Incubaker

I Go smart card

I recently read about the I Go smart card and was truly blown away.  The I Go concept is pretty straightforward as it connects all of Chicago’s buses, subways, trains and car-sharing programs into one shared system all accessible from ONE smart card.  Imagine going up to one universal kiosk and putting money on your smart card that allows you to ride a bus to a train and then finally drive in a shared car.

I appreciate the concept since living in San Francisco has been a public transportation headache as its disconnected systems have been a interesting learning curve from the BART, Muni, Caltrain to a few car sharing programs.  Boston’s Charlie card system is quite successful as it connects all the subways and buses in the city, nicely managing transfers via the card.  My only hope if the cities open up the system to start allowing for using the smart cards at vending machines or merchants.