Now, Submitting to Government Monitoring of Your Transit Choices is Easier Than Ever!

As the people who brought you the useless 511.org struggle through yet another year of technical glitches with their Translink scheme, BART's EZ-Rider is sailing along with new features and only a single public snafu (a misspelled URL in their last email newsletter). EZ-Rider works just how a transit card should: wave it over the turnstile and it automatically debits fare from a preloaded account; when necessary, it'll recharge itself by automatically grabbing $50 at a time from a linked checking account.

Recently-introduced website upgrades allow you to check your balance online, which is nice -- though an SMS-based system would be useful, too, since not all of us have gotten around to buying our iPhones yet.

The one disadvantage: it only works on BART, so it'll be obsolete the moment TransLink actually starts working. When do you predict that moment will occur?