[HN Gopher] An observation on MetroCards, after a $1 fee (2013)
___________________________________________________________________
An observation on MetroCards, after a $1 fee (2013)
Author : nojito
Score : 32 points
Date : 2021-05-16 14:04 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (secondavenuesagas.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (secondavenuesagas.com)
| siruva07 wrote:
| The same observations are made on container deposits and
| recycling rates in the USA.
|
| There are 10 states in the United States with container deposit
| legislation.
|
| The US overall container recycling rate is ~ 33%, while states
| with a $0.05 container deposit laws have a ~70% average rate of
| container recycling.
|
| Michigan is over 90% as its deposit is $0.10.
|
| So why don't more states have "bottle bills?" Because Coke,
| Pepsi, and the beverage industry oppose it
|
| https://www.industryweek.com/the-economy/regulations/article...
| Ayesh wrote:
| ~70% for a $0.05 is pretty good. In Germany, it's around
| EUR0.40, and IIRC, has a 90% recycle rate.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| I guess just like Germany, poor people also collect the
| bottles for the $0.05?
|
| There was a program where a city gave people money in
| exchange for cigarette butts. Obviously the poor people
| collected the butts.
| jackjeff wrote:
| Typically homeless people would collect them in places
| where returning the bottles was impractical. Trains
| stations are a good example. I remember many people would
| also leave the bottles on top of the bin rather than
| tossing them inside, to make it easier for them.
|
| I lived a few years in Germany about 10yrs ago, and took a
| lot of trains (ICE). I miss those nice thick bottles. Much
| better than the flimsy ones we have in the UK and the whole
| redeeming of the bottles while doing your shopping was kind
| of fun.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| > In Germany, it's around EUR0.40
|
| I thought the deposit on single-use bottles/cans is (exactly)
| EUR 0.25, with significantly lower deposits for reusable
| bottles.
|
| Interestingly, Switzerland has a high recycling rate for PET
| despite not having any deposit.
| dheera wrote:
| When I lived in Zurich for a few months the only trash bags
| that were legal to use cost around $3 PER BAG. Recycling on
| the other hand is free.
|
| I don't know if that is throughout Switzerland but I reckon
| that had something to do with it.
|
| EDIT: That was a long time ago. I checked online and a 17
| liter (about 4 gallon) trash bag now costs 10.50CHF (USD
| 11.65) per bag.
| krrrh wrote:
| Switzerland is also the only country I've visited where
| everyone knew what PET is and could identify it from 20
| paces. I remember going to a movie theatre and naively
| wondering if the dedicated PET bins had something to do
| with dogs.
| walrus01 wrote:
| > Michigan
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bottle_Deposit
| JCharante wrote:
| Growing up in a state with container deposits (ME) I'm shocked
| that it's not a nationwide program. I guess that's why the
| bottles always list states where it's redeemable.
|
| I wonder how the lobbying didn't prevent this in the ten
| states.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| Government that works.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Do those recycling numbers take into account the number of
| people who don't pay a deposit, but get a deposit back? IE
| people buying sodas in Ohio and then taking them to Michigan to
| redeem a deposit?
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| The containers are marked with a Michigan deposit logo,
| assuming anybody looks.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Yes - when a person buys a bottle in Michigan, 10 cents is
| added to the cost. When they return the bottle to Michigan,
| 10 cents is given to them. However, when a person buys a
| bottle in Ohio, 0 cents is added to the cost. And they
| can't return the bottle anywhere in Ohio for any money.
| However, they can return the bottle in Michigan for 10
| cents, even though they never paid the deposit in the first
| place.
|
| So in that sense, naively doing (bottles returned)/(bottles
| sold) to determine the recycling rate of a state is wrong,
| because people will return bottles that were never sold in
| the state to begin with. So it would literally be possible
| to have a >100% recycling rate which doesn't make any
| sense.
| RhysU wrote:
| How often is the consumer who fronts the nickel the person
| redeeming the nickel? I suspect the nickels are, in aggregate,
| a regressive tax. I have no data, however, to back that claim.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| What makes you think that? In states with the nickel
| redemption, I've often seen homeless people collecting cans
| and bottles to return. This makes me suspect the average
| redeemer has less money than the average fronter.
