Are you dead? On vacation? Given up? Been sued?

No, no and no and most importantly, no.

Life is crazy at the moment - you know, being the march towards Christmas. As much as I try to blog from the train, the signal is crap through many stretches and I get frustrated and give up.

I'm working on the mother of all footrider stories and I want those who have taken the time to send me pictures over the past several months to know that I do not purposely ignore your photos. I collect them and then post them randomly. Even I would get tired of seeing footriders all the time on my site.

I know it makes some folks bang their keyboards in frustration when I don't post content everyday - just let me believe this as truth, I have blogs that are part of my daily distraction routine and I get disappointed when there hasn't been an update in more than a day. This blog has been delayed with no communication as to what's wrong.

A bit hypocritical of me, I know.

I bet at the Metrolinx office right now, a few of the folks in Communications are probably pointing at the monitor, jumping up and down, and screaming, "In your face, bitch!" a la Jessie Pinkman.

Sit your asses back down. Apparently there's this huge PRESTO upgrade happening in January. I've learned that for many customers, the autoload feature is kaput. Will this be addressed in the upgrade?

Speaking of PRESTO, Frank E. Futor's recent Crazy Train contribution, in which Mr. Futor also emailed his concerns to GO Transit, with respect to the insidious travel window, received a reply.

from:  MH
date:		Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 1:57 PM
subject:		GO Transit, A Division of Metrolinx

Reference No. 201306XXXXX

I certainly understand how crucial it is that our representatives provide the correct information to our customers. Unfortunately, our social media agent was mistaken when he mentioned that the 3 hour PRESTO travel window extends every time the PRESTO card is tapped.

The PRESTO travel window is a single 3 hour period which starts when a customer initially taps on to the GO system. It does not extend when customers tap again to transfer. The agent that tweeted this information has been addressed and we have provided him with the appropriate coaching.

I’ve also investigated your December 8^th transactions, detailed in the attachment that you sent.  When you tapped your PRESTO card on the bus at Burlington to start the next leg of your journey, this opened a new trip. Normally, you would tap off at your destination, the system would recognize that you took this trip within the transfer window and a transfer credit would be applied. 

Unfortunately, when the Station Attendant loaded your $80.00 after you had tapped on the bus, it closed this trip since the PRESTO system cannot load funds to the card when there is an open trip. Since this trip technically closed without receiving a tap off, an underpayment of $6.65 was charged.

Because of this, your tap off at St. Catharines was considered a tap on and another new trip was opened. You were charged $4.85 for the base fare and the next time you tap your card on the GO system, an additional $0.30 will be charged for this underpayment. A trip from the Mimico GO Station to St. Catharines with a transfer at Burlington should have only have cost $11.99 on a PRESTO card. Due to these two underpayments, you were charged a sum of $24.31 for this trip and so, overcharged by a total of $12.32.

If you could provide me with your mailing address, I would be more than happy to send you a coupon for the amount that you’ve been overcharged. Please let me know at your earliest convenience.

Thank you for bringing this matter to my attention.

Sincerely,

MH
Customer Service Representative

Cc.       Greg Percy, President, GO Transit