Apple Pay for Transit Now Works in These 12 U.S. Cities

[WarmWinterHat]

boring company tunnels makes a city extremely walkable.

Elon's boring company was an afterthought and quick way to kill the LA to Vegas train line, and he has more or less already forgotten about it. There are a ton of other tunneling companies better equipped and more experienced at tunneling than his company will ever be. For instance, they started tunneling the second route under the chesapkeae bay while I was living in Virginia.. Elon's company couldn't touch that if he wanted to.

 

[svish]

Waiting for this to expand to more cities in other countries too.

 

[ignatius345]

not sure what's the point when Waymo and Tesla robotaxis are going to make these legacy transit options obsolete.

Oh wow. Sounds like you haven’t heard of this thing called finite space.

 

[9640418]

This is fantastic news. Especially when I visit Tokyo, no fussing with the walk-up machines and same in New York

 

[dontwalkhand]

To use a senior fare (discount) in DC anyway, a real card is required. To acquire one at a kiosk/transit store one needs to provide state issued ID. As far as I can tell e-cards are incapable of supporting this. Albeit stiil very handy when traveling.

You can still convert the card to a virtual one in the SmarTrip app, at least thats the case with Clipper/TAP/Ventra. Even the free-ride cards can be converted.

 

[ignatius345]

When I was in London a while ago I didn’t even stop and think about navigating their fare system, but just tapped my phone just like at home. Pretty far cry from what it would’ve been like in the past, finding a kiosk and buying a card you might never use again.

Granted, you can do all this with any NFC enabled credit card, but the implementation on the iPhone sure is slick.

I hope they add it for some smaller cities outside the NYC metro area. They added OMNY for Westchester busses, and they’re going to add OMNY to Metro North trains this year.

I wonder how this is going to work. Are they going to let you use OMNY to pay the conductor directly for your ticket? Or, you just tap when you get on? People would fully revolt if they tried to put turnstiles on the platform.

 

[dontwalkhand]

When I was in London a while ago I didn’t even stop and think about navigating their fare system, but just tapped my phone just like at home. Pretty far cry from what it would’ve been like in the past, finding a kiosk and buying a card you might never use again.

Granted, you can do all this with any NFC enabled credit card, but the implementation on the iPhone sure is slick.


I wonder how this is going to work. Are they going to let you use OMNY to pay the conductor directly for your ticket? Or, you just tap when you get on? People would fully revolt if they tried to put turnstiles on the platform.

It’s just in the app, and it will allow you to use your OMNY balance. You also can use Apple Pay already within the app.

Express Transit is seriously an awesome feature and its implementation is “classic Apple”

 

[ignatius345]

It’s just in the app, and it will allow you to use your OMNY balance. You also can use Apple Pay already within the app.

Yeah, Apple Pay is how I do it now, so I get 2% back at least ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[germanbeer007]

Elon's boring company was an afterthought and quick way to kill the LA to Vegas train line,

False.

and he has more or less already forgotten about it.

he let Steve Davis run it.

There are a ton of other tunneling companies better equipped and more experienced at tunneling than his company will ever be.

subjective and misguided.

For instance, they started tunneling the second route under the chesapkeae bay while I was living in Virginia.. Elon's company couldn't touch that if he wanted to.

missing a lot of info there and not sure what the argument is.

 

[germanbeer007]

Oh wow. Sounds like you haven’t heard of this thing called finite space.

plenty of space underground. it's almost as if you can have one car for each human being on this planet and even then you wouldn't run out of space. amazing right? www.boringcompany.com

 

[jimscard]

Don't need or want autonomous vehicles. Don't need or want transit.

While they're useful for hub and spoke cities, there's a limited number of those in the US, and ever decreasing numbers of people need to go from the same place to a central place.

 

[apparatchik]

cheaper? hardly. they're subsidized by tax payers. volume is also hardly the full picture.

Private transportation (cars) are the single most subsidized (tax payer funded) mode there is. From the energy source (gasoline, diesel) to the roads construction and maintenance, to free parking regulations.

 

[dontwalkhand]

Don't need or want autonomous vehicles. Don't need or want transit.

While they're useful for hub and spoke cities, there's a limited number of those in the US, and ever decreasing numbers of people need to go from the same place to a central place.

Hub and spoke is the older way of doing transit. Newer methods are usually defined corridors as the trunk lines (think of a few light rail ones or one or two main metro lines) and you back fill the rest with a nice gridded bus system. You have some ring lines for suburb to suburb transit- this can be done either with express buses running on freeways, or if needed, rail.

As for autonomous vehicles, they’re useful for last mile services, for example, getting you from your house to the train station.

