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Post by Gokhan on Nov 24, 2015 22:44:54 GMT -8
Official Expo Line Culver City Station pigeon was inspecting the train today:
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Post by pithecanthropus on Dec 19, 2015 11:15:36 GMT -8
The resident population density of the Expo corridor may be low, but it's not merely a question of how many people sleep in the area at night. You also have to consider the number of people who need to travel through the corridor twice a day. Granted, Expo is somewhat removed from the epicenters of West Side and Midcity traffic congestion and gridlock. But if I still lived in Palms and had downtown jury duty or something, I would go out of my way to use the train tather than drive.
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Post by bobdavis on Dec 19, 2015 16:56:05 GMT -8
This is one of the challenges of building rail transit in Los Angeles County (or any other heavily built up area). When extending the Gold Line from East Pasadena was being contemplated, the ideal route would have diverged from the Santa Fe line at Arcadia, and headed east on the old Pacific Electric alignment. But this would be almost impossible (without several cubic acres of money) because the 210 Freeway embankment and numerous homes now occupy the former right of way in Arcadia, Monrovia and Duarte. This path would also involve street running in Arcadia, Monrovia and Azusa.
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Post by darrell on Dec 19, 2015 19:32:06 GMT -8
The resident population density of the Expo corridor may be low, but it's not merely a question of how many people sleep in the area at night. You also have to consider the number of people who need to travel through the corridor twice a day. Granted, Expo is somewhat removed from the epicenters of West Side and Midcity traffic congestion and gridlock. But if I still lived in Palms and had downtown jury duty or something, I would go out of my way to use the train tather than drive. I developed these a number of years ago to address that very issue. In short, there are areas of large population density along Expo - not to mention many jobs at both ends and along the way - and as a corridor it is denser than most.
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Post by masonite on Dec 20, 2015 9:28:56 GMT -8
The resident population density of the Expo corridor may be low, but it's not merely a question of how many people sleep in the area at night. You also have to consider the number of people who need to travel through the corridor twice a day. Granted, Expo is somewhat removed from the epicenters of West Side and Midcity traffic congestion and gridlock. But if I still lived in Palms and had downtown jury duty or something, I would go out of my way to use the train tather than drive. I developed these a number of years ago to address that very issue. In short, there are areas of large population density along Expo - not to mention many jobs at both ends and along the way - and as a corridor it is denser than most. It is still dense around the line. However, the problem is that it is much more dense with people and jobs north of the ROW. Also, around much of the Line it is poorly setup for walking. Example is Bundy. Area is single family homes as the dense apartment area doesn't start until you go about .75 miles north and the corner around from the station has two gas stations and a car dealership, not to mention a very wide Olympic Blvd that is horrible for pedestrians. There are other similar examples like La Cienega. Will be interesting to see how the line performs when open.
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Post by Gokhan on Dec 21, 2015 16:36:07 GMT -8
It turns out that the official Expo Line Culver City Station pigeon (the one in the foreground with a white mark on top of its head) is an alpha male. I had mistakenly reported him to be a female earlier.
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Post by Gokhan on Mar 15, 2016 15:08:33 GMT -8
Metro has posted the schedule of the Expo Line Phase 2 prerevenue trains. Prerevenue service will start on March 20 (this Sunday) and it will last for two months until the May 20 revenue opening. Trip times are somewhat disappointing and hopefully they can improve them. While the eastbound trip is taking 47 minutes, westbound trip is taking a whole 50 minutes. Expo Authority had promised 46 minutes or less. Nine two-car trains will run every twelve minutes, which will be unbearably crowded when the line opens, as it's expected to add 10,000–20,000 initial riders. www.scribd.com/doc/304797094/d14-Summaries
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Post by bzcat on Mar 15, 2016 15:28:13 GMT -8
I'm sure they put a lot of slack into the schedule to be on the safe side.
