September 9, 1998

Getting older? Climb a rope, dance a jig

Those of us who were born between 1900 and the early 1930's have a couple of things in common. We can no longer run a four minute mile, even if our name is Roger Bannister, and we have more trouble dealing with bureaucracies than those in their thirties, whose wits have been sharpened by an uninterrupted lifetime of voice mail and other such insults to the psyche.

We who are older were acclimated to a simpler way of life. Our phone numbers used to be four or five digits, our postal zones varied from zero digits to as many as two, and if we called a company we wanted to do business with, some living person answered within fifteen rings. Today it takes me as much as 18 digits to call my daughter in Fremont or my brother in Humboldt County. My zip code is nine digits long. I have to plan reading material for each business phone call, so I can use the time semi-productively while sitting on the line listening to the recording telling me how important my call is to them.

There are those of us whose hearing and eyesight is not as sharp as it used to be, who may have a bit more trouble getting around than we used to, or who may need the help of a cane, a walker or a wheelchair. The Bay Area Rapid Transit District wants to be nice to us. If we make an involved project out of it, we can ride BART cheap. Unfortunately the left hand of the BART bureaucracy doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Either that, or left disagrees with right. Four bucks gets old folks $16 worth of travel. Score one for BART.

On the other hand, so it isn't too easy to benefit from this largesse, you can't buy Senior tickets at a BART station, where all BART riders eventually go. Instead, you have to go to Safeway or Lucky. I called BART and was told banks don't sell Senior tickets any more. That leaves mostly markets. I discovered another complication the other day, when I parked my car at the Colma station, and tried to use the $3.90 ticket I'd been carrying around in my wallet. It wouldn't get me through the gate. I thought the gate was sticking, so I pushed it. This got me the full attention of the station agent. He told me my ticket was worth only $1.65. The imprint hadn't taken, but his equipment read the disappearing ink buried on the card. Turns out, at least from Colma, you need a $1.80 minimum ticket to get through the gate.

I was informed you can't upgrade your senior ticket at the station. In fact, you can't even upgrade it at Safeway. All you can do is to accumulate $16 worth of what I think of as stub ends, 80 cents here, 1.70 there, 1.10 perhaps. When you've gotten $16 worth, mail'em to BART in Oakland. They'll send you a new ticket.

Since it appears BART wants to make it as difficult as possible for seniors to get and fully use bargain tickets, I suggest they make us dance a jig before they'll sell us one. Or climb a rope ladder, like I did in my high school gym class. Or perhaps it would be more straightforward to just eliminate senior tickets altogether. Either that, or sell Senior tickets at the stations, and allow them to be upgraded there too.

Paul Azevedo has discovered the hard way that a trip from the Powell Street BART station to Daly City is $2.10, or as little as 55 cents for seniors, but the taxi ride from Daly City to Linda Mar is $19.80 if you're by yourself.