Grand River Transit

[plam]

I seem to have a memory that the real reason they didn’t pick Presto was because Presto wouldn’t support any specialized university pass program, just a general student discount. So the Region had a choice to make and abandon its pass programs (which all UW and WLU students are mandatorily required to participate as part of their student fees) that offer unlimited use or to go its own way. It just seems incredible to me that Presto couldn’t be convinced to build these kind of programs in, but assuming that fact was true, I do recognize that it was a hard choice because those pass programs do provide GRT with a sizeable and stable revenue stream (and I think students represent a uniquely large share of transit users in the Region compared to other municipalities). I still think they should have picked Presto and it’s extremely clear now that Presto was the better choice, but I don’t think it was as dumb a decision as people are making it out to be.

I also think that at the time Presto had a bunch of issues (i.e. it did actually take a long time for it to be accepted on TTC).  I mean, now, sure, it looks kind of silly not to be on Presto, but as with any IT project, they can and do fail pretty often, really.