Each year, students anticipate receiving their U-Pass, the gateway to unlimited public transportation. But this fall, DePaul students joined the millions of Chicago residents adjusting to the new Chicago Transit Authority payment system, Ventra.
“I love it,” sophomore Lindsey Pellegrini said. “It beeps and you go. And you can keep it for a longer period of time.”
According to the CTA website, Chicago will be the first major U.S. city to use a system like Ventra. With the Ventra system, boarding buses and trains will be easier and faster. The CTA also plans to increase the number of locations available to purchase and refill value on the cards, shortening lines at vending machines.
Shitao Liu, a first-year graduate student, said the tap system allows him to simply “put [his] wallet on the sensor.”
Others, however, have had difficulty scanning their cards through their wallets.
Laura Puzelyte, a sophomore, said, “I tried using [the Ventra card] while it was in my wallet, but it wouldn’t work, so I had to take it out for it to scan.”
Sophomore Aqil Hussain was frustrated with the scanner not reading his card. Through trial and error, he found a method that worked well with keeping his card in his wallet.
“Ever since I’ve kept a thin layer of some sort of material between the card and the reader, it works perfectly,” Hussain said.
Sophomore Jack Kinsella liked the fast transaction of the Ventra cards, but as an out-of- state student, he wishes the cards would work beyond the last day of finals, November 24.
“For people who travel away from Chicago for breaks, I don’t want to have to pay to get to Union Station or O’Hare,” Kinsella said.
Other students tweeted about issues regarding their credit cards being charged by the Ventra scanner.
Michelle Miller, who distributed the Ventra cards for ID Services, said it is a “myth that the credit card gets charged.”
While some Ventra cards can also be used as Visa cards, Miller clarified that student Ventra cards are not associated with Visa. She assured students that the only card scanned at the turnstile would be the Ventra card. Some cards may have also started working before the designated first day of school, Wednesday, Sept. 11.
When asked about the timeline of the card’s activation, Gabrielle Riley, who also distributed the Ventra cards, laughed and said, “Well, there’s a couple different answers.”
If the card was activated within 24 hours of distribution or over the phone, it may have begun working before Sept. 11, as compared to waiting until the next day to call or activate it online.
Riley said the CTA contacted DePaul ID Services early in the week and warned, “it was a possibility (the cards) could be used on Monday.”
So far, sophomore Amrita Gill has had no issues with the card.
“But that’s because I learned that if you activate the cards online they won’t work properly. So I called in and activated it that way and haven’t had a problem with it since,” Gill said.
Zohrah Malik, a sophomore, had a different experience. She activated her card over the phone, but was denied at the turnstile.
“I went to get it, registered it on the phone, put in all my numbers, and I went to use it and it didn’t work. I went back to the desk and they just gave me a free 7-day pass and told me to keep trying it for a week and see how it goes,” Malik said.
For students who registered late and whose information could not go through the university system in time, ID Services distributed temporary 7-Day cards until the students’ Ventra cards arrived.
“I like that it’s an actual card instead of a flimsy piece of laminated paper,” Gill said. “Although the U-Pass I feel like is definitely more reliable since you have to manually insert it into the slot instead of scanning it.”
Holding onto the same card for the remainder of her college career is daunting to Laura Puzelyte.
“Having to hold onto it for 3 years feels like too big of a commitment,” Puzelyte said.
The final day to use the old magnetic strip cards is Dec. 15 and the final day to transfer funds from the strip cards to Ventra is March 31, 2014, according to the CTA. Students who have not picked up their Ventra card can visit ID services.
