How little can I touch this machine to get it to do what I want?

September 5, 2015 4:43 PM

A Germaphobe’s Guide to Buying a Metrocard starts off in favor of BART fare machines over MTA machines, but that's before the author learns about the designer's "leave no rider behind" ethos.

“The soda machine is like [the MTA’s] first prototype, you start the transition by inserting money, then you make a selection and hopefully the selection comes out, which may not happen,” Udagawa said with a laugh. “[At] a store, no one pays upfront. So you go in, you check out the products, check out the prices, you gain confidence and then you decide to pay.”

posted by cardioid (70 comments total)

I love mass transit. But some days, especially hot and sticky days, when I get up to leave the bus and have to grab a pole for balance, it is kind of slippery and slimy, and I have to go home and take a shower.

This makes me feel like a bad bad person. A clean bad person, but, still....
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:13 PM on September 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

God, the MTA's machines are horrific design, I don't care how "easy" it is supposed to make the transaction.
posted by old_growler at 5:14 PM on September 5, 2015

This is going to change some New York MeFite's life.
posted by SansPoint at 5:19 PM on September 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

I live in Oakland and I would sincerely love to visit that BART testing office.

This makes me feel like a bad bad person.

Why on Earth should that make you a bad person? Everyone knows public transit is gross.
posted by teponaztli at 5:20 PM on September 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Yeah can we somehow arrange a MeFi tour of the BART lab?
posted by zachlipton at 5:24 PM on September 5, 2015 [5 favorites]

Why on Earth should that make you a bad person? Everyone knows public transit is gross.

Because an irrational fear of physical contamination is probably just a proxy for fear of social contamination. Anti-social extremes like flushing a toilet with your feet is a sign of contempt toward the public.

I remember hearing a mother warning her daughter not to touch the guide ribbon at the airport because "nasty people touched that". It wasn't germs she was worried about it was "nasty people".

I felt super vindicated by Inside Out when it straightforwardly theorized my long suspicion that disgust toward things and disgust toward others are essentially connected.
posted by deathmaven at 5:36 PM on September 5, 2015 [22 favorites]

Odd. I'd think that disgust towards physical contaminants is primary, and the social version of it is the fetish.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 5:39 PM on September 5, 2015 [5 favorites]

And the fact that our society pushes an extreme amount of anxiety about one's social standing probably explains a lot of "germaphobia".
posted by deathmaven at 5:39 PM on September 5, 2015

Whatever the opposite of a germophobe is, I am that and it makes my life so much less stressful.

You know what's about a million times more likely to kill you than a shitty germ? Getting run over by a cab.

Also, fuck the MTAs ticket machines, whenever I swipe and it doesn't go through I sigh so hard I almost fall down.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 5:43 PM on September 5, 2015

Not to be confused with: A Non-Germanophone's Guide to Buying U-Bahn Tickets.
posted by acb at 5:44 PM on September 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Odd. I'd think that disgust towards physical contaminants is primary, and the social version of it is the fetish.

I think it's different in society where you're less likely to succumb to a terrible illness than you are to be considered a "loser".
posted by deathmaven at 6:03 PM on September 5, 2015

I think anyone trying to field the "people grossed out by germs are actually just classist" or whatever the argument is has to show their work on that one. That's a pretty nasty insinuation/accusation
posted by emptythought at 6:06 PM on September 5, 2015 [28 favorites]

Like, "I believe other people are thinking this shitty thing because one weird parent said it this one time" isn't really all that great.
posted by emptythought at 6:07 PM on September 5, 2015 [6 favorites]

> I think it's different in society where you're less likely to succumb to a terrible illness than you are to be considered a "loser".

Yeah, that's why I call it a fetish. The primary reaction is to be wary of physical contaminants, but when that problem is solved for, we redirect our urge towards social contaminants.

EDIT: To be clear, I don't think people worried about germs are really secretly classist.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 6:26 PM on September 5, 2015

Seems like the MTA machine could detect if the user inserts money first and switch to the BART model. Win-win.