| RhysU wrote:
| I would be willing to bet that the 99% pays at least 99% of
| those nickels and the 1% pays at most 1% of them.
|
| I would consider those nickels regressive if most of them
| come from the lower half of economic distribution even if
| they all end up in the hands of the homeless.
| kevindong wrote:
| I live in NY(C) which has container deposits. I don't
| personally know anyone that bothers trying to redeem the
| container deposit. I personally don't because it's really not
| worth my time at $0.05 per container. Particularly when I
| don't consume meaningful amounts of cans/bottles.
|
| Technically speaking, any retailer that sells containers is
| also required to redeem them. In practice consumers don't
| really bother since no one really wants to wait in the
| (frequently long) customer service line to talk to people to
| redeem containers. Some larger retailers have dedicated
| machines, but I still don't really bother since those
| machines aren't very convenient to get to for me.
|
| There's an entire "industry" where people pick containers out
| of recycling bins/trash/building-waste/building-recycling and
| then redeem it which creates interesting tensions with
| funding the NYC recycling program [0].
|
| [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/21/nyregion/new-york-
| city-fi...
| BurritoAlPastor wrote:
| As a native Californian, I've never redeemed a CRV in my
| life, and I'm not sure anybody I know does, either. The
| prospect of _not_ putting recycling in the recycling bin so I
| can have another errand in my life is remarkably unappealing,
| especially given that I'd make less than a dollar a month for
| doing so.
|
| There's a certain amount of people rummaging through the bins
| on trash night, but only in urban areas, and they can't be
| that thorough. I imagine that most of our recycling rate
| comes from ubiquitous curbside recycling programs, and the
| CRV goes to the waste management companies, who just keep it
| as profit.
| ghaff wrote:
| I basically never redeem deposits either. My town recycling
| center, which I go to a few times a year basically to dump
| all my Amazon cardboard, has a place you can leave deposit
| containers for a local animal shelter so I accumulate and
| take it in along with the cardboard.
| sneak wrote:
| It's a real bummer, as those of us who don't want our trips
| tracked/correlated now incur an extra $1 charge every single
| trip.
| floren wrote:
| You could maintain a small collection of cards, perhaps half a
| dozen, which you cycle through. Just keep them in a bowl by the
| door and grab one at random on the way out?
| sneak wrote:
| I no longer live in nyc, so this probably isn't practicable.
| walrus01 wrote:
| You would have to also be sure to only load those cards from
| cash, which is an additional hassle.
| sneak wrote:
| Anyone who cares about this sort of stuff already pays for
| most things in cash anyway. It's cards that are the
| additional hassle, really.
| dheera wrote:
| Related: Never hit the "$19" button when getting a new MetroCard
| -- they are actively trying to cheat you with that, as it will
| leave you with just $0.05 short of a fare leftover on a card.
|
| https://www.6sqft.com/19-05-is-the-perfect-amount-to-load-on...
|
| The article's number of $19.05 is likely out of date since the
| last fare increase though.
|
| And yes, the MTA is cheaper for hackers with an engineering
| degree and more expensive for unskilled laborers. SMH.
| hansor wrote:
| Can you tell me how much does it cost in US to have unlimited
| rides for month by MetroCard?
|
| I'm quite shocked that you do not(??) have flat feet. In my
| country it is 35$ per month for unlimited rides on metro, buses
| and trams.
| dheera wrote:
| There are daily/monthly plans in most US cities that you can
| add to your card, and if you do, it won't charge you per
| entry. For NYC it's $33 for 7 days or $127 for 30 days.
|
| The only people it really makes sense for are people who use
| it every single business day for commutes plus some more, and
| tourists who will use it several times in a single day. For
| people who don't use the system consistently every day it
| doesn't really make sense. In the case of NYC, 42 rides a
| month (== round trip every business day) still doesn't make
| sense to get a monthly pass, you need to also use it on the
| weekends for some more stuff in order for it to make sense.
| hansor wrote:
| So you are telling me that people do not travel 5x(10x) per
| week to work, and THEN in weekends by metro/buses? And its
| minority?
