Paying for Transit

Just to be clear what this post is about: I'm not talking about whether we ought to pay for transit, or whether transit should be free. Go to Luxembourg if you want to try that. But generally speaking, others have done more on that than I'm prepared to do here. Rather, I'm talking about how we actually pay for transit, as transit users: how we go about providing our fare, proving it, etc. Because while I think generally there are some basic approaches that are standardized (fare gates/paid fare zones/conductor inspectors, for example, on trains, or pay at the front/pay before boarding for buses), there are nevertheless a lot of minor variations in how different cities and transit agencies do it that I think are worth highlighting, especially when seemingly minor changes make a big difference.1. Make Your App Useable Or Ditch ItIf you are going to have an app for your transit, please for the love of God make it work. While I'm glad to report that Milwaukee's app worked a lot better the…