Christian Alsis lives in Pennsport and works in Old City. He takes the 57 bus to get to the office, and generally buys tokens at the machines at the 2nd Street El stop. He puts in a $20 bill, and gets ...

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A public transit system that still uses metal tokens and paper transfers — yes, in the 21st century — appears finally to be moving into the era of debit cards and pay-by-cellphone technology.