🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4ov2o6$ovn@news2.cais.com> triathln@cais2.cais.com (Jason Mayfield) writes:
>From: triathln@cais2.cais.com (Jason Mayfield)
>Subject: Re: Metrocard Gripe
>Date: 3 Jun 1996 16:09:42 GMT

>Dennis A. Sutch (dsutch@cais.cais.com) wrote:

>: I don't remember the charge, but I remember not using my fare card when
>: exiting the system (there were just too many people to get through the
>: gates). I do know that on July 4 the Metro system does away with the
>: fare cards and collects a reduced fare (1 dollar or less?).

>This is incorrect.  I took the metro last fourth, to the mall (Smithsonian
>station) and still had to use my card and pay the normal non-rush fare of
>$1.10.  If they did this, it must have been a very limited time.

In Metro's early years (up to about the mid '80s, maybe), they didn't use 
farecards on July 4th and days when there was a big demonstration on the 
Mall.  Farecard machines were more prone to breaking down, and with big 
crowds they were afraid that they would have no working machines.

Instead, they positioned large metal barrels near the gates, and everyone 
was supposed to throw fifty cents in.  The gates were just left open, so it 
more or less amounted to the honor system.  At the time, the normal base 
fare was in the area of fifty-sixty cents.

They apparently have more confidence in the farecard machines now than 
they did then, and haven't used the barrel system for July 4th in several 
years.  A previous newsgroup entry said that they used it for 
Inauguration Day in 1993, but that's news to me.  I know they didn't use 
it for the Million Man March last October or for the Stand for Children 
demonstration last weekend.



Rob Means
Delphi International
1090 Vermont Avenue, N.W.
Seventh Floor
Washington, DC  20005
Tel.:  202/898-0960, ext. 67
rm@delphi-int.org