Metrolinx: Presto Fare Card

[johntauren]

What do you mean? Presto was fully implmented across the GTA years ago. There was never an agreement to extend it to TTC until recently.

That's the problem.
It's fully implemented everywhere else in the GTA for years now and not on the TTC.
Presto started as a trial at Union station in 2007. What have they been doing for 7 years?
Neither TTC nor Presto seem to know what is going on...I asked them yesterday when it would go live on streetcars, and they don't know yet, even though it is November right now.

 

[nfitz]

That's the problem.
It's fully implemented everywhere else in the GTA for years now and not on the TTC.

There was never any plan to implement it on TTC until less than 2-yeasr ago, long after it was fully implemented elsewhere. The estimated cost was over $400 million and Metrolinx wanted TTC to foot the bill. TTC said no. I don't see any point in blaming TTC for not implementing it when it was going to cost an absolute fortune to install, and there were much cheaper solutions available, that would save us taxpayers a lot of money.

That's the problem.Presto started as a trial at Union station in 2007. What have they been doing for 7 years?

Under David Miller and Adam Giambrone TTC went ahead and was ready to tender a much cheaper system for about $100 million, that included smart-phones and debit cards. However the province under McGuinty fought to put a stop to this. Under Mayor Ford, they started negotiating a way for the province to keep TTC's costs the same, and for Metrolinx to implement Presto instead. The "trial" at Union was by Metrolinx - TTC was not involved, other than giving Metrolinx (or the Ministry of Transportation initially) permission to install the machines.

Neither TTC nor Presto seem to know what is going on...

Both the documents in linked in the previous posts explain in detail what is going on.

I asked them yesterday when it would go live on streetcars, and they don't know yet, even though it is November right now.

They promised November. Let's see if they deliver. Not sure I see the big deal - there are only 2 new streetcars, and will unlikely be anymore than 5 before the end of the year. There's only one more subway station scheduled to be added in 2014. It's not going to be overly useful until they start implementing it on the buses and old streetcars as part of Wave 2.

 

[TOareaFan]

@nfitz what you say is, undoubtedly, 100% accurate on this subject.

What I think you are "arguing" against is the public perception, however, that the Presto system has been in some sort of trial run at many TTC stations for a good long time and the perception of movement is very slow.

I, for one, don't blame the TTC....I don't really know who to blame other than, perhaps, we have collectively overcomplicated something that is seemingly not that complicated.

Rightly or wrongly....when those trial stations got their Presto machines years ago....and when we were not inundated with stories of them not working...I bet most people just thought they would start to see them rolled out in other stations and on other parts of the network.

 

[nfitz]

What I think you are "arguing" against is the public perception, however, that the Presto system has been in some sort of trial run at many TTC stations for a good long time and the perception of movement is very slow.

It does seem to be the meme.

But surely we can at least keep the record straight here.

I'd expect that after the person running Presto lost his job because of how badly the Ottawa deployment went, that Metrolinx is working very slowly and carefully implementing it at TTC - which is going to completely change the scale of back office operations. If it goes badly, it could bring down Presto in every city in Ontario.

Perhaps we should start an (obviously untrue) meme that the delay was all Rob Ford's fault, and now that Tory is in control, we'll start to see progress.

 

[Dan416]

I would lay at least some of the blame on Miller and Giambrone for this, and their intransigence. At least Ford agreed to implement Presto, even if the city wouldn't pay for it, at least they stopped looking at other systems.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

I would lay at least some of the blame on Miller and Giambrone for this, and their intransigence. At least Ford agreed to implement Presto, even if the city wouldn't pay for it, at least they stopped looking at other systems.

I also put a good chunk of the blame the TTC. It's all fine and good to talk about how the start-up costs were handled and how maybe the TTC would have found a cheaper open payment system (not that they had any clue, really, when they got the ball rolling). None of that changes the fact that the end result would have been the entire GTA (and Ottawa!) would have been on one system and the TTC on another. (And my larger view of TTC is that if the province hadn't foisted Presto on them and forced them to look at open payment, they'd probably still be fighting tooth and nail to protect their precious tokens-and-tickets operation. I wouldn't cite innovation and proactivity as key TTC characteristics over the past 40 years or so...)

