Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Year : 2, Issue : 21
Students, seniors and low-income New Yorkers will soon get a free or discounted OMNY card instead of a MetroCard, as the MTA seeks to speed up the long-delayed rollout of the tap-and-go payment system.
The MTA had hoped to phase out the MetroCard entirely by now. But the pandemic, and delays to the rollout of OMNY, have extended the use of MetroCards indefinitely. Less than half of New York transit riders currently use OMNY.
On Monday, top MTA officials shared their frustration with the slow shift to OMNY, blaming the company that designed the technology, the companies that handle pre-tax commuter benefits, and poor branding.
MTA Chair Janno Lieber said extending OMNY this year to New Yorkers who receive discounted fares – like seniors, paratransit riders and low-income residents enrolled in the Fair Fares program – was a big step toward making the payment system part of more commuters’ routines. More workers who use pre-tax commuter benefit cards will also be able to use OMNY this year, he said. Students will receive OMNY cards this fall, instead of a MetroCard.
“Kids who are going through the gate, they sometimes struggle to find their MetroCard, but they know where their phone is,” MTA Chair Janno Lieber said Monday. “We got to get that population, which is one of our key populations, we got to get them onto OMNY soon.”
Lieber said if kids successfully adopt OMNY, he’ll consider allowing all door boarding on local buses. While all buses have OMNY readers at the front and rear, they’re only activated at the front of local buses. MTA officials had previously said high rates of fare evasion on buses were the reason it hadn’t expanded OMNY on local bus routes. Nearly half of riders on local buses do not pay the fare.
Source: Gothamist
