Ring of Steel: Fare Gates at BOS, BON, & BBY

The only charliecards that they will accept are the ones with the zone number of the monthly or daily pass commuter rail. So yes, charliecards is an acceptable form of payment.

The BON fare gates will be activated on Saturday, October 1.

The first big test will be Monday, October 3 AM rush hour. Let's see how big the backups are to exit the concourse!

Its gonna be a disaster, commuters will hate it, people will miss their rush-hour outbound trains, and some will just evade the fare altogether by going right behind a paying customer before the gate closes, which happens all the time on the subway. Instead of putting fare gates on the GLX, like they should have, they decided to instead put them where they are not needed or wanted at all whatsoever. Please make it make sense.

And there are constant complaints that Conductors are not lifting tickets.

mbrproductions wrote: ↑Wed Sep 28, 2022 7:35 am Its gonna be a disaster, commuters will hate it, people will miss their rush-hour outbound trains, and some will just evade the fare altogether by going right behind a paying customer before the gate closes, which happens all the time on the subway. Instead of putting fare gates on the GLX, like they should have, they decided to instead put them where they are not needed or wanted at all whatsoever. Please make it make sense.

Unless I misunderstand things, these new gates are not collecting fares, as the ones on the subway entrances do, so no one is evading any fare by cheating.

As far as I am concerned, these gates exist for no legitimate purpose. They only inconvenience the traveling public, and ought to be put out of operation.

Unless I misunderstand things, these new gates are not collecting fares, as the ones on the subway entrances do, so no one is evading any fare by cheating.

You are correct, the point of these gates is to ensure that everyone who gets by them is a paying passenger, so in case the conductor doesn't check their tickets, the passenger will have paid anyway. Which makes little sense because if they really want to fix that issue the best thing to do would be to tell/train conductors to collect all tickets on the train, like they are supposed to.

As far as I am concerned, these gates exist for no legitimate purpose. They only inconvenience the traveling public, and ought to be put out of operation.

Exactly.

mbrproductions wrote:...if they really want to fix that issue the best thing to do would be to tell/train conductors to collect all tickets on the train, like they are supposed to.

You really think conductors don't know what they're supposed to do?

Of course they know what they are supposed to do, the problem is they aren't doing it anyways, which means that either their overseers/bosses aren't aware of this or don't care enough to do anything about it.
On a separate note, I went to North Station earlier today and every single one of the gates was open, I thought they were supposed to start operation yesterday, why are they all open for anybody to come in or out?

Would someone please explain to me the problem of the fare gates. Basically the issue I see is this is something new it makes me mad, keep things the way they were.

Red Wing wrote: ↑Sun Oct 02, 2022 7:38 pm Would someone please explain to me the problem of the fare gates. Basically the issue I see is this is something new it makes me mad, keep things the way they were.

Ding ding ding!!! We have a winner!

The problem is that they really have no purpose, they don't collect fares, yet they are somehow supposed to stop/control fare evasion, even though fare gates in general don't stop fare evasion. This is also happening at the same time as the GLX, which of course does not have fare gates, which means that the MBTA, for some strange reason, decided to invest into putting fare gates where they have never been needed, instead of putting them on a Rapid Transit line that does have fare gates at other stops and does need them.

It will only work smoothly with a "The customer is always right" policy. Like, if the gate somehow rejects an Amtrak ticket, the rider is passed through manually (or is allowed to piggyback) without the need to go back to a ticket window and wait in line there to get a validation voucher.

mbrproductions wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 6:33 am The problem is that they really have no purpose, they don't collect fares, yet they are somehow supposed to stop/control fare evasion, even though fare gates in general don't stop fare evasion.

Well if you have to validate the ticket before going through the gate, you payed your fare. granted some people won't have electronic tickets and some people may get a fare 1 when they are actually going to zone 5 but at least most of the fares will be validated. Also as I see this GLX has nothing to do with this since there is 2 completely different fare systems as of now and run by 2 different agencies.

Article: "MBTA knows it has a Commuter Rail fare collection problem, how are they fixing it?"
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/mbt ... david-wade
This article has made me look at these gates in a better light, so Red Wing, you may have a point, though I still think that investing in fare gates on GLX would have been a better move, and lets not forget that there is still going to be piggybacking and people buying Zone 1A tickets for Zone 8 trips without ever getting caught by the conductor.

I'm sure the primary goal here is to ensure that at least some fare is collected during the trip, and gates probably work better than having people stand at the platform doors eyeballing passes. I do wonder if a secondary purpose is to keep the waiting area clear of those who aren't planning on riding a train.