BTW, try needing to addfare to get out of BART and have nothing but a $20 bill. Which addfare machines won't accept. The change machine is located on the other side of the fare gate (at least at MacArthur recently). You're expected to use the emergency exit, get change, re-enter, addfare, and exit thru the fare gate.
posted by joeyh at 6:29 PM on September 5, 2015

Sorry, the reason I feel bad is because, while it's a little gross, a sweaty bus pole is pretty unlikely to transmit anything to me, especially if I follow basic hygiene like washing my hands before I eat or do surgery. I know that I am letting some weird germ fetish get the better of me, and I am sure part of that is the loss of control inherent in mass transit -- we all sit together, right?
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:33 PM on September 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

> This is going to change some New York MeFite's life.

SansPoint, I have done a good amount of travel and have something of a collection of travel cards. Two things I felt were missing from the New York system were

1. RFID/NFC tappable cards instead of only the swipe ones
2. Automatic refill from a linked payment account

I really like the tapping, but the automatic refill is super important to me. I mean it's important to the point that I was trying to figure out how to get a UK-based bank account simply so I could have Oyster auto top-up.

That part of my life is over, which is a relief.
posted by cardioid at 6:34 PM on September 5, 2015

That was an interesting article, thanks for posting it! I like thinking about the basic public-service challenge of serving everyone, even the hard-to-serve people, and doing it as efficiently and effectively and fairly and smoothly as possible. It's not an easy task. Interesting to see into the design process informed by that mandate.
posted by aka burlap at 6:36 PM on September 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Because an irrational fear of physical contamination is probably just a proxy for fear of social contamination.

When Seinfeld refused to kiss his girlfriend after she used a toilet toothbrush, what class of people was he afraid of?

When I refuse to let my friend's dog lick my face, which segment of society am I holding in contempt?
posted by Monochrome at 6:55 PM on September 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

zachlipton: Yeah can we somehow arrange a MeFi tour of the BART lab?

Don't bother. I got rejection letter telling me to eat their shorts.
posted by dr_dank at 7:02 PM on September 5, 2015 [5 favorites]

This was so satisfying to read, as he moves from your standard "I used this thing once and could so clearly explain how to make it better" model to .I was beginning to understand that I wasn’t the only kind of user the MTA designed for. If only everyone could undergo that kind of realisation!
posted by the agents of KAOS at 7:12 PM on September 5, 2015 [19 favorites]

Monochrome, do you think it's irrational to be afraid of germs in those two scenarios?
posted by the agents of KAOS at 7:13 PM on September 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Irrationality about likelihood of disease is beside the point to germaphobia being a mask for prejudice.
posted by Monochrome at 7:16 PM on September 5, 2015

I wonder how much the difference between the two systems is also driven by the higher degree of tech literacy in the Bay Area.
posted by wuwei at 7:18 PM on September 5, 2015

I regret having my comments be about a derail. I loved the article: the idea that many users didn't trust the machine, so it has to build a relationship before it can ask for money, is fascinating.
posted by Monochrome at 7:21 PM on September 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

“Over time the need for people to go to kiosks will be diminished,” he told me. “Eventually you will have a contactless card and you’ll be able to add money via an account in the cloud.”

This already exists. I have one for BART and I had one for CTA in Chicago. It's been awhile since I commuted on the MTA but do they really not have them? I know not everyone has the kind of situation that makes these cards feasible but it's weird that they don't get mentioned at all.

Also we should all send this guy flowers for single-handedly inventing the entire field of user experience. What an accomplishment. I'm going to write a think piece about how when you break your leg there should be a machine to see inside it.
posted by bleep at 7:30 PM on September 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

By the way I found the BART kiosks to be atrociously difficult and I'm a ux designer.
posted by bleep at 7:38 PM on September 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Because an irrational fear of physical contamination is probably just a proxy for fear of social contamination.

