I haven’t been able to go check out the fare gates at the Union Station Red Line as I don’t have much time to make my connection to the last Orange County Line Metrolink of the day and the damn things are (blissfully) on the complete opposite end of the station. However, these popped up on the Ticket Vending Machines today. Good to know that despite the Metro board delaying the adoption of the fare gates (yay) they went ahead and barreled ahead started wasting my tax and fare money on this crap instead of using it to maybe upgrade or add bus service or (gasp!) run a damn southbound OC line train past 6:30 PM.
For those of you that don’t follow transit blogs, despite intense public opposition to the gates, fare evasion being incredibly low, and the entire metro system having station designs that don’t lend well to them, Metro cowtowed to a contractor that makes fare gates under the assurance that all the cool kids are doing it. “All the big and cool and IMPORTANT transit systems have fare gates, pity your little honor system isn’t like them! Also, something about terrorists.” If anyone out there doesn’t know what a cargo cult is, here is the dictionary definition. Rather than actually build a world class transit system becoming of a major metropolis like LA, just PRETEND you’re cool with fare gates. If only the Metrolink ran late enough for me to go to these planning meetings and yell at people……
