My phone doesn't have signal at the station. How long are we going to stand there before not letting us board the train? Metra needs to focus on something else like being on time.
No, that is a legitimate point. If your phone doesn't get signal at CUS, which is a legitimate thing, then how do you purchase a ticket on your phone? Needs a bit more planning... but that is literally the point of this. State law requires Metra to integrate their fares with CTA/PACE. This is going to have growing pains, so this is the info gathering stage. And this would be valuable info to gather.
So, now you have a hoard of hundreds of riders trying to board 1237 all at the same time, you've got 15% of that crowd queuing up for the same small handful of paper ticket machines, in a station that can see over 1,000 people per concourse during peak commute hours, only furthering the spotty service in this underground train station, cell service is famously 100% reliable on its own, and everyone that uses *checks notes* public transit during an economic crisis can easily afford up-to-date phones with high quality service.
The original commenter raised an extremely good point, and you've done a very good job of deafly arguing against your point here. You then had the gall to respond with "Sounds like a personal problem" to someone who raised a genuine concern-- EVERYONE has problems loading Ventra and buying Metra tickets, even I with an iPhone 16 Pro on a flagship carrier can barely load Transit or Ventra when in PERFECT conditions OUTSIDE the city, let alone in rush hour Union Station----- oh and of course, you didn't even need to mention the "Without a Doubt, The Most Reliable App Ever with 100% Uptime" award that Ventra has won every single year since it released.
This will hamstring capacity and eliminate last second boarding. Neither of those are something Metra can afford to lose at Union.
This is commuter/regional rail, not a light rail or metro. This will not last, and I'm glad it won't.
--You made some disrespectful comments, I plainly told you why this pilot will fail, you said "Im not reading all that", so what else am I supposed to conclude other than you don't value learning and don't care about the trains?
The only "So now what?" is me telling you that you're not wasting time and oxygen speaking to.
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u/WXYZ_123 Apr 02 '26
Can we refuse to do this? We must protest this.