I don't see how your point contradicts GP's. There is no reason why you can't have a reliable machine that sells a reliable daily or weekly pass with a nice design. The rest of your comment about Ubers seems to be just a massive straw man.
replyTap to pay may work if you actually use your phone as your wallet. From what I see around me, most people don't. And on this website in particular you have surely seen people advocating for cash over privacy concerns. Nor would I be confident that my card will work flawlessly in another city half a planet away before I get there. I will buy a weekly pass from a machine, though, especially if it looks cute enough that I can bring it home as souvenir.
This reads like a nervous breakdown at the thought of having to buy a ticket from A to B. It’s really not that complicated in most countries with functional public transport.
replyThe way I see it there is a bifurcation here: some people value convenience so they just use their regular credit card to pay per trip with no discounts; others don’t mind the mental overhead of getting a transit card, understanding the fare products, selecting the optimal fare products, standing in line to load the fare products onto the card in order to save money. It’s good to provide both.
replyNothing you say is necessarily wrong or bad, but it is why we can’t have beautiful things and only utilitarian shit.
replySome things should be a utility. Nice is important but transit should fade into the background while you live life. Don't make them ugly but utility needs to be first.
replyWell, some people spend a significant amount of their time on transit. Of course, utility should come first, but I also would totally support trying to make them look nice (even if most people wouldn't notice nowadays because they stare at their phones the whole time).
replyUtilitarians see the utility of everything and the value of nothing.
replyYou can have lots of beautiful things. You can't REQUIRE beautiful things. Government services are a requirement.
replyThinking like this is exactly what's wrong with public transport in most of the world. It has to be there, but god forbid you make it actually attractive, then people might use it more and it would cost even more. Better to keep it at a barely tolerable level and save the money for what really matters, like road projects.
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