Transit Fail: Utica, NY

Utica is an interesting spot. For the most part, it feels like the remnants of what was once a cute, walkable downtown core, that was largely bulldozed some decades ago to make way for cars. There are little half-blocks of cute shops, separated by swaths of nothingness.

There does seem to be some motivation to improve the local urban fabric, with more separated bike paths than I expected to see, and some good pedestrian infrastructure. But this is in little isolated pockets. For the most part, it’s rough.

Utica uses the Centro app for ticketing. By the time I got motivated enough to try to ride, I found myself battling with the app. Once I was ready to buy a ticket, it redirected me to a payment portal, that was requesting all the gory details… name, full billing address, credit card details, and so on. I think by that point I may have already had to create and verify a login and account.

I’m used to apps that just say “click here for Apple Pay” so this was a nuisance. And the buses didn’t come often enough for me to care, so I just walked everywhere instead.

I hadn’t yet decided to launch my “how to ride transit” series, so I opted to direct my energy toward enjoying some rather good local coffee instead.