Grand River Transit

[taylortbb]

It's just the region choosing to do things their own way to stroke their ego. It's like the recycling system. It's 2024 and the region is still using the tiny blue bin program they started back in, what, 1980 or something? Meanwhile most large urban centres across North America now use the big ass bins on wheels since it's more efficient, but Waterloo Region refuses to change because they were the ones to come up with the blue bins.

You're just making stuff up. The region doesn't refuse to change, they literally just awarded a new recycling contract which includes the new bins.

It's no surprise that somewhere like Toronto would switch to automated collection before Waterloo. Labour costs more in Toronto, so they're going to see ROI on it first.

I have to assume no manager or councillor is going to come out and just openly say that “we didn’t pick presto because we like doing our own thing regardless of what’s best for transit users”

The major reason was that Presto was still deep in TTC implementation, and it wasn't clear when that would be done. Presto wasn't willing to promise GRT that they could have the install done before ION opening. And obviously the old fare boxes don't work in a proof-of-payment system like ION. So the region was worried that ION would be ready to open, except there'd be no way to collect fares.

Obviously it turned out to be a non-issue, with the Bombardier delays they could have had Presto long before ION. But hindsight is 20/20, no one knew at the time that ION opening would be delayed, or how long Presto's TTC rollout would take.

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.

Also this. Back then everyone hated Presto. It's amazing how obvious everything is in hindsight, but a lot people thought Presto was total shit back then.