SEPTA To Use Tokens ‘Til You’re Dead

Now that the state legislature has given SEPTA adequate funding for the next whatever years, it’s only a matter of time before the transit agency ditches the token and moves to a more passenger-friendly card system used in, oh, pretty much everywhere else.

It is a matter of time, the problem being that “matter of time” here means “sometime two or three Popes from now.” SEPTA will be using tokens for the forseeable future, even though on August 1 paper transfers will be eliminated.

“We’re trying to get rid of the archaic 19th-century technology of tokens and transfers,” SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney told Metro. Ah, yes, I remember when Franklin Pierce used to climb onto SEPTA, paying his token for the bus and getting a paper transfer so he could ride the El downtown.

SEPTA does have new daily, weekly and monthly passes, which by getting rid of transfers they want everyone to buy. They’re also paying a consultant to tell them to switch to a card-based system. Whee!

SEPTA years from upgrading archaic fare collection system [Metro]