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Post by Gokhan on Mar 15, 2016 16:17:58 GMT -8
It just occurred to me that they need to hold the westbound prerevenue trains at Culver City for a few minutes to make sure that everyone is boarded off. So, westbound trip should also take about 47 minutes if you account for that.
Prerevenue (not preview) means a real simulation of the actual revenue service without passengers. Trains run on the regular timetable but no passengers are allowed -- everyone on westbound trains exists at Culver City.
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Post by bzzzt on Mar 15, 2016 18:04:35 GMT -8
I think it's high time that the City give Expo priority at all traffic lights. It's amazing on the GLFE.
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Post by Gokhan on Mar 15, 2016 18:19:25 GMT -8
After studying the schedule, it's actually 47 minutes in each direction. Three minutes extra for the westbound direction is only during prerevenue to disembark the passengers at Venice/Robertson.
One thing they are ignoring is that once the 10 MPH and stop-and-proceed at Venice/Roberston is removed, they will gain a minute. The other thing that got my attention is that the Cheviot Hills section of the line is the slowest section. This is probably because of the narrow, curvy tunnel. They are estimating 11 minutes from Venice/Robertson to Bundy. I think they could also shave 1 minute there and they could reduce the overall trip time to 45 minutes from 47 minutes.
The only thing I can think for Phase 1 is to increase the Farmdale speed limit to 25 MPH from 10 MPH but that's political.
One thing that surprised me is that the Colorado Avenue section is incredibly fast -- only three minutes with so many traffic lights, a curve leading to the station, and stop-and-proceed because it's the end of the line. That's pretty amazing and it means that Santa Monica, unlike Los Angeles, gave full signal preemption to trains.
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Post by Gokhan on Mar 15, 2016 21:33:23 GMT -8
More details:
The trains will dwell at 4th St/Colorado Ave for only 3 minutes. There will be only one train at the three-track station at a time. This should reduce train conflicts to almost zero. However, the operators get to rest for 15 minutes, meaning they drive the second-next scheduled train back to 7th St/Metro Center.
At 7th St/Metro Center, operators get to rest for 14 minutes, driving the second-next scheduled train to Santa Monica (4th St/Colorado Ave). Trains dwell for 8 minutes: the first 2 minutes for the initial Track 1 dwell for arrival and then switching to Tail Track 2, the next 4 minutes for moving back from Tail Track 2 to Track 2, and the last 2 minutes for dwelling at Track 2 for departure to Santa Monica.
Once the prerevenue is over, they will gain 3 more minutes for dwell time, as they don't need to hold the trains at Culver City for disembarking all the passengers. If they speed the line by 2 minutes in one direction, they gain an additional 4 minutes for dwell time.
Round-trip time + dwell time at Terminal A + dwell time at Terminal B = Number of trains x one-way headway
(50 + 47) + 8 + 3 = 9 x 12
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Post by transitfan on Mar 16, 2016 6:33:14 GMT -8
More details: The trains will dwell at 4th St/Colorado Ave for only 3 minutes. There will be only one train at the three-track station at a time. This should reduce train conflicts to almost zero. However, the operators get to rest for 15 minutes, meaning they drive the second-next scheduled train back to 7th St/Metro Center. At 7th St/Metro Center, operators get to rest for 14 minutes, driving the second-next scheduled train to Santa Monica (4th St/Colorado Ave). Trains dwell for 8 minutes: the first 2 minutes for the initial Track 1 dwell for arrival and then switching to Tail Track 2, the next 4 minutes for moving back from Tail Track 2 to Track 2, and the last 2 minutes for dwelling at Track 2 for departure to Santa Monica. Once the prerevenue is over, they will gain 3 more minutes for dwell time, as they don't need to hold the trains at Culver City for disembarking all the passengers. If they speed the line by 2 minutes in one direction, they gain an additional 4 minutes for dwell time. Round-trip time + dwell time at Terminal A + dwell time at Terminal B = Number of trains x one-way headway (50 + 47) + 8 + 3 = 9 x 12 So they will fall back at Santa Monica and 7th/Metro. I know in the past, the Blue Line used a "gap train" (TR 29) that would bring in the extra operator around 5 AM, before that, with a 15 minute headway from 4-5AM, the same operator would arrive and depart 7MC on the same train. Meanwhile, the gap train was protection in case a train went down further down the line (I saw it put into service at 7MC more than once when I lived out there). So I wonder if there will also be a gap train at Santa Monica (on the third track). If not, the extra operator would just have to deadhead from Division 11 (and later from Division 14 (or is it 24? I get the division numbers from the Expo and Foothill extensions mixed up)
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Post by Gokhan on Mar 16, 2016 11:47:56 GMT -8
More details: The trains will dwell at 4th St/Colorado Ave for only 3 minutes. There will be only one train at the three-track station at a time. This should reduce train conflicts to almost zero. However, the operators get to rest for 15 minutes, meaning they drive the second-next scheduled train back to 7th St/Metro Center. At 7th St/Metro Center, operators get to rest for 14 minutes, driving the second-next scheduled train to Santa Monica (4th St/Colorado Ave). Trains dwell for 8 minutes: the first 2 minutes for the initial Track 1 dwell for arrival and then switching to Tail Track 2, the next 4 minutes for moving back from Tail Track 2 to Track 2, and the last 2 minutes for dwelling at Track 2 for departure to Santa Monica. Once the prerevenue is over, they will gain 3 more minutes for dwell time, as they don't need to hold the trains at Culver City for disembarking all the passengers. If they speed the line by 2 minutes in one direction, they gain an additional 4 minutes for dwell time. Round-trip time + dwell time at Terminal A + dwell time at Terminal B = Number of trains x one-way headway (50 + 47) + 8 + 3 = 9 x 12 So they will fall back at Santa Monica and 7th/Metro. I know in the past, the Blue Line used a "gap train" (TR 29) that would bring in the extra operator around 5 AM, before that, with a 15 minute headway from 4-5AM, the same operator would arrive and depart 7MC on the same train. Meanwhile, the gap train was protection in case a train went down further down the line (I saw it put into service at 7MC more than once when I lived out there). So I wonder if there will also be a gap train at Santa Monica (on the third track). If not, the extra operator would just have to deadhead from Division 11 (and later from Division 14 (or is it 24? I get the division numbers from the Expo and Foothill extensions mixed up) That's actually correct. In addition to the 9 running trains -- Trains 601 - 609 -- I see a 10th train -- Train 610 -- which will be secured and stored at 4th St/Colorado Ave (on Track 5) as a gap train from 6:39 am to 11:55 pm.
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Post by bzcat on Mar 16, 2016 14:18:51 GMT -8
One thing that surprised me is that the Colorado Avenue section is incredibly fast -- only three minutes with so many traffic lights, a curve leading to the station, and stop-and-proceed because it's the end of the line. That's pretty amazing and it means that Santa Monica, unlike Los Angeles, gave full signal preemption to trains. The SM city council approved signal preemption a long time ago. We haven't seen it in preliminary testing but I expect it will happen during the pre-revenue testing. The fact that Long Beach and LA are still holding train up for a few cars at intersections is really a travesty.
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Post by johanragle on Mar 16, 2016 17:01:16 GMT -8
Major power disruption between La Cienega/Jefferson and Culver City station right around 5 PM. WB trains are being turned around at La Cienega and they're waiting on a bus shuttle.
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Post by Gokhan on Mar 17, 2016 14:12:55 GMT -8
I was there and it was a mess. Bus bridges don't work. I ended up walking.
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Post by johanragle on Mar 18, 2016 7:50:03 GMT -8
I was there and it was a mess. Bus bridges don't work. I ended up walking. It looked like the first bus from Culver City arrived shortly after 6 PM. Walking the two mile distance should only take about 30 minutes; absurd, really.
