![\"Council](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/7subway1_a4d0c6.jpg\")
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Council Member Joann Arioala is calling for free OMNY cards to be made available to all New York City students. <\/p>\n
Council Member Joann Ariola<\/a> has penned a letter to the MTA and the city\u2019s Department of Education calling for \u201cunlimited and universal\u201d access to free OMNY<\/a> cards for school students across the city.<\/p>\n Ariola penned a letter to New York City Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels and New York City Transit President Demetrius Crichlow on March 27, writing that usage restrictions imposed on students is restricting their transit around the city.<\/p>\n Student OMNY cards are currently available for students who live more than a half-mile from the schools, providing up to four free rides per day.\n<\/p>\n Ariola, however, called for the cards to be made accessible to all students, regardless of how close to their schools they live. She also said the limit of four rides per day does not take into account students who have to travel for extracurricular activities such as practices and internships.<\/p>\n Ariola also noted that other major cities across the US offer uncapped free rides per day, including Boston and San Francisco.\n<\/p>\n \u201cNew York City must follow the lead of other major American cities in this regard and issue unlimited rides to our students,\u201d Ariola wrote in the letter.\n<\/p>\n She added that preventing students from accessing free cards due to their residential proximity to a school can limit their ability to partake in afterschool activities.\n<\/p>\n \u201cMany students rely on their OMNY cards to get to practices, internships, meets, and other important events, and excluding them from card access deprives them unfairly from being able to participate in these,\u201d Ariola said.<\/p>\n A bipartisan coalition of two dozen City Council Members have signed onto the letter, including Queens Council Members Julie Won, Lynn Schulman, Vickie Paladino, Phil Wong, Shanel Thomas-Henry and Selvena Brooks-Powers.<\/p>\n New York City Public Schools officials said the agency considers input from multiple stakeholders when considering changes to OMNY operations, adding that all decisions involve careful consideration of operational and financial factors.<\/p>\n Officials said the agency will engage with the city\u2019s Panel for Educational Policy to explore how to support student transportation.\n<\/p>\n MTA officials acknowledged receipt of the letter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Council Member Joann Arioala is calling for free OMNY cards to be made available to all New York…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":697413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,78432,291760,246622,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,92136,291761,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-697412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-council-member-joann-ariola","tag-demetrius-crichlow-nyc-transit","tag-julie-won","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-omny","tag-schools-chancellor-kamar-samuels","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116329863436704644","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}