Tap On …Tap Off

I was so excited today when I checked the mail. My replacement pass was here finally, actually the waiting wasn't too bad since I requested the replacement just last Thursday. By transit pass is my key to life really I don't know what I would do if I didn't have the pass. The pass allows me on all Utah transit Authority vehicles except the Flex Trans it's a bit of a buy off but I don't mind since that's what I thought for my entire career and independent living. The Authority thinks there being so smart.

I'm sure somewhere in my posts I've gone over this issue to some degree but in short when Utah Transit Authority first implemented their flex trans concept (door-to-door service) the authority really thought no one would take advantage of it. Of course, I had to fight the whole issue because of the separate but equal and removing a population from the main flow. Long story short I was right everybody wants to ride and the authorities initial decision kind of backfired on them and had to figure out a way to get folks with disabilities off of the paratransit system which is Flex Trans and back onto the mainline service. I'm glad they did this but it was a bit of a double-edged sword for me because I was one of the few people and chairs that was riding the service at the time. Little by little people over the years have found the service and now there's chairs everywhere couple times a year I have to wait for the next bus because all the wheelchair stations are full. Usually I don't mind that is a real pain in the butt. So now I'm a regular rider and that's good. The service keeps changing on is however and last couple years the system is gone to a “tap On an tap off”. Where before we just had to show the driver a bus pass to get on the new system now was all electronic just had touched they farebox card reader when the and or the bus and when we exited the bus. I didn't realize there was a electronic component to the card itself and I should've been smart enough to realize there was. Last week after I lost my bus pass and it was returned to the UTA lost and found and I collected it the following day the past no longer worked. The reader would no longer pick it up when I tapped on the machine. Whatever I did our happened to the bus pass after I lost it broke the card. I didn't even notice the card had been cracked but when the card is cracked it breaks the electronic something or other on the card and no longer is read by big brother. Actually, for the most part I don't think drivers really even cared. As long as I showed that the card they seemed happy. I can gone on this way probably forever but I want to be totally whole so I called and got a new card sent to me looks just like the old card except for the cracked down the middle. I want to fit in want to be like the other kids I wanted the machine to sing out every time I touched it with my card that showed that I was a part of that system… How pathetic is that?