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Post by fissure on Mar 18, 2016 9:35:08 GMT -8
It's actually only one mile, so <20 minutes if you walk at a decent pace.
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Post by Gokhan on Mar 18, 2016 10:12:32 GMT -8
Yes, exactly a mile between La Cienega and Venice/Robertson. You wait for one hour for the bus, meanwhile five trains unload about 500 passengers. 400 of them are waiting to get on the bus and the nonarticulated bus can only take 80. Absurd really...
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Post by joshuanickel on Mar 18, 2016 11:43:55 GMT -8
Yes, exactly a mile between La Cienega and Venice/Robertson. You wait for one hour for the bus, meanwhile five trains unload about 500 passengers. 400 of them are waiting to get on the bus and the nonarticulated bus can only take 80. Absurd really... This problem will only get worse when the expo line is extended to Santa Monica. The closest bus division is Division 7 in West Hollywood. If a bus bridge is needed, it will take forever for buses to get there, especially in rush hour. If only there was a bus division that was closer to the expo line. Unfortunately, the bus division that should be around for this sort of thing (Division 6 on Main St. in Venice) was closed to move the operations to the new division 13 in Downtown LA.
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Post by bzcat on Mar 18, 2016 16:01:52 GMT -8
Yes, exactly a mile between La Cienega and Venice/Robertson. You wait for one hour for the bus, meanwhile five trains unload about 500 passengers. 400 of them are waiting to get on the bus and the nonarticulated bus can only take 80. Absurd really... This problem will only get worse when the expo line is extended to Santa Monica. The closest bus division is Division 7 in West Hollywood. If a bus bridge is needed, it will take forever for buses to get there, especially in rush hour. If only there was a bus division that was closer to the expo line. Unfortunately, the bus division that should be around for this sort of thing (Division 6 on Main St. in Venice) was closed to move the operations to the new division 13 in Downtown LA. I think Big Blue Bus will be able to provide this sort of thing with much more efficiency than Metro even if Div6 was not shut down. I'm actually curious if there is any agreement between Metro and BBB to provide emergency bus bridge within the BBB service area. And if BBB will do it themselves without any agreement with Metro - let say if service between Bundy and 17th St SMC station is disrupted, BBB could easily just bus people to SMC rather than wait for Metro bus to show up.
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 6, 2016 13:38:37 GMT -8
Most eastbound trains seem to be late a couple of minutes to the Culver City Station. So, currently the travel time from DTSM to DTLA is around 49 minutes.
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Post by masonite on Apr 6, 2016 15:02:42 GMT -8
Most eastbound trains seem to be late a couple of minutes to the Culver City Station. So, currently the travel time from DTSM to DTLA is around 49 minutes. That is something hopefully they can get down to the 46 minutes. Another thing that is worrisome is the fact that the SM BBB provides most of the access to stations in Phase II. Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but the whole transfer process is pretty tough from BBB to MetroRail. If you have a TAP card, you pay your fare on BBB and then you have to pay the Interagency transfer fare of 50 cents in cash and they give you a separate transfer TAP card. Just seems unreal that BBB drivers are going to have to do this for almost every passenger on some lines. What a pain and it totally defeats the convenience of the TAP card not to mention it is going to be time consuming for the driver, the bus and the passenger. I know they are working to make this more seamless, but not sure if it will be ready by May 20.
