Why do we like this idea? Because usually when a transit system or government says they need to find new ways for funding, they form a committe and hire a bunch of consultants and have a bunch of hearings and then form another committee and after all that time and wasted money, anounce to everyone that they're going to raise prices. This shows some actual, for lack of a better term, thinking outside the box. And yes, we were clutching our Pets.com hand puppet when we wrote that. We've always wondered why BART and MUNI and the rest of them never thought of lowering fares to see if that could raise revenues by encouraging more people to use them.

The BART board is thinking about trying a pilot program with a few riders to see how it works out. If it does work, they'll expand it until we finally see TransLink, a single card that will allow people to use every transportation system in the area (Hall-e-ju-jah on that too).