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MTA Reportedly Finally Ready To Ditch MetroCards
By
David Colon
Published Oct 21, 2017
Modified Jun 13, 2018
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via Flickr user Atomische * Tom Giebel
By
David Colon
Published Oct 21, 2017
Modified Jun 13, 2018
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The MetroCard, that flimsy piece of plastic that's bedeviled so many New Yorkers in its time on this Earth, might finally be headed for the great trash heap in the sky according to a pair of reports. Just uh, not that soon.
The New York Post reports that the MTA is planning on scrapping the MetroCard entirely by 2023, in favor of a system that lets riders waive their spacephones, credit cards or "tap cards" in front of electric scanners. And while 2023 sounds very far away at the moment, the paper also reports that by 2019, 500 subway turnstiles and 600 buses will be outfitted with the electronic entrance technology.
The paper says that the MTA board is getting ready to vote on handing a $570 million contract to local company Cubic Corp, to build a system similar to the ones that London, Toronto and Chicago use for their mass transit fare readers.
The Daily News also reported that the board is set to vote on handing Cubic the MetroCard-killing contract, and that when the system is completely finished, it will allow commuters to get on subways, buses and even pay fares on the Metro-North and LIRR. The whole system would be set up by 2020 according to the reports, giving the authority three years to phase MetroCards out entirely.
"It’ll make everybody’s life easier," riders advocate on the MTA board Andrew Albert told the News. "It’ll make transfers much easier. It’ll bring the system into the 21st century."
The death of the MetroCard has been planned for some time now, with the MTA originally announcing in 2014 the card would be no more by 2019. That plan got pushed back to 2022 one year later, and now it seems the cards won't be completely gone until 2023. Still, earlier this year, scan-based technology was seen getting tested at a pair of lower Manhattan subway stations, so the slow death march appears to be moving. Hopefully by then we'll also have a subway system worth swiping into.
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MTA
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David Colon
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