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In NYC, there seem to be crews that scout out unmanned subway turnstiles, and in the event of a fairly lonely one (I'm looking at you, 116th St. stop on the Bro
by terminado 12y ago
In NYC, there seem to be crews that scout out unmanned subway turnstiles, and in the event of a fairly lonely one (I'm looking at you, 116th St. stop on the Bronx-bound B/C), the vending machines (which are built like tanks) somehow inevitably fail to accept bills, coins, credit cards, or any kind of money at all, actually. And guess what; In these situations, if you're caught without a Metrocard, there's usually a helpful street urchin on site, ready to swipe you through the turnstile for a reasonable fee.
I'm not saying this is what will happen to a CD-ROM-style tray approach, I'm just trying to add some context to the idea. Machines exposed to enclosed, semi-public areas have to withstand a lot of deliberate, brutal sabotage, that'll make you scratch your head, and ask why on earth?
With that in mind, protruding parts and orifices generally don't fare well with machines subjected to the abuses of the general public. I think it'd probably cost more that a little bit extra...
- hellweaver666 12y agoI recently had a similar situation at the Gare du Nord station in Paris. We were trying to purchase tickets for the train when this guy comes along and forcefully takes over the machine saying it doesn't take credit cards (which we knew it did because we've used them before). He changed the language back to French and proceeded to buy the cheapest metro ticket available then asked us to give him cash based on the more expensive distance we actually wanted to go. Luckily, we didn't have any cash, he even offered to accept pounds or dollars! Eventually after skulking off we went back to the machine and worked it out. If we had taken his tickets we likely would have been picked up by one of the frequent ticket inspections and given a hefty fine.