The Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced Wednesday that it will stop selling MetroCards at subway stations on December 31 and at retail locations like drugstores and bodegas this fall, marking the end of an era for the iconic yellow payment cards that have been in use since 1993.
Riders will now exclusively use the agency’s OMNY tap-and-go system, which was introduced in 2019. The contactless payment system allows customers to pay with digital wallets on smartphones and watches, contactless credit or debit cards, or physical OMNY cards issued by the MTA.
According to MTA Chairman Janno Lieber, the transition is expected to save the authority at least $20 million annually. “It’s time to say goodbye to the MetroCard and go all-in on the fare payment system of the future,” Lieber said in a statement, noting that 65 percent of riders already use the tap-and-go system.
For those without bank accounts, OMNY cards cost $1 and can be purchased and loaded with funds online, at thousands of retail locations, at subway stations, and at the MTA’s mobile sales vehicles. Officials said OMNY vending machines will be available at all 472 subway stations by the fall.
While MetroCards will no longer be sold after this year, they will continue to be accepted throughout the transit system for an unspecified period. The MTA advised riders to plan to spend down their MetroCard balances but said any remaining value would be eligible for transfer or reimbursement two years from their card’s expiration date.
Some subway riders expressed nostalgia for the MetroCard. Tara Johnson, 43, told reporters she had framed her MetroCard when she moved to Los Angeles and kept it when she returned to New York. “When I first moved here when I was like 20, that was everything, that was my guide to the city,” she said, calling it “a piece of nostalgia.”
Stacie Gorbacheva, 55, an emergency medical technician from Corona, Queens, who wears her MetroCard on a necklace, said she preferred the card to the tap system because it seemed more reliable. “I trust,” she said. “I always use.”
The MetroCard replaced the subway token in 1993, which at the time represented “the biggest change in the culture of the subways since World War II,” according to Jack Lusk, who was then the senior vice president for customer service at the MTA.
Public school students have already transitioned from MetroCards to contactless OMNY cards as of September.
