Article By Jon Hilkevitch, Chicago Tribune, March 20, 2013
Senior citizens and people with disabilities who qualify for reduced transit fares and low-income residents in the free-rides program won't be able to open a prepaid debit account when the Regional Transportation Authority's versions of the new Ventra fare card come out this year, officials said Wednesday.
Full-fare and reduced-fare riders will, however, both face the penalty of a $5 monthly deduction from their Ventra accounts if for any reason, including a hospitalization, they stop riding the CTA or Pace for 18 months, officials confirmed.
The logic behind the decision to not extend the offer of a debit account to certain groups is unclear. But critics of the Ventra debit card say it's laden with fees and service charges that customers would know about only if they took the time to read the fine print.
RTA and CTA officials said it was their idea to restrict reduced-fare and free-rides customers to a transit-only Ventra card.
RTA officials said they intervened against the debit account option to shield seniors, people with disabilities and low-income residents from potential problems and to keep the RTA-issued Ventra cards simple.
"We wanted to avoid other potential fees for our customers," RTA spokeswoman Diane Palmer said Wednesday.
CTA officials said the RTA is claiming to have turned down an offer that wasn't made.
"The CTA never contemplated offering a debit card option for users of the RTA-issued reduced-fare cards" when the CTA signed the contract for the new fare system in 2011, CTA spokesman Brian Steele said.
Responding to the RTA's account, CTA President Forrest Claypool said, "We pulled the meeting records, and the records showed exactly the opposite."
The RTA asked in January whether it was possible to reconsider the decision and offer the prepaid debit account to reduced-fare riders, Steele said. The CTA responded that it was too late because the card stock for transit-only cards and transit-debit cards had been ordered, Steele said.
CTA rider Ellen Hunt, 66, a reduced-fare customer, said she doesn't care whose idea it was. She has no intention of getting a Ventra debit account.
"All I care about is being able to have the convenience of being able to reload a smart card for transit," said Hunt, a freelance writer and editor. "I have credit cards and debit cards that I already use."
The regular, full-fare Ventra card that the CTA plans to start selling this summer will offer CTA and Pace riders the option of opening a separate debit account, for use in making retail purchases anywhere MasterCard is accepted.
But the debit-account agreement is embedded with more than a dozen convenience fees and other service charges that could quickly turn expensive if cardholders are not careful, the Tribune reported exclusively Wednesday. The debit account fees include $2.95 each time money is added to the Ventra prepaid debit card using a personal credit card, a $2 charge to speak to a Ventra customer service agent on the phone and a $10-per-hour charge for "account research'' to resolve discrepancies, according to the Ventra contract the CTA approved.
An organization that works to promote the civil rights of people with physical and mental disabilities in Illinois criticized what it called the "blatant discrimination" in the RTA's handling of the Ventra card distribution.
"As the Tribune article demonstrated, the debit card option is replete with unreasonable 'gotcha' fees hidden in the fine print that will fall disproportionately on those least able to afford them," said Karen Ward, vice president for public policy at Equip for Equality, which is based in Chicago.
"Nevertheless, whatever options are available to the general public should be available to persons with disabilities and persons over 65 who qualify for reduced-fare cards," Ward said. "People with disabilities — not the CTA — should be permitted to make the decision whether to sign up for such cards. There is no justification for this blatant discrimination.''
Reduced-fare customers will receive a Ventra card in the mail later this year at no charge, the RTA said. It can be loaded with money using cash or linking it to a bank account or a credit card, officials said, adding that no service fees will be charged.
Free-rides customers, who pay no fares because they are registered in the state Circuit Breaker program, will receive a free-rides Ventra card at no cost.
The CTA is charging its customers $5 for a regular Ventra card. The $5 will be credited toward transit fares if the Ventra card is registered within 90 days, the CTA said.
Jhilkevitch@tribune.com
Twitter @jhilkevitch
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-rta-no-debit-option-on-reducedfare-ventra-cards-20130320,0,3355403.story
Copyright © 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
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The continued separate and not equal treatment for People with Disabilities and Senior Citizens in Public Transportation in Northeastern Illinois.
Jim Watkins; Ability Chicago
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Senior transit users to escape Ventra ‘purchase’ fee but still face $5 ‘dormancy’ charge
article BY ROSALIND ROSSI, Transportation Reporter, Chicago Sun Times, March 20, 2013
When the CTA launches its new Ventra payment system, it won’t charge seniors a one-time transit card “purchase” fee, but it will dock them $5 a month if they let their cards sit idle for more than 18 months, RTA officials revealed Wednesday.
The RTA said it has been swamped with questions about Ventra from some of the 500,000 seniors, disabled and low-income transit riders who now receive special RTA “permits’’ entitling them to reduced or free fares on city and suburban public transit.“They are confused,’’ said RTA spokeswoman Diane Palmer. “Seniors and the disabled need clarification.’’
The Ventra payment card system — which allows a rider to pay fares by tapping a pre-loaded plastic card with a special chip on a fare reader — is set to debut this summer.
A few weeks later, seniors and others who currently have reduced-fare permits should be receiving new plastic Ventra payment cards in the mail, with photos the RTA now has on file for them on those cards.
Unlike other transit users, they will not be assessed a one-time $5 Ventra card “purchase” fee, but must they must load the plastic card with cash or credit to use it on a bus or at a transit station. The CTA will accept current paper magnetic stripe cards through the end of the year.
However, if a senior becomes incapacitated and unable to use public transit for more than 15 months, a $5 “dormancy’’ fee will be docked monthly from the transit credit on their senior Ventra permit.
J. Joseph Smith, 62, who lives in an assisted living facility in Des Plaines, called the $5 a month senior dormancy fee “ridiculous” and said it would be financially onerous to some seniors.
The entire Ventra system, Smith said, is “unnecessarily complicated and therefore it’s going to be a problem for seniors.”
The RTA’s Planning Department, in an analysis of Ventra, raised concerns about charging the “dormancy’’ fee to seniors and others “who stop riding the system due to health or relocation” for more than 18 months.
But at this point, RTA officials said, CTA still wants to charge seniors the dormancy fee. As a result, they said, they are planning mailings to seniors and “constant outreach events’’ to alert seniors that they need to inform the RTA if they change their address or stop using their transit permits in the future.
The RTA also revealed it will cost the agency about $2 million more a year to produce a reduced-fare version of the new Ventra card, an amount already reflected in this year’s RTA budget.
Yet more previously undisclosed Ventra fees emerged Wednesday in correspondence between the RTA and CTA indicating the CTA wants to charge the RTA $1.50 per month for each of 50,000 customers whose transit fares are subtracted from their pay pre-tax in a benefit administered by the RTA.
In a Tuesday letter to CTA President Forrest Claypool, RTA executive director Joe Costello contended that the $1.50 charge — which could cost the RTA some $900,000 a year — should be waived for any agency that processes pre-tax transit benefits. Instead, such agencies should be viewed as “partners” in the “ultimate goal” of getting more people to ride transit, Costello contended.
CTA officials argued the RTA could have used Ventra contractor Cubic Transportation at no cost to administer pre-tax transit benefits. RTA officials insisted Cubic could not cover a large enough service area to meet its customer needs — but the CTA insisted that’s not true.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/18987834-418/seniors-to-escape-ventra-purchase-fee-but-still-face-5-dormancy-charge.html
