Miaba Bernil bought a Presto on Wednesday and is happy that if lost, it can be replaced.Dean Melamed has being using Presto for 10 months and likes that, when the tap machines aren’t working, drivers sometimes allow a free ride.Rachel Henderson, who switched to Presto in November, says it’s annoying that she now has to buy cards for her two kids under 12.With the end of the Metropass at the turn of the new year, Toronto is now officially living in a Presto world — with thousands of former Metropass users joining other TTC patrons who tap, not swipe, to get across the city.The TTC phased out the Metropass at the end of December in favour of the Presto fare-card system. Between Dec. 15 and Wednesday, the TTC said it had sold about 120,000 Presto cards to former users of the Metropass.Acting manager of communications Heather Brown said those numbers are much lower than the average sales of between 250,000 and 300,000 Metropasses.Read more:TTC union warns Presto too unreliable for agency to end Metropass program next monthHere’s what went wrong when a boy was left stranded because of a Presto-card glitchTTC executives say they may have been overestimating for years how many rides Metropass users were taking“There are a number of factors here, including that this is a holiday period,” she said, noting they expect the numbers to continue to go up when people return to work and to school.Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins said the influx of “late shoppers” caused heavy traffic on the group’s website on Tuesday.“People had to wait a little bit before (their transactions) went through, and if you were impatient after 30 seconds people assumed it had crashed. It never crashed,” she said.On Wednesday, Metrolinx set up a table at Union Station to help deal with any glitches commuters might encounter as they switched to the new system.The TTC initially decided to adopt Presto back in 2011, and by end of ...
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