New York City, much to my disappointment, has discontinued its transit one-day unlimited ride ticket.  [You can still get such a ticket for a week, but I’m never in town that long.]  What you can get is cards with $10.70 worth of rides for $10.00, $21.40 for $20.00, or $53.50 for $50.00.  This sounds like a bit of a bargain, and I suppose it is.  But each individual journey costs $2.25.  None of these cards are evenly divisible by $2.25.  I did the math and figured out that if one adds 55 cents to the $10 card, $1.10 to the $20 card, and 50 cents to the $50 card, it will all come out even and the value of your card will be divisible by $2.25 and no odd cents are left over.  But it seems to me that they could sell a card in an amount divisible by $2.25, or raise the price to $2.50 and eliminate the “bonus,” and it would come out even.

Transit pricing has a tradition, in America, of being in uneven amounts and not making a whole lot of sense.  Especially when bus systems require “exact change.”  I often don’t venture on buses, unless I know that they are on the same tickets as the rail systems, for this very reason.