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Post by bzcat on Apr 7, 2016 12:07:35 GMT -8
Most eastbound trains seem to be late a couple of minutes to the Culver City Station. So, currently the travel time from DTSM to DTLA is around 49 minutes. That is something hopefully they can get down to the 46 minutes. Another thing that is worrisome is the fact that the SM BBB provides most of the access to stations in Phase II. Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but the whole transfer process is pretty tough from BBB to MetroRail. If you have a TAP card, you pay your fare on BBB and then you have to pay the Interagency transfer fare of 50 cents in cash and they give you a separate transfer TAP card. Just seems unreal that BBB drivers are going to have to do this for almost every passenger on some lines. What a pain and it totally defeats the convenience of the TAP card not to mention it is going to be time consuming for the driver, the bus and the passenger. I know they are working to make this more seamless, but not sure if it will be ready by May 20. You can pay for the transfer with TAP cash balance on BBB. No need to pay cash. But you do still get a paper transfer instead of an electronic one (i.e. BBB driver deducts $1.75 from my TAP card when I board R7 or R3 and asks for a Metro transfer) The problem is Metro won't change the coding on TAP to allow electronic inter-agency transfer. Probably has something to do with how they count number of boarding for the subsidy calculation. The fundamental problem with TAP implementation from Day 1 was that fare systems were not unified. In theory, if you pay for a transfer from your cash balance in TAP, it should let you board the next bus or train for free (no matter which agency operates the next bus or train). But that assumes all the agencies in the county operates on the same fare rules, which they don't... In order for TAP to really work seamlessly, all the agencies in LA County need to use the same fare rules and transfer policies. My preference would be no more paid transfers (whatsoever) but everyone gets to transfer for free once within 2 hours (i.e. the current Metro fare rule). However, you can see why BBB would not like this... their base fare is only $1.25 vs. Metro's $1.75.
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Post by joshuanickel on Apr 8, 2016 10:39:30 GMT -8
That is something hopefully they can get down to the 46 minutes. Another thing that is worrisome is the fact that the SM BBB provides most of the access to stations in Phase II. Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but the whole transfer process is pretty tough from BBB to MetroRail. If you have a TAP card, you pay your fare on BBB and then you have to pay the Interagency transfer fare of 50 cents in cash and they give you a separate transfer TAP card. Just seems unreal that BBB drivers are going to have to do this for almost every passenger on some lines. What a pain and it totally defeats the convenience of the TAP card not to mention it is going to be time consuming for the driver, the bus and the passenger. I know they are working to make this more seamless, but not sure if it will be ready by May 20. You can pay for the transfer with TAP cash balance on BBB. No need to pay cash. But you do still get a paper transfer instead of an electronic one (i.e. BBB driver deducts $1.75 from my TAP card when I board R7 or R3 and asks for a Metro transfer) The problem is Metro won't change the coding on TAP to allow electronic inter-agency transfer. Probably has something to do with how they count number of boarding for the subsidy calculation. The fundamental problem with TAP implementation from Day 1 was that fare systems were not unified. In theory, if you pay for a transfer from your cash balance in TAP, it should let you board the next bus or train for free (no matter which agency operates the next bus or train). But that assumes all the agencies in the county operates on the same fare rules, which they don't... In order for TAP to really work seamlessly, all the agencies in LA County need to use the same fare rules and transfer policies. My preference would be no more paid transfers (whatsoever) but everyone gets to transfer for free once within 2 hours (i.e. the current Metro fare rule). However, you can see why BBB would not like this... their base fare is only $1.25 vs. Metro's $1.75. When did that start for big blue bus to be able to deduct more than the $1.25 base fare? I was told that they have no way to set the mobile validators (little machine next to the fare box) to deduct $0.50 for the transfers. That is also why you have to pay an additional $1.25 in cash on the R10 when you use a tap card.