I'm not going to defend the details of the Presto roll-out but the Miller/Giambrone decision to play a game of chicken with Metrolinx ultimately cost the transit riders of Toronto who are the last ones to come online. Drives me crazy, sometimes walking one more subway stop just so I can use my Presto card. I don't even know what the schedule is any more - is it supposed to be fully online for Pan Am? I'm guessing not.

At the end of the day, IMHO, playing the fault game is pointless. TTC was always going to have to sign onto Presto because the province (crazy fools that they are!) wanted the entire region on one system and, for all its flaws, that system was Presto. I suspect Miller and Giambrone knew that all along. IIRC it was the master agreement for Eglinton Crosstown that finally caused them to cave. The province said, "Uh, if you want us to fund this, you have to sign onto our fare system." And so they signed on, because they never had the cards to do anything else and were mostly wasting everyone's time.

All that said, I'm happy to participate in a meme that blames the whole darned thing on Rob Ford. At this point I suspect a few more niggling things like this won't make a difference so let's tack some on before he's done.

 

[PL1]

New TTC streetcars to begin taking Presto this month on Spadina line

Article by Tess Kalinowski just posted on The Toronto Star.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Article by Tess Kalinowski just posted on The Toronto Star.

*slow clap*

 

[ehlow]

Article by Tess Kalinowski just posted on The Toronto Star.

Is this thing where you have to tap twice and get a paper transfer in order to transfer temporary?

 

[innsertnamehere]

Until it is fully rolled out, yes. Once PRESTO is in place the card itself will be proof of payment.

 

[ksun]

I would lay at least some of the blame on Miller and Giambrone for this, and their intransigence. At least Ford agreed to implement Presto, even if the city wouldn't pay for it, at least they stopped looking at other systems.

Toronto should really stop doing this - politician's cancelling each other's plan under the justification of money saving resulting in nothing but more time and money wasted.
Once a plan is approved, it should be final. Anyone trying to change that should pay for all the associated cost personally.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Toronto should really stop doing this - politician's cancelling each other's plan under the justification of money saving resulting in nothing but more time and money wasted.
Once a plan is approved, it should be final. Anyone trying to change that should pay for all the associated cost personally.

Are you blaming Miller/Gimabrone or Ford?
I don't know remember what kind of "approval" there was for Toronto and Presto but it was always assumed they'd sign on.
They decided, on their own, to start pursuing another option as Presto was coming online everywhere else.
The province then made acceptance of Presto a requirement in order to obtain the Crosstown funding. So, nothing was really cancelled, they just wasted time and dithered and changed their minds, playing political games so only riders lost out. Well, gee, it sounds a bit like the whole Transit City/Subways thing, doesn't it?

Yeah, they need to stop changing their minds and, I'd argue, probably not even have the power to make these decisions in the first place.

 

[nfitz]

I don't know remember what kind of "approval" there was for Toronto and Presto but it was always assumed they'd sign on.

By the province, who then tendered it that way, assuming that the City would provide about $400 million to install it.

When the city realised that they could install their own smart-card system for closer to $100 million, and that it would also support cell phones and bank cards, unlike Presto, the city went their own direction, in order to save a lot of money.

Only after the city issued tenders, and had realistic bids, did the province finally come to the table, and offer to improve Presto, and find a way to make it a LOT cheaper for Toronto to install it (by the province paying for it up front, and receiving an increased % of each payment, while TTC's fare costs go down by about the same amount).

Had Miller and Giambrone rolled over and agreed to what the province initially wanted on Presto, it might have been installed. However either our taxes or transit fares would be higher.

 

[smably]

Are the stopside fare vending machines going to be retrofitted to accept Presto? Can't imagine using Presto on Spadina right now when your chances of getting a Presto-enabled streetcar are what they are now.

 

[salsa]

Is this thing where you have to tap twice and get a paper transfer in order to transfer temporary?

Yes, it's temporary pending the next temporary phase of the presto rollout, followed by another temporary solution until the TTC/Metrolinx finally gets its shit together. Dates TBD.