| dheera wrote:
| I think with actual NYC residents, yes, it makes perfect
| sense.
|
| The reality is the majority of people working in NYC
| don't live in NYC due to housing costs, so they won't
| need or even have access to the subway on weekends,
| they'll be in NJ or Long Island or somewhere else where
| subway coverage is sparse or non-existent, and other
| transit systems in those places don't take the MTA cards.
|
| And in terms of public transit usage, NYC is probably the
| highest in the US. I've lived in Boston and now near San
| Francisco.
|
| In my 10 years of living in the Boston area as a student,
| I never found a monthly pass useful, even when I was able
| to get a student pass for half price the math did not
| make it worth the cost. Being a student was special
| though because I was able to walk to 80% of the places I
| needed to go, and I had a bike which was pretty much 100%
| of my transportation during the summer months, and Boston
| is far more bike friendly than NYC in my opinion (modulo
| weather).
|
| In the SF bay area public transit coverage is so sparse
| it doesn't make sense to get a monthly pass either. Just
| yesterday I swiped into a BART station, then promptly
| swiped out and took an Uber from that BART station to my
| destination BART station because the wait time was 27
| minutes. And on several occasions I've been in trains
| that have hit pedestrians and cars or delayed by engine
| failures of sorts and gotten delayed for 90+ minutes so
| I've had to get off and get an Uber.
| ghaff wrote:
| Commuter rail passes make sense in Boston. I haven't gone
| into Boston regularly from the exurbs for ages. But when
| I was sometimes commuting there was a monthly pass and
| also a "10-pack" or whatever it was for irregular
| commuters like me.
|
| But, yeah, you generally have to be a very frequent
| transit user to benefit from passes.
| pessimizer wrote:
| The people who run public transport in the US realized 10
| or 20 years ago that you don't have to give discounts to
| people who need to take the train or bus to work every
| day. If anything, you should charge them more because
| they have no choice.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Many people get these subsidized.
| _delirium wrote:
| They got rid of the bonus for preloading larger amounts in
| 2019, which simplifies the math. Now any multiple of $2.75 is
| fine. For example, adding $22 to an existing card will get you
| 8 rides ($23 if you're getting a new card).
| dheera wrote:
| Got it. But having the buttons still say "$19" sounds pretty
| damn dishonest and manipulative to me.
|
| The buttons should really say "5 rides ($X.YZ)", "10 rides
| ($X.YZ)" or whatever and compute the exact amounts for the
| user.
| asdff wrote:
| Fares are a boondoggle that I won't be surprised to see
| eliminated by major cities in the next decades. LA metro is
| planning on moving to a fareless system. As it stands fares only
| cover a tiny portion of the operating budget, and most riders on
| public transit live below the poverty line in LA county at least
| so the fare weighs a lot more heavily than you might expect.
| _delirium wrote:
| > fares only cover a tiny portion of the operating budget
|
| This varies a lot by city and transit system. For example NYC
| subway + bus + train fares under the MTA umbrella amounted to
| $6 billion in 2019, which accounted for 38% of the total system
| budget [1]. The SF Bay Area's BART is another system that's
| largely fare-funded, with $485 million in fare revenue covering
| 52% of the 2019 budget [2]. It's definitely possible to
| eliminate these, but you'd need substantially more dedicated
| tax revenue.
|
| [1] https://new.mta.info/budget/MTA-operating-budget-basics
|
| [2]
| https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/Fiscal%20Year%...
| (p. 11)
| asdff wrote:
| Wow, I didn't realize these major systems were still so
| reliant on the farebox revenue. I thought that was what
| ultimately killed the private subway operators in NYC: a lack
| of subsidies or any other revenue for private companies
| beyond what they could make from the farebox. It seems like
| funding transit on dedicated tax revenue is the way to go. LA
| metro is building more transit projects than any agency in
| the country by far, and they are emerging from the pandemic
| with a 1.4 billion dollar larger budget than what they had
| before the pandemic in 2019. NYC subway can barely do regular
| maintenance, on the other hand.