Look, I understand that there can be a link between germ contamination and social contamination, and some people are just uncomfortable in the world in general. The question at hand was "should I feel bad about reacting this way?" and the answer that came back was "yes." It's one thing to ruminate on the unconscious biases and social anxieties that play into fear of contamination, and it's another altogether to bring that around to "you should feel bad because you show contempt for the public."
posted by teponaztli at 7:59 PM on September 5, 2015 [4 favorites]

Like, seriously, I don't get the appeal of punishing someone for feeling like this, especially when it just so happens that some of us who feel this way are aware of what's going on and working to change it. Maybe that's just me, though.
posted by teponaztli at 8:01 PM on September 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Contactless cards weren't particularly around when the MTA was deploying MetroCard. It looks like the current plan is to go contactless in 2020. There was a pilot program taking certain contactless credit cards at some stations on the Lexington Ave. line a few years ago.

MVM protip: should the touchscreen be malfunctioning, the numeric keypad buttons also serve to select display buttons.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 8:01 PM on September 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

As a UX designer, too, I found this piece great. The author has the very human experience of being frustrated, the classic "why doesn't it just WORK the way it SHOULD!!" and, instead of just writing a "think-piece" about it, does some old-fashioned shoe-leather journalism and talks to the actual people who designed the things and figured out why they made the decisions they did.

We could use with a lot more of journalism like this.
posted by wemayfreeze at 8:03 PM on September 5, 2015 [22 favorites]

The appeal of punishing someone like this is that you get to punish someone. The thing society is best at teaching, over and over again, is that it's filled with sadists.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:09 PM on September 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm in NYC right now, and I love the magnetic cards. In Seattle we used to have them, and moved over to the rfid/contactless ones a few years ago. They never scan the first time, are glitchy, fail fairly often, and are generally just a hassle. You have to rub them against the reader anyways and the entire system is a freaking nightmare. They also decided to have taggers on the platform and not turnstyles for some moronic reason and I hate that too.

But seriously, contactless cards are their own pain in the ass. Doubly so if you carry around more than one such card and have to make a conscious effort to separate them and/or pull the card way out and away from your wallet.

And on that note... What's the point of contactless anyways if I can't keep it in my wallet?
posted by emptythought at 8:14 PM on September 5, 2015

When I refuse to let my friend's dog lick my face, which segment of society am I holding in contempt?

this is dog racism
posted by poffin boffin at 8:47 PM on September 5, 2015 [13 favorites]

FWIW the contactless card in the Bay Area (Clipper) has always worked well for me, even deep in my wallet. Never problems with scanning.
posted by wemayfreeze at 9:26 PM on September 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I've never had trouble with the Clipper card in my wallet. I have a couple different contactless cards next to each other, and they haven't messed with each other yet.

Not the same when I lived in the DC area - maybe it's the card manufacturer? Or the card readers? Maybe I just slam my wallet down with more force than I did when I was younger.
posted by teponaztli at 9:32 PM on September 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I had to get a new wallet because my Clipper card was too unreliable in that plastic casing.
posted by bleep at 9:53 PM on September 5, 2015

I've had problems with the clipper card in my wallet, but I keep a couple coins in there too which would throw off the magnetic reader. Other than that I'm really happy with it.
posted by dogwalker at 10:35 PM on September 5, 2015

An interesting article, but I think the solution is far simpler. With transit, we seem to suffer pretty badly from not-designed-here syndrome and every system has to design their own sort-of user friendly system from scratch. People are not that different! We can use something that works somewhere else and put our efforts elsewhere instead of reinventing the wheel every time.

Why not go to Hong Kong, see how well their system works, and do something similar (or, if you are feeling particularly adventurous, you can hire just hire the same company)? All the major Chinese cities pretty much copied the Hong Kong system and it works relatively well in all of them. Hong Kong has had contactless transit cards for nearly two decades. They are very easy to refill. This is not rocket science.

I also really disagree with the design philosophy that you should design for the lowest common denominator on first contact when you are dealing with a system that people will use over and over. People learn. It is OK if everyone doesn't get everything on the first go.

I think we should do everything in our power to make public transit as slick, as sleek, as low friction as possible. We want to make riding the subway feel cool, not clunky, if we want to encourage more transit use.
posted by ssg at 10:36 PM on September 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

ssg: "It is OK if everyone doesn't get everything on the first go."

