[personal profile] ornoth

So last year the MBTA (Boston’s public transit system) upped its subway fares by 25 percent. The system still runs on tokens, and, as many Bostonians were wont to do, I decided to buy a few extra tokens just before the price increase.

Tokens can be bought in rolls of 40, and because it wound up being more convenient, I continued buying my tokens in rolls throughout the year. As a side effect, this also gave me the ability to see exactly how many tokens I wound up spending on the T over the course of the year. I used just under three rolls, or 114 tokens, which excludes several tokens that I found in the coin returns of the T’s antiquated turnstiles.

Now, the T also offers monthly subway passes. They cost a fixed $44, so the point where the pass becomes cheaper than the $1.25 tokens is on one’s 18th round-trip ride of the month, or 36th one-way trip of the month.

Since I averaged less than 5 round trips per month (9.5 one-way rides), the tokens are clearly the way to go. By buying tokens instead of passes, I saved myself over $385 over the course of the year.

But really, for me the most interesting thing is that I took essentially 57 round-trip rides on the subway last year, and that three rolls of tokens ($150) is sufficient to get me through a whole year.

Of course, this will all change late in 2005, because the MBTA is allegedly switching over to a stored-value card system. But at least now I’ve got a good idea what to put on my card!

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