Should I Register My Ventra Card
A recent discussion of Ventra, the new fare payment system for the CTA and Footstep, with CTA spokesman Brian Steele, has allayed some, if not all, of my concerns nigh the affect on low-income Chicagoans. The cost of a unmarried-ride ticket will rise from $2.25 to $3. This price hike can be avoided by purchasing a reusable Ventra carte du jour for $5, which is refunded as a transit credit when you register the card. Nevertheless, registering the card requires admission to a phone, the Internet, or the CTA headquarters, which might be a barrier for very depression-income individuals.
And if you purchase the card only before getting on the train, you need $7.25 in hand to pay for the card and the fare, unless you're fortunate plenty to be at a station with a payphone you lot tin can use for calling the toll-costless registration number. That's highly unlikely in a city where public phones are rare as hen'southward teeth. Information technology'southward possible that some people might instead opt to repeatedly pay the $3 unmarried-ride fare.
The Tribune recently reported that a report conducted for the CTA institute that low-income people who buy a Ventra card are unlikely to register information technology, which would mean missing out on the $5 fare credit, besides every bit the ability to become a refund if the menu is lost or stolen. However, when I asked CTA President Forest Claypool about this at a contempo, unrelated printing conference, he said the written report found no such matter.
Some other business concern I had was that at that place's no mode for most people to buy a reusable Ventra carte that doesn't have the option of being activated equally a prepaid Debit MasterCard, and the logo is printed on the corner of every carte du jour. The debit card has a number of associated user fees, which many depression-income people can sick afford. It appeared that the registration process might be used to market the debit card to a captive audience, but Steele argued that'due south not the example. Here's an edited transcript of our conversation.
John Greenfield: I got the information about the internal written report, which plant depression-income people are unlikely to register their Ventra cards, from a Tribune commodity. If not's the case, what did the study find?
Brian Steele: You take to read the study, it's a lengthy study, and somewhere on page fifteen or 16 it talks about the assumptions that were made for the study. We had to come up with assumptions to guess the number of people who may or may non register. We made two assumptions. The worst-case scenario: not a single person registers a Ventra carte. And so we made some other supposition that, I think it was, 89 percent registered and 11 pct wouldn't. These are assumptions. They are not saying that eleven pct or ten percent or whatever the number may exist will fail to register for the menu. We believe, and our didactics and outreach efforts are designed to help make sure that this occurs, that people will register the Ventra bill of fare.
People who buy the single-ride ticket for $3 will be doing so considering they choose to use that fare payment option. They have other options that volition not cost them anything beyond their initial card purchase.
JG: Except that to purchase a single ride on the CTA you take to have $seven.25 in your hand, right? Because you need to purchase the $5 carte and then you need to load it with $ii.25, so that's not an insignificant corporeality of coin for a very poor person. They might opt to only spend the $3 at one time, rather than invest that $7.25.
BS: That initial purchase is a ane-time buy, so that one time they take to spend more than they currently exercise so. When you purchase a card, you're not buying merely a blank piece of plastic. Yous're plainly buying fare value. The offset time yous purchase a card for $5 you annals it with a quick phone call, or online, or nevertheless y'all cull to practice it, and that $5 is practical.
JG: And and so the thing is, yous need to use a telephone, the Internet or bear witness up in person to the CTA headquarters in order to register. It seems like those three things might be pregnant barriers to very depression-income people.
BS: We don't think they're going to be significant barriers for a couple of reasons. The most main reason is, starting in a couple of weeks through the end of the year, we'll be giving abroad tens of thousands of gratis Ventra cards in those communities. So we believe that on our initial push button to get those out in that location, a lot of depression-income people will come and take reward that.
Again, nosotros don't think it's going to exist a barrier because people are, obviously, purchasing transit already. A lot of people are purchasing circular-trip rides, not just single rides. Certainly people practice purchase single rides, but information technology's a very depression percentage that put but $two.25 on a magnetic stripe carte du jour. Most people are putting more on there, even low-income people. So we don't think information technology's going to be a barrier of entry considering it is a ane-time purchase.
And we remember if people are purchasing one ride at a time, and in that location are some people who do that, saving a little bit more and spending twice the amount that they normally practice one fourth dimension will not be a bulwark of entry for the transit they need to do their everyday business. So will it be an additional amount that they initially spend? Yes, it will. But, once again, that's a one-fourth dimension purchase, and it's comparable to what they'd normally be paying for roundtrip ride on the CTA.
JG: You said the CTA will be handing out tens of thousands of fee-waived Ventra cards. That will be great for the first batch of Ventra customers, but is that something that yous'll be doing every year or then?
BS: Right at present the plan is simply to do it for the remainder of the year until Ventra is fully rolled out, which volition be towards the end of the yr. Again, a Ventra carte is a permanent carte, with the contactless technology. That's probably the biggest change in the system. A lot of people are accustomed to disposable fare media. They're accepted to buying a card, which costs the CTA coin to produce patently, using it a couple of times and and so throwing it away, leaving on the motorcoach or the train. This will be something that you keep on you lot. And there'southward a cost to producing that card, obviously. And that'due south why there's the initial $five cost and, over again, the value is completely refundable.
So that's part of the pedagogy that we're doing. This is not something that you lot pick upward, put $2 on, and you lot have 20 of them lying in your drawer at home. That'south one of the things that nosotros're trying to shift away from. That's a significant price to u.s.a., a significant waste matter, that technology is outdated, and we're seeing more than and more failures on the arrangement trying to procedure those cards. So, yes, it will be a change in how people normally do business merely it'due south non unlike than how people are already conducting a lot of financial transactions. You know, people are using debit cards, people are using credit cards, people are using that kind of stuff on a daily ground for all types of other uses. We're at present bringing that to the transit realm.
JG: So the other question, in terms of disinterestedness, is the prepaid debit menu. It'southward impossible to past a regular Ventra card that does not also have the potential to exist a prepaid debit card. It's going to have the Debit MasterCard logo on information technology. Now, when you lot register the carte du jour, you have the 3 different options for registering it. Whichever way you lot register it, are you going to exist asked if you desire to activate the menu as a debit carte du jour?
BS: Well, when yous say, "Volition you be asked," information technology depends what method yous're using. If you're registering on the phone, the customer will take to ask to pursue the prepaid debit choice. The person on the telephone volition not say, "Hey! Would you like to sign up for it?"
On the website at that place's, on the bottom of the screen there's a push button that says, "Would you like to annals for the prepaid debit?" I simply saw a mock-up of this the other day. So it requires a proactive effort on the part of the customer. You won't be going through a serial of menus to register the transit side of the card and then have something pop upwards saying, "Would you lot also like the prepaid debit?" Information technology's completely and totally optional, and a split process from registering the transit carte du jour. The transit registration is babel-boom. Proper name, address, phone number for verification purposes, done. Obviously, to register for the prepaid debit you have to fill out some more than stuff.
JG: What happens, say, if I'one thousand a homeless guy? I purchase my card and I walk into the CTA headquarters and I desire to annals my card. What do I have to do?
BS: That is a good question. We'll get any verification information we can. This private might have the address of a shelter, the address of a relative, or a social service agency. The purpose of the registration is so we are able to provide information to the client should they want it about their account, particularly a lost or stolen carte du jour, and the restoration of the residue. I'd have to become dorsum to you on specifically what nosotros crave, but it would have to be something across just a proper noun, considering otherwise we'd have no way of contacting the individual.
Should I Register My Ventra Card,
Source: https://chi.streetsblog.org/2013/08/02/cta-poor-people-will-register-ventra-cards-wont-get-debit-card-hard-sell/
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