Dear Editor: Imposing the dishonoring of bus tickets at the SeaBus and train stations under the Compass scheme is, of course, one of the stupidest plans from a PR standpoint that could be imagined.
But it also smacks of disingenuousness. Every station now already has the technology to read and analyze a bus ticket. It's behind the slot you put your ticket in to buy an AddFare. All TransLink would have needed to do would be to put that technology in each new machine at a station, and modify it to issue not a replacement ticket as now, but a Compass ticket.
Alternatively, if they don't want a war - which is where they now seem to be headed - they could instruct their staff and police (and there's going to be a long, long period during which someone has to be at each station entrance, every minute of every day the systems are open, to help passengers with the new passes) to accept each unexpired bus ticket and do their magic to make the fare machine spit out a free Compass ticket.
A simplistic form of "magic" would be - if pushing buttons in the right pattern is too difficult - to give them a bag of cash to buy each valid bus ticket holder a free Compass ticket. Even that would be better than any epidemic of passengers vaulting over the gates or trying to smash them open.
There are a lot of questions that haven't yet been answered about the new system. For one little example, the Lost Property office at Stadium/Chinatown will now be sealed behind the fare gates. I'm told you can use your pass to get in and then get out again free within 10 minutes. Good luck standing in line while your umbrella is searched for and then getting out again that quickly.
Glad you felt so confident in your focus groups, Mr. Zabel. Now welcome to the real world.
Your employers could still rescue themselves from their horrible mistake. Let's see if they have the will to respond.
Anthony Buckland
North Vancouver
