RTA Le Pass

The Le Pass app is easy to use and saves you time trying to make sure you have change for the bus for daily usage. The only problem I constantly experience is after 11pm the 62 bus is always late at Basin street. The app reports the bus arrives at Basin at 11:41pm, however it doesn’t show up until 12 midnight. Last Wednesday night on 2-8-23 it didn’t arrive until 12:30am and the bus driver had an attitude when us patrons asked why was it so late. I asked the 61 bus driver that night did she know when the 62 would arrive she had an attitude and stated she doesn’t drive that bus anymore. I’ve noticed and taken screenshots on the app and the bus showing theses late drivers are frequently late consecutively with picking up late night workers who are trying to get home. I buy weekly and monthly passes on LePass but can’t seem to actual service from the drivers being on time often time’s forcing me to hire an Uber. After I’ve invested in LePass. The app is great, it’s the drivers not turn their tracker or turning it off. Lots of times yhe names on the bus don’t match The Le pass app when they do arrive late. I’ve been meaning to go to RTA to talk with their leadership team in efforts to understand the best times for me to travel between home and work because it’s starting to cost me more when I have to hire an Uber because the driver either is late or doesn’t show up or their disguised as another bus like bus# 11.

This app did the job for us, but the user interface should have made a few things clearer. First, the way you can purchase multiple tickets to be used simultaneously by family members could have been made clearer and simpler. It wasn’t clear that when you buy multiple tickets, that multiple family members can use them all simultaneously from the same phone. plus you had to buy the tickets one at a time, at least I couldn’t figure out a way to change the quantity to buy multiple tickets in the same transaction. Also, it wasn’t clear that when you activate the tickets, that they are good for a two hour period. I saw somewhere that it said you don’t want to activate the tickets until right before you board the bus or trolley, but I don’t believe it said why. It’s actually pretty easy to activate multiple tickets very quickly when you see the bus or trolley pulling up.

“Whenever you see an expected arrival time in green, blah blah blah”. I’ve seen an arrival time in green exactly once in the month I’ve been using this app. It basically doesn’t exist for street cars. The old map showed you exactly where the cars were on the line which directions they were going; this one doesn’t tell you anything. I’m standing here waiting for a street car that’s supposed to be here in three minutes according to the new app – not in green, of course, because that doesn’t exist for streetcars on the new app. The old app shows me that instead there’s not a single streetcar in the CBD is one still about 20 blocks down St. Charles. So instead of a three minute wait there’s a new app says it’s really more like a minimum half hour wait. The boiler plate response about the time in green and steadfast refusal to put actual GPS locations for the street cars on the new app tells me that NORTA isn’t even remotely interested in trying to improve their service, merely to pretend that they are knowing that the tourists will only frustrated for the week or so that they’re here and, well, screw the locals might want to get to work or get home in less than a few hours. I have literally taken the subway from JFK to Midtown Manhattan in less time it takes me to take a streetcar from the CBD to River Bend. NORTA is terrible, and the new app has nothing to do with improving service and everything to do with hiding their incompetence.