03-07-2022, 09:04 AM
(03-07-2022, 08:22 AM)jamincan Wrote: In retrospect, using Presto seems obviously better, but the context at the time was quite different. Presto was still *very* rough around the edges and the benefits of using it, especially outside of the GTA, were not as immediately obvious at that time. In general, if council is not going to use a competitive bidding process, there usually has to be pretty compelling reasons to do it, and with all the trade-offs that it would have entailed, it's not clear to me that selecting Presto outside of a RFP process would have been the right decision. Maybe they would have found it was the best within a competitive process, but thanks to Presto, that wasn't an option.
I would also be very leery of getting into a business relationship with a company that demonstrates an unwillingness to work with me as a client. Take it or leave it is okay if you're selling chocolate bars and cereal. It's a giant red flag for something like this.
Edit: I do wonder, though, if it would make sense for the region to reconsider the fare card issue.
I mean, the whole point of government is to plan for the future, we KNEW that tighter integration with the GTA was something we were striving for, it was easily foreseeable that fare card unity would be a long term benefit.
I do agree that Presto had more issue then, but it is utterly naive to think that our little town would be able to launch a fare card without issues. To me, the most legitimate argument against presto is not trusting the province.
In any case, it's a moot point now, we'll just have to wait 30 years for an integrated fare card. For me, I literally have nine fare cards in my travel bag now....three family members times GRT, Presto, and London. Where we will be by the end of the month, I expect to have 3 fare cards for the entire country including bike rentals.