***Boston.com reports|http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/11/08/mbta_unveils_new_fare_card/*** that the ***MBTA|http://www.mbta.com/***, the oldest public transit system in the United States, is finally ditching its token system and switching over to a passcard system. The system will be called the “CharlieCard”, in reference to the 1940’s Boston political song, ***Charlie on the MTA|http://web.mit.edu/jdreed/www/t/charlie.html***. The song concerns a man named Charlie, who paid ten cents to get on the T, but didn’t have the change to pay the five cent exit fare – a hot political issue at the time. Charlie’s fate is left up in the air, or down in the ground, so to speak – he just keeps riding along on the MTA.

I’m looking forward to the new system. It will be nice to be able to load fares onto a card, and keep that handy, as opposed to needing to buy tokens and have them jingling around in your pocket while traveling. Even better would be if I could use my debit card at a machine to add value to the CharlieCard, as I rarely carry cash. But I don’t know if they have any plans for that. As an aside, our laundromat switched from a quarters system to a smart-card system a while back, and it’s been great just having to slide that card into the washers and driers to do a load or two or three. You even get bonus credits if you add $5 or more at a time.

As for tokens: You might want to buy a stash of tokens before it’s too late – they could be collectors items some day!

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