Go Metro with your American Express Platinum Card

On my way to start trouble I charged a transfer. That’s right I charged it. METRO is now accepting credit cards at all of it’s train station. You can’t buy a monthly pass, but you can by a day pass, transfer, or one way fare.

Obviously there is no minimum limit, since I was able to charge 30 cents. And by the date on the following picture you can see I often can’t find cash, so me charging 30 cents is a common occurrence.

But the question I have is: Are credit cards more eco-friendly than cash?

I’m going to say no. A credit card is paperwork, an electronic impulse goes from the machine to the credit company to me, even if it’s a completely cashless transaction. The amount of energy expended to make a credit card transaction happen has to be more than a regular cash transaction.

I think convenience breeds pollution. I don’t think anything that can be done in two minutes is a good idea. I’m actually sick of the having to do the 'everything very fast type' thing that goes on in LA

I think transactions that leave the least amount of evidence that they occurred is the most ecological way to spend your money.

I’m not bashing METRO in regards to this, because this is not rooted in METRO. They actually seem to embrace the philosophy of we’re going too fast, with their super slow stellar bus service.

And it is way more convenient for me to use a credit card or a debit card (they take those too) than it would be for me to walk up the freakin’ hill to Grand go to my bank, then end up with weird dollar pieces that I even sometimes think are quarters and others more often than not sometimes think are quarters, so I end up having these awkward conversations, “That was a dollar, so you owe me some change,” or “I gave you enough, that’s a dollar.”

Sometimes I just let people think it’s a quarter. I like my life too much to care about 75 cents.

I used the word eco-friendly, what the fuck is wrong with me…

Browne