 

[rydewnd2]

Also, I have watched Waymo’s cut across 3 lanes of traffic, drive people onto active rail tracks, and other things that should cause people to shun these stupid things. Tech bro transit is not transit.

You’re right human drivers never do any of that 🙄

 

[germanbeer007]

Private transportation (cars) are the single most subsidized (tax payer funded) mode there is. From the energy source (gasoline, diesel) to the roads construction and maintenance, to free parking regulations.

luckily robotaxis are not gasoline based (at least the ones in USA)

road construction is essential for transport/military/emergency services/general construction of buildings/infrastructure which is impart paid for by cars in some way.

robotaxis will park just like you park your trains in train yards or buses in parking lots. not much different.

 

[wikiverse]

move 200 people at 1000x the cost (factor in total cost) over moving 3?

Did you factor in the cost and maintenance of the entire road network to be able to move those 3?

 

[wikiverse]

Tesla robotaxis are simply way better for cities than legacy public transport. And it's only going to get better with the robovan (higher capacity)

This is not currently true and will never be true. Public transport is a geometry problem - how much space does it take to move X number of people Y distance.

If you take 1000 people off of a train and put them into robo taxis, you now have 1000 robo taxis clogging up roads, so you need to build more roads which takes up more space. You could not run a city like Tokyo, London, Seoul, Paris, NYC, Chicago, Sydney or Melbourne without mass transit systems. These systems move millions of people per day across bus, heavy rail, light rail, tram, metros and ferries.

There is no way that putting those millions of trips into single or double occupant vehicles on roads is ever going to be 'better for cities' or more effective, or more efficient. If you want to factor in costs, you also need to factor in the costs of the vehicles AND the costs of building and maintaining a road network (including signs, traffic lights, parking, speed bumps, etc.) to accommodate millions of additional vehicles that are 30-50% heavier than ICE vehicles.

The robotaxi industry will never be bigger than the current taxi/uber industry because it is the same type of vehicle solving the exact same problem. If people aren't using those services now, they won't start using them in the future.

 

[germanbeer007]

Did you factor in the cost and maintenance of the entire road network to be able to move those 3?

yes.

boring company tunnels are much cheaper than subway tunnels.

 

[germanbeer007]

This is not currently true and will never be true. Public transport is a geometry problem - how much space does it take to move X number of people Y distance.

space isn't an issue when boring company builds tunnels for far less than subways. and it's even cheaper to maintain than above ground roads because tunnels don't suffer from extreme weather or heavy truck loads.

If you take 1000 people off of a train and put them into robo taxis, you now have 1000 robo taxis clogging up roads, so you need to build more roads which takes up more space.

Again, see above. Also you're failing to factor in trains are much slower due to needed stops along your journey while a robotaxi takes you directly to the destination point without stopping.

You could not run a city like Tokyo, London, Seoul, Paris, NYC, Chicago, Sydney or Melbourne without mass transit systems. These systems move millions of people per day across bus, heavy rail, light rail, tram, metros and ferries.

Incorrect. See above.

There is no way that putting those millions of trips into single or double occupant vehicles on roads is ever going to be 'better for cities' or more effective, or more efficient.

Boring Company already proved it out in Vegas it's possible. Their energy usage is already more efficient per pax-mile too.

If you want to factor in costs, you also need to factor in the costs of the vehicles AND the costs of building and maintaining a road network (including signs, traffic lights, parking, speed bumps, etc.)

Boring company tunnels cost less to maintain than subway tunnels. just a fact.

to accommodate millions of additional vehicles that are 30-50% heavier than ICE vehicles.

non-issue. roads are primarily damaged by heavy truck loads, something of which will not be in boring company tunnels.

The robotaxi industry will never be bigger than the current taxi/uber industry because it is the same type of vehicle solving the exact same problem. If people aren't using those services now, they won't start using them in the future.

There's already data showing that despite Waymo costing more (due to having a monopoly in autonomous vehicles before Tesla), people prefer to take a Waymo over a cheaper Uber.

 

[Florian03]

space isn't an issue when boring company builds tunnels for far less than subways. and it's even cheaper to maintain than above ground roads because tunnels don't suffer from extreme weather or heavy truck loads.



Again, see above. Also you're failing to factor in trains are much slower due to needed stops along your journey while a robotaxi takes you directly to the destination point without stopping.



Incorrect. See above.



Boring Company already proved it out in Vegas it's possible. Their energy usage is already more efficient per pax-mile too.



Boring company tunnels cost less to maintain than subway tunnels. just a fact.



non-issue. roads are primarily damaged by heavy truck loads, something of which will not be in boring company tunnels.



