Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have never understood why the machines that are inside the gates that exist solely for the purpose of allowing you to add money to your card if you don't have enough on it to exit don't accept credit cards when all of the other machines do. I don't carry cash anymore.

This happened to me and the guy in the booth let me out the gate, had me add more on the booths outside with my cc, and come back in and go through. Weird that there was no one in the booth for OP. But I bet that is the wave of the future -- untended stations.

The Add Fare machines probably date from 1977 — when fewer people used credit cards for the extremely small amounts that it would cost to exit a station. That you personally don’t carry cash anymore is probably not a great reason for a cash-strapped Metro system to replace or refurbish hundreds of machines for the small number of people who can’t be bothered to carry small amounts of cash OR maintain an adequate balance on their card to cover the cost of their trip OR check their card at the rows of machines that all actually do take credit cards before going through the fare gates.

Wonder who has the maintenance contract for 47 year old fare machines. Is there some guy hand filing replacement parts?

Spoiler alert: he died Nov. 23, 2014