The problem with that is unless you make it the only choice people resist using the system at all even if it would be better once they learn.
posted by Mitheral at 11:03 PM on September 5, 2015

Interface coolness isn't why people aren't using public transit, for one thing. It's because it doesn't exist or it's too slow. It should be frictionless, yes, but everyday users shouldn't be needing to use a kiosk ever. The primary users should be first time users therefore it's correct to tailor it for them. Good design should include shortcuts if you know what you're doing. But if you can't use the machine then you're screwed. And so is everyone standing in line behind you.
posted by bleep at 12:10 AM on September 6, 2015 [5 favorites]

I flush the toilet with my feet in my home - it never occurred to me that I was showing contempt for anybody. At the same time thinking public transit, specifically, is gross always has always seemed to me an attitude informed by classism. Depends on where you are and how well they clean it though.
posted by atoxyl at 1:50 AM on September 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

All my bank cards are contactless. I've no expectation that I should be able to use them from inside my wallet; I just hoik out the correct card before I pay, whether that's at a London Underground turnstile, on the bus or in the supermarket. Never considered this as a failure mode before!
posted by emilyw at 2:35 AM on September 6, 2015

The germs vs. Coming in contact with stuff that other people touched thing is interesting. It reminds me of an episode of Backstory about the history of cleanliness which goes into an entire thing about integrated swimming pools.

This feels different to me, just because the amount of fecal matter, and puke, and general grossness of the subway is a real thing, germs don't happen to bother me too much, but as someone who is known to not handle disgusting water (like nasty city puddles) remotely well at all, I sympathize.

That being said I'm pro contactless. Getting stuck behind people who can't get the swipe right as a train is coming is the worst. And there is much more of a knack to it than with contact less cards.
posted by KernalM at 6:03 AM on September 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

The HK and Tokyo systems both work great. Choice of languages on the ATM, no problem. When I want to charge my Pasmo, I can select Pasmo from the touch interface, and then Charge, and then insert the card. Or I can just insert the card and it takes me right to the charge screen.

Pasmo gets me on the metro, the private subways, buses and the JR. And now works in Kansai as well.

Wallets in Japan are designed with an outer pocket, sometimes with a cut-out, just for the transit cards. I made the mistake of buying a new wallet last time I was in HK, though. I carefully picked one with an outer pocket (no cut-out). It just doesn't work well with the Tokyo wickets. I usually take the card out of the wallet first.

Now, if they could get rid of the two-way wickets ... I've seen people almost come to blows over that, and it generally takes a lot to get a Tokyoite that worked up.
posted by oheso at 6:15 AM on September 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Hadn't thought about topping up the card online. I'll have to look into that. I bet it's available.
posted by oheso at 6:16 AM on September 6, 2015

And a contact point for lefties. That would make the system perfect.

One can dream ...
posted by oheso at 6:17 AM on September 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

I don't like the MTA's EasyPay system because instead of refilling your existing card, they mail you a new one. That adds a second organization into the process: the U.S. Postal Service. They don't deliver mail some days, and what if my card needs to be replaced before it arrives? What if it gets lost in the mail?

I loved Chicago's Chicago Card, which had an RFID chip in it, got refilled over the Internet, and allowed me to tap the card against the turnstile. Super easy and painless.
posted by eustacescrubb at 6:21 AM on September 6, 2015

Auto charging! What'll they think of next!
posted by oheso at 6:24 AM on September 6, 2015

While I'm certain that they smeared mayonnaise on the screens shown in the article for the effect, if I walked up to a machine and saw that I would turn around and go home. Forever. I don't have germ issues; I have straight up, "that's disgusting, and people are disgusting," issues. Because that's just nasty.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 8:34 AM on September 6, 2015

At the same time thinking public transit, specifically, is gross always has always seemed to me an attitude informed by classism.

I've always thought any place that smells very strongly of urine was gross.
posted by teponaztli at 9:14 AM on September 6, 2015 [7 favorites]

Datapoint: I have a monthly mta pass that auto-renews. You know how usually you swipe a monthly and it says Go and the expiration date? Mine just says go. No waiting for a new card to come in the mail or anything
posted by (Over) Thinking at 9:15 AM on September 6, 2015

I've always thought any place that smells very strongly of urine was gross.

further, the majority of the people i see urinating in public are all middleclass 20something drunk white guys. not exactly a struggling underclass.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:15 AM on September 6, 2015 [5 favorites]

Anti-social extremes like flushing a toilet with your feet is a sign of contempt toward the public.

