{"id":942381,"date":"2026-07-18T02:21:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T02:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/942381\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T02:21:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T02:21:19","slug":"the-mta-still-accepts-metrocards-in-the-omny-era-but-does-anyone-still-swipe-here-are-a-few-who-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/942381\/","title":{"rendered":"The MTA still accepts MetroCards in the OMNY era \u2014 but does anyone still swipe? Here are a few who do."},"content":{"rendered":"

Over half a year after the MTA switched to its OMNY tap-and-pay system<\/a>, 98% of transit riders in New York City have adopted it. But who, if anyone, still uses the agency\u2019s prior payment method: the MetroCard?<\/p>\n

The MTA ended sales of the MetroCard, which had been in use for three decades, as soon as the calendar flipped to 2026. The agency framed the move as bidding farewell to the iconic yellow-and-blue plastic card and as marking the system\u2019s full transition to OMNY after years of introducing straphangers to tap-and-ride<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The MTA, however, continues to accept MetroCard payments in the subway and on its buses to this day.\n<\/p>\n

Riders who are still using the fare cards are spending down leftover balances on those that have yet to reach their expiration dates, said Brian Fritsch, associate director of the rider advocacy group the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the people that have been using them still have surplus value, accumulated in various cards for one reason or another, or have a stack of single-use cards,\u201d Fritsch said. \u201cI think we\u2019re talking about fairly odd use cases at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

The MTA also still takes coin payments on buses, which agency spokesperson Michael Cortez said accounts for many non-OMNY trips at this point.\n<\/p>\n

Cortez said the MTA\u2019s Government and Community Relations team has fanned out to various places where seniors \u2014 the primary group still using coins to pay for bus trips \u2014 gather to show them the OMNY ropes and answer any questions they have about the system. Those include senior centers, houses of worship, and hospitals.<\/p>\n

\"OnOn Wednesday, March 19, 2025, MTA chair and CEO Janno Lieber announced the final day for MetroCard sales will be Dec. 31, 2025, at a Crain\u2019s Power Breakfast.Marc A. Hermann\/MTA<\/p>\n

According to Cortez, it is unclear exactly when the MTA will stop accepting payments other than OMNY, though officials said last year that the agency would stop accepting coin payments on buses in 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not only does the MTA no longer sell MetroCards, but it also removed all of the vending machines where riders could purchase and refill them by the end of last year, according to Cortez. It has also been removing the slots on fare gates for swiping MetroCards.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, those outlier cases Fritsch mentioned still exist.\n<\/p>\n

Sonia Rosario, a 73-year-old resident of the Bronx\u2019s Marble Hill area, told amNewYork that she still carries a senior citizen discount MetroCard with money on it, which has yet to expire, in her pocket.<\/p>\n

But Rosario \u2014 who is on oxygen due to having Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) \u2014 said that because she qualified for the MTA\u2019s paratransit program Access-a-Ride, she has not used the card recently. She said she has tried to get the remaining balance back from the MTA to no avail.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happens is I have money on it, and I can\u2019t get it back,\u201d Rosario said. \u201cI just have the money on the card, and I can\u2019t do anything about it. So I can\u2019t even let my son use it because it\u2019s a senior citizen card.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosario said she would use the card if she could because she has struggled with OMNY and loves taking public transit, particularly the subway. Before getting Access-a-Ride, Rosario said she would take the Bx7 bus to 207th Street in Inwood to catch the A train, because her 225th Street station is high above street level and does not have an elevator.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love taking the train here, there, and everywhere,\u201d she said. \u201cIf I can get somewhere, you know I\u2019ll jump on it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

amNewYork also observed a rider named Genna swipe a classic yellow MetroCard at the 4 Av-9 St F, G, and R station in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. She said she got her card through participating in the city\u2019s Summer Youth Employment Program this year.<\/p>\n

Mark Zustovich, a spokesperson for the city Department of Youth and Community Development, which runs the program, told amNewYork in an email that they are transitioning to OMNY cards this year and have already distributed them to many participants. But he said they still have an existing supply of MetroCards that they also distributed.<\/p>\n

Fritsch said that the last large block of riders he knew of who were still using MetroCards were JFK Airport employees receiving discounts on the AirTrain. He said the delay arose from a lag that prevented the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey from making the employee bulk discount available through OMNY right away.<\/p>\n

Port Authority spokesperson Seth Stein, in a statement to amNewYork, said that while OMNY readers were installed on the AirTrain in 2023, bulk trip discounts for airport workers were not available via tap-and-pay until last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cOMNY readers have been in use for AirTrain JFK since 2023, and bulk trip discount products were made available on OMNY on June 11th of this year,\u201d Stein said. \u201cTo support airport employees between the discontinuation of the MetroCard in January and activation of the bulk trip discount products on OMNY, we ensured MetroCards remained available for airport employees. MetroCards will continue to be accepted on AirTrain JFK as the MTA completes the transition to tap and ride.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over half a year after the MTA switched to its OMNY tap-and-pay system, 98% of transit riders in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":942382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[379504,5229,379505,56970,92137,379506,9904,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,92136,379507,24672,74351,379508,304273,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-942381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-airtrain","tag-america","tag-coin-on-bus","tag-department-of-youth-and-community-development","tag-metrocard","tag-michael-cortez","tag-mta","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-omny","tag-omny-card","tag-pm-newsletter","tag-port-authority-of-new-york-and-new-jersey","tag-sonia-rosario","tag-summer-youth-employment-program","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116938598379501329","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942381","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=942381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/942382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}