This makes me think of a recent innovation by San Diego Transit on the buses and trolleys. Formerly, when you got on, you could either pay $2.25 for a single trip, or pay $5.00 and get a cardboard day pass. Now they have reusable plastic passes with either magnetic strips or RFID: you slap your pass down, feed in your $5, and slap your pass down again, and it's good for the day. Or, instead, you can pay an extra $2 fee to get a cardboard day pass.
That's all very well for San Diego residents. But tourists, who may well want to use the trolley rather than rent cars, aren't going to have those reusable plastic passes. At least they can pay the $2 extra, at least so far, so it reduces to the old sport of gouging extra money out of tourists. But it gives me the same impression your situation gave you, that no one bothered to think about the needs of visitors to the city.
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That's all very well for San Diego residents. But tourists, who may well want to use the trolley rather than rent cars, aren't going to have those reusable plastic passes. At least they can pay the $2 extra, at least so far, so it reduces to the old sport of gouging extra money out of tourists. But it gives me the same impression your situation gave you, that no one bothered to think about the needs of visitors to the city.