This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
ERG, the company that some have blamed for the delay in the ORCA card, is being criticized for similar delays in delivering the Bay Area’s TransLink card:
Shortly after the announcement in Australia, [BART controller-treasurer] Schroeder sent an e-mail to Bay Area transportation agency officials overseeing the TransLink project, urging them to cut their losses with ERG and “prepare to take whatever legal means are necessary to deal with the inevitable lawsuits that ERG will file.”
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The Bay Area-wide launch of TransLink is now set for 2010.
The deadlines keep being extended because of various software problems, hardware glitches and concerns raised by participating agency officials who want to make sure they will get the revenue they’re owed from TransLink transactions.
Getting officials in the various agencies – each with their own administrators and governing boards – to work together has not been easy, given their desire to make sure they won’t be short-changed.
Getting the mechanics and the incentives aligned for these kind of projects is never simple, but a pattern seems to be developing here. I’m sure serial catowner will use this opportunity explain to me why this is yet another reason we need regional transportation governance. I think it would be a pretty plausible case to make.
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