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Post by johanragle on Apr 8, 2016 14:19:41 GMT -8
You can pay for the transfer with TAP cash balance on BBB. No need to pay cash. But you do still get a paper transfer instead of an electronic one (i.e. BBB driver deducts $1.75 from my TAP card when I board R7 or R3 and asks for a Metro transfer) The problem is Metro won't change the coding on TAP to allow electronic inter-agency transfer. Probably has something to do with how they count number of boarding for the subsidy calculation. The fundamental problem with TAP implementation from Day 1 was that fare systems were not unified. In theory, if you pay for a transfer from your cash balance in TAP, it should let you board the next bus or train for free (no matter which agency operates the next bus or train). But that assumes all the agencies in the county operates on the same fare rules, which they don't... In order for TAP to really work seamlessly, all the agencies in LA County need to use the same fare rules and transfer policies. I was using TAP cash balance and switching between Metro and Foothill Transit on a daily basis some time ago. The easiest way to do a transfer from a Metro Rail station outbound is to walk to one of the TAP machines and buy an electronic inter-agency transfer after you get off the train at the last stop. Those are now accepted systemwide, so when you get on a BBB and tap your card, it will either be free or have an upcharge depending on which line you're getting on (for the Silver Streak it was IIRC $0.90). Inbound from BBB, when you get on the bus, you tap your card and then ask the driver for an electronic transfer. They should hopefully be familiar with it now; it took Foothill Transit a while to train their drivers how to do that properly. Once you have the transfer loaded on your TAP card, you can then transfer for free at the destination Metro station. If Foothill Transit can do it, and BBB still won't do inter-agency electronic transfers, it's not Metro's fault, but BBB's fault, for not implementing everything correctly. Don't forget that BBB was the last holdout for accepting TAP cards.
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 8, 2016 14:41:18 GMT -8
It will be a rainy Festival of Books at USC.
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Post by joshuanickel on Apr 8, 2016 15:28:29 GMT -8
You can pay for the transfer with TAP cash balance on BBB. No need to pay cash. But you do still get a paper transfer instead of an electronic one (i.e. BBB driver deducts $1.75 from my TAP card when I board R7 or R3 and asks for a Metro transfer) The problem is Metro won't change the coding on TAP to allow electronic inter-agency transfer. Probably has something to do with how they count number of boarding for the subsidy calculation. The fundamental problem with TAP implementation from Day 1 was that fare systems were not unified. In theory, if you pay for a transfer from your cash balance in TAP, it should let you board the next bus or train for free (no matter which agency operates the next bus or train). But that assumes all the agencies in the county operates on the same fare rules, which they don't... In order for TAP to really work seamlessly, all the agencies in LA County need to use the same fare rules and transfer policies. I was using TAP cash balance and switching between Metro and Foothill Transit on a daily basis some time ago. The easiest way to do a transfer from a Metro Rail station outbound is to walk to one of the TAP machines and buy an electronic inter-agency transfer after you get off the train at the last stop. Those are now accepted systemwide, so when you get on a BBB and tap your card, it will either be free or have an upcharge depending on which line you're getting on (for the Silver Streak it was IIRC $0.90). Inbound from BBB, when you get on the bus, you tap your card and then ask the driver for an electronic transfer. They should hopefully be familiar with it now; it took Foothill Transit a while to train their drivers how to do that properly. Once you have the transfer loaded on your TAP card, you can then transfer for free at the destination Metro station. If Foothill Transit can do it, and BBB still won't do inter-agency electronic transfers, it's not Metro's fault, but BBB's fault, for not implementing everything correctly. Don't forget that BBB was the last holdout for accepting TAP cards. The difference between Foothill Transit and the Big Blue Bus is that Foothill transit has it where you can tap your card directly on the farebox. On the BBB, you tap you card on a small little validator next to the fare box which is set up to deduct the base fare ($1.25) or validate a pass that is already on the tap card (i.e. EZ pass or other passes). Here is a picture of the validators: The system when installed was not set up for the Driver to be able to press a button and it change what is deducted from the card. On the Rapid 10, if you tap your card, it only deducts $1.25 and requires you then need to have an additional $1.25 in cash to pay the full fare or wait for the validator to let you tap again (which is 15 minutes I believe). For transfers, you pay the $0.50 in cash and they give you a special tap ticket that you use at the rail stations:
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Post by Alexis Kasperavičius on Apr 13, 2016 18:14:32 GMT -8
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