Or maybe a sign that you're aware of the concept of the tragedy of the commons. I work at a highly respected institution full of extremely bright people, and at least one person in my building still has trouble with getting all their shit in the toilet and then doesn't flush.
posted by chimaera at 11:14 AM on September 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

after our office cleaning lady said that she only had to refill the (tiny, practically travel-sized) hand soap dispenser in the men's room twice in the past year I decided to never again touch anything in the men's room with any part of my body
posted by poffin boffin at 12:01 PM on September 6, 2015 [4 favorites]

I've lived in the SF Bay Area since 1980 and BART kiosks have not changed one iota since then. Which is to say they've always sucked. The only innovation that makes it tolerable to use the system on a regular basis is Clipper. Before that they had their own contactless card system the payment end of which which was implemented terribly.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 12:10 PM on September 6, 2015

Oh yes, the green Translink card. Pretty short-lived, from what I remember. I giggled when I found it in my old wallet.
posted by extramundane at 12:12 PM on September 6, 2015

Anti-social extremes like flushing a toilet with your feet is a sign of contempt toward the public.

Every stall in my workplace has a "Please flush the toilet" sign in it. Lots of people either can't read or understand it. The stall by the wall always has a pool of chew spit in the corner. The chew spit might be there because of the signs in the water fountains that kindly request that chew spit goes elsewhere. I guess when you get to the heart of the matter, I'm flushing with my foot because I think these people are disgusting. It's not like I don't have evidence.
posted by TrialByMedia at 5:10 PM on September 6, 2015

BART's machines are super easy once you understand how they work and how it's not a flat fare and how adding 5 cents to a card with a $5 bill might result in the discovery that 99 nickels just barely fit into the change pocket of your jeans. But I would in no way call it beginner-friendly.

And Clipper cards have the terrible problem of needing to be reset by the station agent if you take it away from the reader a fraction of a second too early.
posted by clorox at 6:05 PM on September 6, 2015

It should be frictionless, yes, but everyday users shouldn't be needing to use a kiosk ever. The primary users should be first time users therefore it's correct to tailor it for them.

I have lived in and rode transit in Chicago, Boston, Washington and now New York on a daily basis and after a while when I would have guests in town in these cities I would often have minor hiccups using the machines to buy cards for guests or whatever, precisely because I never ever used the machines.
posted by andrewesque at 7:25 PM on September 6, 2015

ssg, interesting that you would mention the Hong Kong system. I just read a Quora post about the history of Bart's contactless Clipper. It is 16 years old and designed by the same company that designed Hong Kong's Octopus system, but for some reason they designed it differently.

The post mentions that they are now working with transit authorities around the world on an open system called Nextfare that takes any NFC card or system (such as Visa or your smartphone).
posted by eye of newt at 8:54 PM on September 6, 2015

Further Googling shows that there are already Nextfare based systems, including the 7 year old Miami EASY card system (pdf).
posted by eye of newt at 8:59 PM on September 6, 2015

It is 16 years old and designed by the same company that designed Hong Kong's Octopus system, but for some reason they designed it differently.

I bet there is a pretty interesting story there, because the end results are pretty different. Actually, Cubic (the company that makes Nextfare) took over Clipper from the Motorola and ERG (the company that originally created the Hong Kong Octopus card), so it certainly sounds like things didn't go smoothly.

The Octopus card is particularly awesome because it is widely accepted at convenience stores, fast food restaurants, grocery stores, etc.
posted by ssg at 9:14 PM on September 6, 2015

Oh god, so many feelings. I LOVED my Clipper card. I had it set to auto-refill my Muni monthly pass AND my transit dollars (for when I needed to take BART outside the city or the Caltrain). Painless. And the tapping almost always worked flawlessly across systems. I used a kiosk maybe...three times in two years?

