on Sunday. These days it’s every ten mins on weekdays and every 20 mins on Sunday… But in the very early days there was definitely an impression that using commuter rail was a leisure activity.)
I remember using muni tokens in SF. It was great and I often had a stockpile of them so that when friends/family visited I could give them out to help them get around the city.
Carrying cash/something physical in general to pay for transit has basically gone away. I suspect this has helped ridership but there are a few losses too.
When my stepmother died we went through her things and found all sorts of ticket and metro stubs from the year she lived in Paris. I’m saddened by the loss of these ephemera that carry a little story. I went to Radiohead last December and the supposed “memory ticket” was just a flyer basically, with nothing personal about it.
On the other hand, a few years ago I was in Paris and when the metro spit my ticket back at me it blew away in the wind. I suppose there were some downsides…
I would love to see more of this mindset - bring something new and unique in to the world, instead of mass produced, least price per unit mentality, like how car colors are trending towards black and white.
This kind of thing is illegible (not to mention inaccessible) for visitors. Someone comes to your city and they want to ride a train instead of driving their rental car into your downtown. Your transit requires a card. They're not comfortable with your language, they have to find a machine, and the first one doesn't work right.
They finally get a machine that works, after standing in line behind several other people. It turns out they need to buy a new special card and then load it with one of a number of confusing products.
They get your pretty card. Then they have to pay attention to where that card is at all times, and buy exactly the right number of tokens. They can only buy tokens in a few select locations in your city, realize they have run out, and end up Ubering for the rest of their trip.
We have wallets built into our phones now. Transit is a utility - it should universally take tap to pay, and more major cities are now rolling that out. Zero planning, zero extra "new and unique" objects to keep track of.
If you want a date based pass for a long visit instead of paying per trip, both Apple and Google have a way for you to buy transit passes directly from their wallet. You can always make that virtual card pretty.
The way I see it there is a bifurcation here: some people value convenience so they just use their regular credit card to pay per trip with no discounts; others don’t mind the mental overhead of getting a transit card, understanding the fare products, selecting the optimal fare products, standing in line to load the fare products onto the card in order to save money. It’s good to provide both.
Some things should be a utility. Nice is important but transit should fade into the background while you live life. Don't make them ugly but utility needs to be first.
Having something as mundane as a transit pass be designed so beautifully installs a sense of civic pride. Plus, it employs artists. Both of these things are important for a community.
Transit passes may have been phased out in a lot of places, but there are lots of opportunities for a city to design and display public art.
> Milwaukee claims to be the inventor of the weekly transit pass
… so, really? In the 20th century? I’m _almost_ certain that the Dublin and Kingstown Railway (1834) did season tickets; remember seeing one once. Even if not that, surely some one did in the century between the invention of commuter rail and the Milwaukee one?
(The Dublin and Kingstown railway is interesting in that it was clearly designed before people had figured out what commuter rail was _for_; on launch it was every half hour on weekdays… and every 15 mins on Sunday. These days it’s every ten mins on weekdays and every 20 mins on Sunday… But in the very early days there was definitely an impression that using commuter rail was a leisure activity.)
I remember using muni tokens in SF. It was great and I often had a stockpile of them so that when friends/family visited I could give them out to help them get around the city.
Carrying cash/something physical in general to pay for transit has basically gone away. I suspect this has helped ridership but there are a few losses too.
When my stepmother died we went through her things and found all sorts of ticket and metro stubs from the year she lived in Paris. I’m saddened by the loss of these ephemera that carry a little story. I went to Radiohead last December and the supposed “memory ticket” was just a flyer basically, with nothing personal about it.
On the other hand, a few years ago I was in Paris and when the metro spit my ticket back at me it blew away in the wind. I suppose there were some downsides…
Some places it remains - and I do find something cute about the physical train ticket that says NYP NYP that I used just today.
I would love to see more of this mindset - bring something new and unique in to the world, instead of mass produced, least price per unit mentality, like how car colors are trending towards black and white.
Not for transit please.
This kind of thing is illegible (not to mention inaccessible) for visitors. Someone comes to your city and they want to ride a train instead of driving their rental car into your downtown. Your transit requires a card. They're not comfortable with your language, they have to find a machine, and the first one doesn't work right.
They finally get a machine that works, after standing in line behind several other people. It turns out they need to buy a new special card and then load it with one of a number of confusing products.
They get your pretty card. Then they have to pay attention to where that card is at all times, and buy exactly the right number of tokens. They can only buy tokens in a few select locations in your city, realize they have run out, and end up Ubering for the rest of their trip.
We have wallets built into our phones now. Transit is a utility - it should universally take tap to pay, and more major cities are now rolling that out. Zero planning, zero extra "new and unique" objects to keep track of.
If you want a date based pass for a long visit instead of paying per trip, both Apple and Google have a way for you to buy transit passes directly from their wallet. You can always make that virtual card pretty.
The way I see it there is a bifurcation here: some people value convenience so they just use their regular credit card to pay per trip with no discounts; others don’t mind the mental overhead of getting a transit card, understanding the fare products, selecting the optimal fare products, standing in line to load the fare products onto the card in order to save money. It’s good to provide both.
Nothing you say is necessarily wrong or bad, but it is why we can’t have beautiful things and only utilitarian shit.
Some things should be a utility. Nice is important but transit should fade into the background while you live life. Don't make them ugly but utility needs to be first.
Utilitarians see the utility of everything and the value of nothing.
Having something as mundane as a transit pass be designed so beautifully installs a sense of civic pride. Plus, it employs artists. Both of these things are important for a community.
Transit passes may have been phased out in a lot of places, but there are lots of opportunities for a city to design and display public art.
Not much to say except it’s a nice collection and I’m glad someone is cataloguing these historical items.