SmarTrip Cards: About To Be Way More Annoying?

Was there anything wrong with SmarTrip cards? Were there any huge problems with the system that I didn't know about? Because the WMATA appears to be wrecking everything.

They announced that as of August 29 (now changed to October), SmarTrip cards would no longer be allowed to go negative, just like farecards. As the system stands right now, if you come into the Metro system with a positive balance, you can leave with a negative balance but you can't come back in until you're back in the positive.

AND if you have to add a little value to your SmarTrip to get out, you better have cash — they still won't be accepting credit cards for exit fare.

The reason the cards will no longer be allowed to go negative? They want to lower the price of a card from $5 to $2.50, and if you bought a card for $2.50 and then used it to take a $4 dollar train ride, the Metro would lose money — a million bucks a month, by their estimate.

They've admitted now that maybe they should have mentioned this idea to the public and gotten some feedback, but now that they've gone and put that out there they've also put out a bunch of alternatives — see Greater Greater Washington for details.

Bottom line is, yes, it would be nice for poorer customers to be able to avoid a SmarTrip — there's a discount for using it, and it's way less annoying that the farecards. But is this new proposal making things WAY more complicated for a negligable amount of benefit? You'd save $2.50 one time, then be inconvenienced (or stranded, cashless in the subway) every time you forgot to top-up your card.