Also, it seems like the banks can charge whatever they want. I rode the train about 10 times last month using my bank card. I got charges for $2.25, $4, $4.50, and $5 from ventra.
How do you get charged $4 or $5 when taking the train?
Quote:
Originally Posted by oshkeoto
From the CTA's perspective, it was good to push people away from disposable dip cards because they're expensive to keep making and keep getting thrown away. (As an added bonus, also bad for the environment.) That's partly why the single-rides are now $3 - to strongly encourage anyone who rides more than once to get a plastic Ventra.
Ventra also means that they only have to make two kinds of cards - the heavy plastic one and the single-rides - instead of the dozen or so previous kinds. Instead of having separate cards for regular fare, low fare, seven-day pass, 30-day pass, etc., all of those functions can just be loaded onto a plastic Ventra card. Cheaper, more efficient, environmentally friendly, etc.
Ventra can also be registered, so if you lose your card, you don't actually lose the money on it.
And the longer-term reason is to move towards an open fare system, where people can use regular bank cards and phone apps to pay and don't have to have any CTA fare media at all.
Also, the MTA actually uses the exact same private company to do their cards as CTA uses for Ventra.
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