Don Your Tin Hat: New Muni Faregates Will Track Your Movements

Any idea how this will work for those of us who currently pay for our Fast Passes through the Commuter Check program?

We're pulling together a super easy guide to where you can do commuter check TL stuff. Soon! I'll email you!

It should be pretty easy, actually... I have Wageworks now and have previously used Commuter Checks with my Translink Card. Pretty much any Walgreens can take your Commuter Checks and use them to add value to your TransLink card. Other locations can too. I called the TransLink Customer Service desk before I went to Walgreens and they were pretty helpful.

For my Muni Fast Pass, I just had to give Wageworks the serial number on my TL card and they'll autoload the Muni Pass each month, just as they used to send me a paper one before.

I skipped on vouchers after a few months because of the hassle of finding a vendor, and switched to automatic deposit of my Commuter Check funds to my Translink account.

My employer does some kind of online commuter benefits thing through ADP that lets me automatically put a pre-tax Fastpass on my Translink card every month. No paper shuffling required. Before translink they would mail it to me automatically every month.

Sounds like a nice idea, but I don't see how this gets rid of the fareboxes. BART is easy enough to run on a cashless basis, since it only has a few dozen entry points, but on MUNI's surface lines, there are thousands. Some of these are a mile or more from a streetcar stop, much less a Muni Metro station (hey there, Richmond District!). Are they going to put a Translink machine every few blocks wherever buses run, or put one on every bus? Although it's convenient that we have Walgreen's, etc. selling Translink cards, it's hardly a complete solution.

I don't think any transit agency can get rid of their cash fare box machines on the buses. People will still have to pay cash.

But it does sound like the goal is to get the entire Bay Area on the Translink card. I'm not sure how popular it will be, but once transit agencies start cutting back on their production of paper passes and maybe eliminate paper transfers, Translink would be the only way to ride around with a monthly pass or get a transfer.

Best way is to make Translink or equivalent easily available and make the cash fare 2x the electronic fare.