Grand River Transit

[MacBerry]

With these types of cards you have to buy them in very, very large bulk quantities for them to be as inexpensive as possible.

Transit agencies tend to do so, but even in moderate quantities they're not very expensive. 1000 of them would be enough to have a unit cost of less than a dollar (and probably closer to $0.20). A $1 fee for the commemorative cards would easily cover that. I think Dan is right that it's mostly about the cost of design, and GRT not valuing good design.

Is this a GRT issue or an ION issue. 

They run separate but closely interoperable business entities.