There's already data showing that despite Waymo costing more (due to having a monopoly in autonomous vehicles before Tesla), people prefer to take a Waymo over a cheaper Uber.

Cars don't need to stop????????? Traffic lights??????????

 

[kyjaotkb]

It's frustrating how many different implementaitons of this there are. When it uses any cards that you have and takes into account fare capping (London, NYC, Moscow - well, pre-2022 at least) it's great. When it requires a specific card like in Paris and does not support certain fares, it's a major pain.
It's also frustrating how this system counts a Watch and an iPhone using the same payment card and iCloud account as different travel passes, and effectively apply the fare capping per device and not per card/user. When your Watch dies and you have to use your phone, you don't benefit from the fare capping anymore.
It's a great system but implementation is far from being consistent or optimal, unfortunately.

 

[djplong]

Boring Company tunnels will NEVER compete with heavy metro systems. That's just a fact of physics.

HOWEVER - in time, those tunnels COULD give transit to smaller metro areas. This won't happen unless that Robovan actually gets built in numbers.

If you've ever looked at the station in Vegas, you see that the cars can bypass the "loading slips". This means you can get customized, "express" vehicles that don't have to stop at every stop along the way. Software could queue vehicles up at an airport station, each slip with a vehicle to a different area - express on the way there, local when it reaches the destinations.

Also - Yes, snow does stop trains above ground. But not for long. The trains are running LONG before the roads return to full capacity.

This isn't a "one or the other" situation. Montreal built the REM for less than the cost of a mile of the 2nd Avenue Subway. Boring Company tunnels COULD work - when used properly - but there are still missing pieces to that particular solution.

In the meantime, several hundred people get on a train and are taken to the job centers. And the subsidy isn't as bad as you think.

In fact, if transit agencies were as smart as the one in Hong Kong, there wouldn't be ANY subsidies. HK keeps the land around the station and leases it to private developers. The lease payments make up for the "losses" on the rail system.

 

[erinsarah]

"has the capability" key phrase you completely missed.

You are completely missing the point of the article and the iphone feature. I HAVE the capability to use ApplePay and ride anywhere in major cities NOW, just like millions of other riders each year. THAT is the point of this feature being released now. and it's a GREAT feature. Personally, I serve as a very useful example of how great this is. My daughter lives in NYC, I do not. She uses this feature daily. When I come visit and we explore the city, I don't need to buy subway tickets or get some sort of transit pass. I pull out my phone. Done. It's very rare that she and I take an uber in town. It's just not worth it.

There MIGHT be an option, perhaps maybe someday in our lifetimes, to ride a Boring tunnel somewhere useful. Maybe. There MIGHT be an opportunity to ride an AI-powered car in the next few years to somewhere useful. Maybe. But skipping the overall cost to infrastructure and society of one over another, are thousands and thousands of people a day in a big city going to spend 3x, 5x, 10x or more to get to their city destination more slowly when you can ride the subway for a couple of bucks and get to the same place faster?

Last time I was in NYC I had to get from Harlem to Brooklyn, with a coworker, on a rainy day. He and i traveled to our destination at different times. I took the subway and, for $3 I was there in something like 40 minutes. He took an Uber and it took him over 2 hours and cost him well over $100.

I fail to understand how the Boring Company does anything beyond digging a tunnel for cars to go through. New York has tunnels. They carry cars (and trains). Why is the Boring company even part of the argument here?

For Boring and Waymo, my suggestion is to look at places like Pittsburgh, as many autonomous driving companies have done. small-to-midsize city, with very complex roads. A subway that only goes south from downtown. No subways north, east, or west. Mass transit is buses, and they are not looked upon favorably by the car-owning sect. The surrounding city and close suburbs are ripe for improvements to mass transit, but the city doesn't have "big" money for infrastructure projects like that, and building subways to the unserved areas would cost massive amounts of money given the hilly geography. Get the boring company to make a tunnel from Pittsburgh to any distance north of the city then report back to us.

 

[dmr727]

Being able to tap and walk through is fantastic. I'm spoiled - I spend lots of time on NYC and London subways, and it's always jarring when I use a transit system that stops me to authenticate the transaction, or even worse, purchase a ticket.

 

[DailySlow]

You can still convert the card to a virtual one in the SmarTrip app, at least thats the case with Clipper/TAP/Ventra. Even the free-ride cards can be converted.

My Clipper card is already done, but took the leap since I seldom use it and no crisis if phone lost, etc. and I DO have the original senior card thus facilitating a new install in a replacement phone. I will check out on that locally (DC) and may take the leap. I DID inquire a while back at a kiosk and was told your physical card is rendered useless- but if I can hang onto it could be time.