LIFE WITH BART notes that the new Embarcadero faregates are completely installed. But when I came into the city yesterday one on the west side of the station was already orange-stickered out of service. What had it been working for, like, 48 hours? They ought to have slot machine companies make the fare gates -- those guys know how to keep the downtime to a minimum. With the old gates you'd have to jam your ticket in a couple of times before the mechanism noticed and sucked it away for stamping and recoding. The new ones delicately whisk the ticket out of your hand. Also there's something funny about the slot where the tickets come back out -- maybe it's just my height but the ticket is almost invisible when it's waiting in there. I'm not sure what the transporter pads on top of the gates are for, and the green "in service" arrows remind me of that Monty Python sketch with the vicious gangs of Keep Left signs.




Previously at Studio Nibble...

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