|
| Sales taxes just make sense for funding infrastructure like
| transit, considering we all benefit from transit even if we
| don't personally use it. Transit alleviates congestion,
| improves air quality, and chances are if you live in a city,
| you probably rely on someone in your day to day life who
| themselves relies on transit to get around. It doesn't make
| sense to force the low paid worker to pay for the bulk of
| transit when their high paid bosses depend on them coming to
| work reliably on transit.
| tialaramex wrote:
| The London Underground's Oyster (more like OMNY than MetroCard)
| has a refundable deposit. So in principle you could give back
| your Oyster and get the deposit. Of course it's not very much
| money and most people might need an Oyster again sooner or later
| so this is rarely taken up, but it discourages people from
| throwing them away.
|
| Because people from far away are less likely to imagine ever
| needing an Oyster again, yet might still need one right now
| (especially before contactless payment cards would work just as
| well for most short term visitors) there was a scheme where you
| could just "donate" your card to charity at places like airports,
| I don't know if it still exists.
|
| Because Oyster is variable fare even in the simplest scenarios (a
| trip from Stockwell to Brixton for example, versus a train going
| from central London out to Amersham at the far end of the line
| are different prices, before any consideration about season
| tickets, time of day etc.) it is possible to have a card that's
| valid to enter the system (it has enough money that you could
| make some trip) but then make a trip it can't pay for. In this
| case the balance on the card falls below zero on exit, to use it
| again you'll need to first pay the excess _and_ enough for a ride
| somewhere. So you 'd expect to see some number of cards discarded
| in this state, since they are in some sense less than worthless.
| But the inconvenience of needing a new card seems to out-weigh
| that.
| gberger wrote:
| In practice, you don't even need to give the Oyster card back
| to collect the deposit.
| dheera wrote:
| This is the way almost all RFID systems I have used work,
| including Tokyo, Taipei, Singapore, Guangzhou, Hong Kong,
| Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Bangkok, Hangzhou,
| and the SF bay area.
|
| The RFID cards, however, are far more durable than the flimsy
| MetroCards that NYC uses.
|
| I keep all the cards from cities I visit though, since more
| often than not I end up passing through the city again within a
| few years. Some cities' cards unfortunately expire and eat all
| your balance, while others keep them for 10+ years.
|
| It's really nice though to just land at an airport and be on
| your way in minutes without fumbling and getting in line.
|
| On another hand I kind of miss the subway tokens that Boston
| used to use a long time ago. One of the advantages of tokens is
| that they are very much like NFTs in that if you have a token,
| it is a promise of a ride, any time, now or in the future. So
| you could also use them as an investment vehicle by buying 1000
| of them, and the transit agency gets 1000 * (fare price) in
| liquid cash upfront that they can use to scale their
| infrastructure and make upgrades, while you can re-sell those
| tokens at a profit 4 years later. Or if you were arriving in
| Boston for college, you could buy enough transit ride tokens
| for 4 years upfront, if you were smart. Unfortunately with the
| RFID systems they don't usually pay dividends or interest on
| the balance on the card.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Another pro of RFID is that phones can theoretically work.
| They just enabled iPhone support for Clipper here in the Bay
| Area.
| easton wrote:
| Is it using RFID or did they have to install NFC payment
| terminals at the turnstiles? My understanding (I haven't
| used it) is that for New York's OMNY system, they installed
| NFC hardware that Apple Pay knows not to ask for
| authentication with. (So that the Express Card
| functionality will work). But perhaps I am mistaken.
| selectodude wrote:
| They're RFID readers, you can set any card as "Express
| Pay" in Apple Pay and it doesn't require auth. I have my
| Ventra Card in Chicago as my "Express transit" card and
| it will still work even when the phone is off or dead.
| tialaramex wrote:
| I don't (as a rule) fly, so I certainly haven't visited as
| many far away cities as you. However, don't you find that
| increasingly contactless payment just works anyway?
|
| Certainly all Oyster terminals have accepted my Android phone
| for some time
|
| [If you use it constantly I believe the cheapest options
| still involve paying up front for an Oyster - but visiting
| once a week for work, or a few days on holiday the system
| tracks where you went, then works out after the fact what the
| cheapest way to do what you did would have been, and charges
| any contactless payment system accordingly]
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > However, don't you find that increasingly contactless
| payment just works anyway?