In comparison, the Metrocard seems so antiquated. I'm constantly terrified that I'm going to lose my $120 pass because I have to take it out of my wallet every time I enter the subway. It took me a good 15 minutes to figure out how to even add a monthly pass to my card (y'all, what the fuck is "time"? Just say pass!). But the MTA serves...so many more people, and a much more diverse set of people, than BART/Muni/Caltrain -- I understand why things are this way, and why it's difficult to change them.
posted by Ragini at 10:45 PM on September 6, 2015

Wow! It looks like Cubic now runs or is part of a lot of smart-card ticketing systems:
Hong Kong's Octopus
SF's BART, along with Caltrain, and many Bay Area bus and light rail systems
London's Oyster
Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s TAP
Miami EASY card (mentioned above)
San Diego County Smart Card
Atlanta MARTA smart card
Sydney Opal
Queensland Go card
Chicago Transit Authority (along with Ventra)
Washington DC smartrip
Shanghai Metro
Italy's Azienda Trasporti Collettivi e Mobilita (ATCM)
Singapore EZ-Link
NY Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) rapid-transit rail system. (and machines for MTA)

So, it looks like it isn't being re-invented every time, but on the other hand it is a little scary that one company is running all of these. What would be cool is if they could make one card (or your smartphone) work at a lot of these. That would be useful for international travelers. It looks like you can use Apple Pay on London's system, so maybe this is the direction they are going.
posted by eye of newt at 1:49 AM on September 7, 2015

Clipper's autoload system has some major flaws though that almost kill its otherwise great utility. If a payment fails for any reason, say because your credit card has expired, and even if there is otherwise enough value on your card, your entire Clipper card will be blocked for days. This was done to accommodate the many offline terminals on buses, which only, at least in theory, receive database updates when buses pull into the garage. Similarly, adding a pass or cash online can take five days. Worse yet, if your Clipper card is lost or stolen, it can't be deactivated immediately, and Clipper's phenomenally unhelpful customer service (operated by evil contractor Cubic) will tell you that you're still responsible for any charges until the end of the day, no matter how promptly you report it.

In any case, it's well past time for the Bay Area's gazillion transit agencies to stop the ridiculous turf wars that have gone on for decades and have a unified zone fare structure. This would vastly simplify the system, eliminating all the different pass types, cash purses, and transfer schemes Clipper currently attempts to deal with. The current system is a mess in this regard, just off the top of my head: some agencies require you to tag on and tag off, while others just require you to tag on; youth and senior discount policies aren't standardized and some agencies require special proof for discount passes; transfer polices vary from nonexistent to overly confusing; several agencies still maintain their own ticket systems in parallel to Clipper; everyone has different ticket machines, except for those agencies with no machines at all; and fare enforcement policies are widely divergent, so some agencies you can buy a ticket on-board no problem, while others will take you to court if you don't tag on first, often with minimal signage to make this policy clear.

In short, the Bay Area's transit system is run as a couple dozen fiefdoms, and the MTC, the agency that is supposed to be running Clipper and coordinating everything, can't even keep Cubic, its own contractor, in check, let alone manage the transit agencies.
posted by zachlipton at 1:56 AM on September 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

It just occurred to me: Cubic is only a 1 billion dollar company. It would be a steal for a company with a lot of cash, say Google or Apple (they could sell off the defense contractor division). Then they could make an Android and/or iPhone phone or watch a worldwide universal transportation ticket. As I mentioned Apple Pay already works on the London Underground.
posted by eye of newt at 10:17 AM on September 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

London introduced contactless bank card payment last year, and yes, Apple Pay a couple of months ago. It works great. I haven't touched a ticket machine for probably a year.
posted by corvine at 12:27 PM on September 7, 2015

eye of newt: "What would be cool is if they could make one card (or your smartphone) work at a lot of these. "

I think that's theoretically possible, at least with a smartphone. Most modern phones that support contactless payments (like Android and Apple Pay) support host card emulation, which allows the phone to securely "spoof" a certain contactless card. If the transit card used one of the current NFC standards supported by a given phone's hardware, it could be used through a phone.
posted by redct at 1:24 PM on September 7, 2015

Fascinating article, enlightening to this occasional NYC tourist. 50% of subway riders (in 1999) didn't have a bank account? Good grief.
posted by Rash at 10:42 PM on September 7, 2015