Stephen Farrow wrote:
David of Broadway wrote:
Stephen Farrow wrote:
Arthur Figgis wrote:

I found Budapest airport a bit rude, as the transport information desk
would only sell transport+museum passes to us phrasebook-wielding
tourists, but not the equivalent of a travel card, even though we knew
what to ask for. They just don't sell 'em. There was some sort of
ticket machine, but it was OOU.

At one point, at LaGuardia airport in New York, it was possible to
buy an MTA "fun pass" (day pass) only from *one* newsstand - which
was helpfully located on the departures level, rather than in
arrivals. I've no idea whether or not this is still the case.

When was this? I doubt it's still the case, although I don't know for
sure.

About three years ago.

I'm surprised, then.

In any case, I was last at LGA in early 2004, but, having just been
assaulted on the M60 bus, I was more interested in obtaining ice than in
obtaining a MetroCard. (Really. My luggage brushed against somebody's
leg and he took out his aggression on my eye.)

But ever since the price jumped from $4 to $7, the Fun Pass has been
an incredibly bad deal for nearly everyone. What most people want is
a $10 pay-per-ride MetroCard; longer-term tourists might opt for a $24
7-day unlimited MetroCard.

Which is what I've done every time since. That trip, though, I needed a
one-day pass - I was arriving in the morning (from Toronto), meeting a
friend in Midtown, heading over to Lincoln Center to do some research at
the Performing Arts Library, then heading to Penn Station in the evening
to catch a train out to Hofstra University, where I was going to a
conference. And, of course, I arrived without exact change for the bus,
and a cab to Manhattan was beyond my graduate student budget. It was
only by asking around in the terminal that I got directed to the one
newsstand that sold the Fun Pass.

If you remember, did you pay $4 or $7 for the Fun Pass? (The price
changed in 2003 -- May, I think it was.)

The $4 version was a good deal in many cases. But if you paid $7, and
those were the only trips you made, you /still/ would have been better
off paying per ride. And even if there were other trips that you didn't
list, with a bit of planning, it's often possible to pair up trips to
take advantage of free bus-subway transfers. (For instance, if you
weren't spending much time at the library, the Midtown - Lincoln Center
- Penn Station triple could have been done on a single fare by taking
the subway in one direction and a bus in the other. I don't know where
in Midtown you were coming from, but the M10 and M20 buses run directly
from Lincoln Center to Penn Station.)

Obviously, this all depends on your understanding the MetroCard transfer
policy and its implications. As a reader of this newsgroup, I'm sure
you do, but the average tourist certainly doesn't.

(For everybody else: The MetroCard system provides a single free
transfer from bus to bus or from bus to subway or from subway to bus.
The transfer is valid for 2 hours and 18 minutes, swipe to swipe. It is
not valid for a round trip on a single bus route, but if a particular
trip can be made by either bus or subway, the system doesn't know or
care if you make a round trip by going one way by bus and the other way
by subway. With two exceptions introduced in 2001, subway-to-subway
transfers are all inside fare control.)

Mind you, Toronto airport isn't really any better. There's the very
overpriced Pacific Western bus downtown, which is fairly easy to find
from the arrivals level of each terminal. There's a very good TTC bus
service to the subway, but you need exact change or metropass or a
token, and as far as I know none of the newsstands in any of the three
terminals sell tokens or tickets (or TTC day passes, which are also
valid), despite the fact that convenience stores all over the city are
set up to sell TTC tickets and passes.

I fondly recall my visit last summer to Prague. Upon arrival from
Vienna at the Holešovice train station, I promptly went to an ATM to
obtain cash.

After spending a few minutes finding the appropriate direction to walk
towards the tram I needed -- you see, I had identified the numbers of
the tram lines that would get me to my hotel, but the signs only gave
terminals, not numbers -- I walked up to a ticket machine.

It accepted coins only. ATM's don't dispense coins.

So I walked up to the ticket window. It was closed. In the middle of a
weekday afternoon, at a major railroad station.

I then went down into the underpass to the trams (down the stairs with
my luggage -- there were no elevators/lifts or even ramps). The
underpass had two exits, again, with stairs. Neither one was signed.

Eventually, I found a second ticket window, this one open, at the top of
the second staircase, around the corner from the tram stop I needed.

(While in Prague, I visited the downtown Tesco. It was most incredibly
unlike any of the Tescos I came across in London.)
--
David of Broadway
New York, NY, USA