If so, do you realise that for a zone 1-2 single peak period journey it is costing you $1.62 more than if you used a go card?
Did you realise that for the same single journey during the off-peak period it is costing you $2.33 more to use a paper ticket than using a go card?
If you commute from further out, a paper ticket is even more expensive compared to using the go card, up to $8.85 more expensive per single journey!!!
With the initial cost of a go card being $5 (and that is refundable) you have to be bonkers to still be using a paper ticket.
Still want to use a paper ticket? Why don't you just burn your hard earned money instead? Or maybe flush it down the toilet?
PS: Have you also noticed other commuters giving you nasty looks whilst you delay the bus when buying your paper ticket?
I believe there are reasons to retain paper tickets for a significant interim for the sole use of seniors (and others who may experience technical difficulty when it comes to the GoCard). Seniors should be able to get on a bus and ask the driver to take them a few 100m down the road on a less than $1 paper ticket. I see seniors everyday on my route #375 paying $2.60 to go from Paddington Central to Paddington (where the GP is). That is obscene and in my view almost tantamount to a violation of providing the basic human right of mobility.
ReplyDeleteUNLESS TransLink offers pre-loaded $5 GoCards ON THE BUS or FROM MACHINES at train/busway stations after paper-tickets are discontinued, all of the above should be disregarded.
They can buy and top up their go card at Paddington Central - so there is no excuse for using paper tickets! They just need to keep a float of more than one journey on their go-card to be able to get back home, and back to the shops again.
ReplyDeleteA short distance fare is technically possible on the go card, it is done in London on the Oyster.
Have pity on some paper ticket purchasers, for instance only a couple of days my go card expired when I thought I had another week left and thus had to buy a ticket. What if you forget your go card?
ReplyDeletePaper tickets are there as a backup system, they have saved my butt on more than one occasion.
While I grumble at cash-users holding up boarding, I've also gotten to the bus stop a time or two and realised I've left my gocard at home, or haven't been able to find it down the bottom of my briefcase. Paying the cash-ticket ripoff is a good reminder to be more organised.
ReplyDeleteBut I can't support abolition of paper tickets until the AWFUL situation of
gocard recharge availability is fixed---there isn't even a topup machine on each platform
at the Cultural Centre - the largest stop in the network, nor any machines at many major suburban interchanges.
The complete botching of the temporary/disposable gocard option is also laughable; the wholesale cost of a smartcard is only about 50c.
Finally, translink playing favourites with which retailers may be gocard agents is also indefensible.
One of the things I hate about the current system is the rigid top up values for go cards.
ReplyDeleteThey made sense for translink under a system without paper tickets because ticket machines would not have to deal with giving change or accepting coins. It's an inconvenience for commuters(particularly train), but passable.
Since paper tickets remain with coin payment as an option it's possible to have enough money to cover travel, but not in it's current form.
If someone wants to travel 3 zones by train from an unattended station and only has $5 in coins and no credit on their go card they are stuck. The machines won't allow go card top ups in coins and a paper ticket that can be paid for in coins costs more than $5. Dispute having a go card and even having enough for a top up value they can't pay the $4.24 Peak/$3.40 Off peak go card fare or the $6.20 paper ticket.
I think at very least the $5 top up should accept coins. Personally I would like variable top ups. Coins remain so why shouldn't people be allowed to pay their fare by any means?