The MBTA's transition away from monthly passes and tokens to the Charlie Card is so far a complete fiasco. I'll save my rant about the Rube Goldberg-style gates for another day, but the way they're managing the switchover has to be about the least optimal way they could have done it.
The stations are being converted in a seemingly random order, with no posted information on which stations are converted and which ones aren't. This wouldn't be so bad, except that other than monthly passes there is no common fare between the stations that are converted and those that aren't. Did you do what the MBTA ceaselessly bothers you to do and buy a token for your return trip? If your return trip starts at a Charlie Card station, you're out of luck. Same with the poor tourist who buys a "stored value card" and discovers it's useless at some of the most popular stations on the T.
I honestly can't believe they thought this was something consumers would appreciate, especially in summer: Boston's tens of thousands of tourists have enough trouble figuring out the T when it's not partitioned into two totally incompatible fare systems.
There have got to be half a dozen completely practical (if slightly more expensive) ways to deal with this. Why not have a single portable Charlie Card reader at every station that hasn't been converted? You could put it by the gate used for senior/student fare and exact change, where the collector could monitor its use. We know they have these portable card readers on all the Silver Line buses (and soon all buses, presumably), so why not order a dozen or two so there's a universal payment system. Ditto for leaving a temporary gate at converted stations that still takes tokens.
I want a modern system: stored value cards will save me money since I buy a monthly pass mostly for convenience. But the way the transition is being handled makes me wonder if this conversion isn't going to end up as a white elephant.
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