My wife and I were looking through some of our old photos together and we happened to see these:
They’re not just cards with pictures. I know in the US you can get something like that as a sort of collectible, but these are actually stickers on top of ez-link cards from Singapore. You see, in Singapore, they use a transit card that’s like a contactless debit card. You just tap it against a reader and enter the train station or bus. You don’t even have to take it out of your wallet or purse if you don’t want to, and, because there’s no strip to worry about and they’re not disposable, you can decorate them. They’re simple and usually don’t expire, as far as I remember. We wound up turning these in for new ones, when they upgraded their system so that ez-link cards could be used to pay tolls on toll roads in cars as well. In fact, that might have been when we took these photos, just so we could remember our stickers.
I miss these things, and how much easier they were to use than the MetroCards we get in New York City. MetroCards seem like a waste to me, because you get one, use it for a while and then it has to be thrown away. Wouldn’t it be better to just use the same card until you wear it out? It would definitely be more cost effective. Of course, switching to a card like this would create a loss of work for whoever makes the current MetroCards. That’s probably the reason they won’t upgrade. I understand that it’s important for people to have jobs, but I just get tired of seeing it used as an excuse to halt progress, especially when the upgrade could make life easier and is better for the environment at the same time.
Bradley Farless 