http://www.mississauga.com/news/article/932847--no-magic-in-presto-hazel
* Torstar Network * Jan 24, 2011 - 7:55 AM
No magic in Presto: Hazel
Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion called the province's new Presto fare card system a "disaster" during a City budget committee meeting, in part because the TTC hasn't entirely bought in.
Martin Powell, Mississauga's Commissioner of Transportation and Works, also lamented the inter-regional fare card's "complicated fare structure."
In April, when Presto becomes operational on buses city-wide, Mississauga Transit will still have the cost of operating a parallel fare system, said Transit Director Geoff Marinoff, because many of the city's bus riders don't have a way to easily top up their cards.
Although that top-up technology is being developed, its current absence means "our aspiration of going 100 per cent Presto is going to take some time," Marinoff said.
Even if Presto were fully adopted by Mississauga's bus riders, "until the TTC accepts the Presto card, it's not going to work. It's going to be ad hoc," McCallion said.
The Presto card, introduced last summer, is a new "smart" fare card, designed to allow commuters to travel easily between different transit systems.
Transit users go to a machine and, with their debit or credit card or cash, they purchase a smart card which they can then load with currency. It is then swiped or tapped as you get on or off a bus, subway or streetcar.
Readers can simply tap on green readers at stations and on buses to have the correct fare deducted on each leg of a trip, including local buses, GO Transit and some Toronto Transit Commission stations.