|
| Aside from the (bigger) reason that they aren't accepted in
| all stations yet, one reason I haven't switched in NYC is
| I'm nervous about my phone running out of battery.
| dheera wrote:
| Yes this. It's much more reliable to just put the RFID
| card inside my phone case. I can continue to swipe into
| transit "with my phone" even if the battery is dead.
|
| Also I always have to disable NFC on my phone because I
| have 2 phones and if they have NFC enabled they're always
| trying to talk to each other in my pocket and vibrating
| my crotch all day from it. Really bad UX.
| t3rabytes wrote:
| The iOS wallet implementation allows access to certain
| cards long after the phone is "dead"
| https://support.apple.com/guide/security/express-cards-
| with-...
| mtalantikite wrote:
| "The RFID cards, however, are far more durable than the
| flimsy MetroCards that NYC uses."
|
| Absolutely, when I lived in Chicago I had their RFID card
| which was relatively durable. And you could refill the
| balance online iirc. I moved to NYC in 2007 and eventually
| got used to the flimsy metrocards, always hoping that they'd
| get it together and get a contactless system in place.
|
| Well, it finally happened in NYC. I took the subway for the
| first time since the pandemic started not too long ago and
| all of the transit in the city has the new Omny card system.
| It just uses my default Apple Pay card and that's it. No
| passcode, faceid, etc. I just waved my phone in front of it,
| my card gets charged, and the turnstile is open.
|
| And it works on buses too! Finally no more having to run to a
| subway station to find a metrocard machine to refill my
| balance when I want to take the bus.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| In what way are Metrocards flimsy?
|
| After living in NYC for six years, it was actually nice to
| not have a full-sized, extra card just for transit but one
| that was super slim, flexible and barely takes up any room in
| a wallet.
| JCharante wrote:
| I really like Bangkok's integrations where the card you use
| for the BTS also works with some food courts, so it's an
| extra incentive to store it (you get to leave the airport and
| grab a meal without even having to go to an ATM!)
|
| Although having the BTS, MTR, and SkyTrain managed
| differently means having to store 3 thick cards plus extra
| cards for some food courts just for a single city.
|
| Do the subways in Chinese cities have a system where you can
| just load the cards onto your phone? Hmm, now that I think
| about it not many Chinese phones have NFC.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| The same in Japan, the Tokyo subway is actually run by
| several network operators, so sometimes when you change
| trains you have to exit one operator's station area and
| enter another one, and buying a different ticket in
| between. So the NFC cards (and here they have several
| providers as well) are very convenient, since all the
| network operators support all the cards. Also nicely, all
| the drinks machines I've encountered in Japan also support
| these cards. As well as all the arcade venues with their
| claw machines.
| dheera wrote:
| NFC isn't common in China. QR codes rule everything and are
| the standard way to do contactless payments in China. There
| are recently some cities e.g. Guangzhou that are
| implementing Wechat QR code scan entry to metros as an
| option. They claim to have it down to 0.2 seconds which if
| true is impressive. I haven't tried it. I find the physical
| cards easier since you don't have to fumble with the
| phone's UI, they aren't dependent on batteries, and you can
| shove them in your phone case and forget about them.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I've never used a QR code based system, but it seems to
| me like it could be the best of both worlds.
|
| > I find the physical cards easier since you don't have
| to fumble with the phone's UI, they aren't dependent on
| batteries, and you can shove them in your phone case and
| forget about them.
|
| So... print out the QR code and shove it in your phone
| case and forget about it?
|
| And if you forget / lose / break the print-out, but still
| have your phone, you're good to go.
| dheera wrote:
| > So... print out the QR code and shove it in your phone
| case and forget about it?
|
| That won't work. WeChat and AliPay QR codes change every
| minute for security, if you are paying _from_ an account
| with a QR code.
|
| You can pay _to_ a statically printed QR code by scanning
| it with your camera (streetside food sellers do this),
| but you cannot pay from a static code.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| That's too bad... Are they generated by a central server
| or are they based on a fixed seed, like OTP codes?
