CTA and suburban Pace had delayed transitioning to the Ventra cards because of Ventra's technical glitches and troubles with customer service.
"For the last three months Ventra has performed well overall, and is used by more than one million riders each day," said CTA President Forrest Claypool in a statement, the Sun-Times is reporting. "We have worked closely with our vendor, Cubic, to increase the reliability and convenience of the system."
Officials said the transition will have three phases. After May 1, customers can no longer buy magnetic stripe cards or autoload/reload Chicago Card/Chicago Card Plus. After June 1, customers can no longer reload magnetic stripe cards or use Chicago Card/Chicago Card Plus.
July 1 will be the last day customers can use magnetic stripe cards. Pace customers paying with cash will no longer be issued a Transfer Card. All customers will be transitioned to Ventra.
Eighty-one percent of CTA customers and nearly 60 percent of Pace customers are using Ventra, officials said.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire - Copyright Chicago Sun-Times 2014.)
