By Xeni Jardin at 4:35 pm Thursday, Sep 16 
Via
the BB Submitterator, reader Chris Combs tells us: "The Washington, DC transit authority contracted with a proprietary company for their RFID-based fare card system,
SmarTrip. Now, just six years after getting the system fully installed, the
DC Metro system says that their contractor Cubic will no longer sell them the farecards, and they only have enough stockpile to last until 2012. The best solution they've got is replacing every fare box and farecard... again. Kicker: they're paying more than $3 each for bog-standard 13.56MHz RFIDs, which can be purchased singly by normal folks for $.25."
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