|
| I'm wondering whether this could be implemented on some
| kind of low-powered e-ink device like some OTP tokens.
| dheera wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it's a weird hybrid of a mostly
| centralized system and some on-device for the case where
| the user has momentary reception loss but the merchant
| still has a solid internet connection. I'm pretty sure
| you can't be without reception for too long, it's not
| like an OTP key.
|
| The mobile app is very opaque and not decompiler-
| friendly, so I can't say with 100% certainty what it is.
|
| As far as a low-powered electronic device I think that's
| exactly what an RFID card is, and they work very well.
| The only real downside is lack of inter-city recognition
| of RFID systems, but I suppose the reality is most people
| only travel frequently between a consistent set of 1-3
| cities and not usually more than that. My RFID "brick" of
| 20+ cards is quite the exception, and I'm more of a
| public transit enthusiast than most people, who usually
| just take taxis/rideshares when they travel to unfamiliar
| cities.
| ghaff wrote:
| One of the problems with a lot of RFID systems (or even
| generally non-token systems) that you need to get from a
| machine is that now, rather than sliding a couple dollar
| bills under a glass and getting a token in return, now you
| have confused tourists, often tired from travel, fumbling
| with unfamiliar machines with lousy UIs.
|
| You see it too at busy tourist areas of a city.
|
| In my experience, pretty much no one streamlines the
| experience of buying transportation tickets for people who
| aren't familiar with the system and may not speak the
| language.
| kzrdude wrote:
| It really makes me so sad. My dad is too stubborn to use an
| app when he travels to my city, so he'd be just as likely
| to just take a cab instead of public transport, paying 10x
| extra because their ticket system is unwelcoming to
| visitors.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I think it depends on location. In Paris, a machine usually
| is quicker, especially for non-French-speaking people.
|
| Tellers mostly don't speak English and sometimes the
| intercom system barely works so even a French-speaking
| person will have a hard time communicating.
|
| On the machine, a ticket to / from the airport is one of
| the first choices available, after language selection.
|
| Of course, if your final destination isn't inside Paris
| proper, you may have harder time and may need to consult a
| map since fares aren't fixed.
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't remember Paris as being a particular offender and
| I've taken the Metro around Paris quite a bit. Probably
| doesn't hurt that I can at least read French a bit. (I
| would characterize my French as putrid but I was there
| with a friend who doesn't know it at all and it does make
| a difference in general.)
| dheera wrote:
| I don't think language is the issue, but many of the
| machines have terrible UI design even if you select English
| or your native language.
|
| In SF you have to insert your Clipper card TWICE, and
| listen to 9600 baud modem beep-booping in-between, and many
| stations don't even have recharge machines, and you have to
| go Walgreens (WTF) to get a transit card.
|
| In China international credit cards aren't even accepted by
| the machines. In general tourists and business travellers
| are stuck dealing with cash while locals use mobile
| payments, which require a local SIM card and local bank
| account to use. (Now visitors _can_ legally get these with
| just their passport, after which they can enjoy all the
| benefits of the Chinese internet ecosystem, but it 's time
| consuming getting in line for them, it's almost impossible
| for people who don't speak the local language, and not all
| bank tellers actually know how to input a passport number
| instead of a national ID number into their system.)
|
| Most of them have terrible UX for tourists.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Can you actually exit the system without scanning the card
| again?
| dheera wrote:
| It depends on the system.
|
| Most Asian metro systems charge a fine-grained per-distance
| fare, so they require scanning on exit.
|
| Boston (and NYC I think?) is per-ride except for a couple
| stations that charge a surcharge to exit, so exiting
| doesn't require scanning except at those couple of
| stations.
| sthnblllII wrote:
| Reusing an electronic payment allows your trips to he connected
| and used to track you. There was nothing wrong with tokens and
| this fee is a huge increase for people who don't want to be
| tracked. RFID would make it even more difficult to avoid the eye
| of sauron.
| sneak wrote:
| There are single-use paper metrocards that come out of the
| machines. They haven't used tokens for many years.
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