Wheeeeeere's Charlie?

Found him!

This morning, the aggressive Boston Now hawker doled out his papers. I didn't take one (I generally don't read until after coffee) but noticed the headline announcing the paper's quest to find plastic Charlie Cards. As you may guess, it didn't go very well.

A random survey of train stations found the cards, which work like a debit card, were often unavailable. It was worse for bus riders who depend on local stores to provide cards and add fare. In bus-reliant Brighton, Chelsea and Dorchester, six of 18 CharlieCard stores listed on mbta.com were either out of cards, had broken add-fare machines, or staff not trained to use the machines.

Considering that the MBTA is slow to make any changes at all, imagine my surprise when I got to the Lechmere busway this evening to find a T employee fluttering around the outbound busses asking if any passengers needed a Charlie Card, holding the passes fanned out like a hand of cards. I immediately started laughing and tried to take a picture, but I think he was on to me.

Way to go MBTA. That was the fastest I've seen you since you move since the out-of-service 87 bus blew by me last week.