For more than three decades, residents and tourists visiting New York have shared experiences of a MetroCard swipe gone wrong.
Swiping your ticket too quickly or too slowly, with the lane facing the wrong way or having insufficient balance, all of this can lead to the turnstile slamming into you.
“It’s embarrassing. You feel like you’re not a real New Yorker if you don’t swipe your MetroCard the right way,” said Mike Glenwick, 37, who has lived in the city most of his life and has been collecting limited-edition MetroCards since he was six.
Now the days of swiping blue and yellow plastic cards are numbered. Starting January 1, the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) will no longer sell MetroCards, and riders will be required to use OMNY, a contactless fare payment system.
Existing MetroCards will continue to be accepted at terminals, although the MTA said its “end date will be announced at a later date.”
Saying goodbye to the card has been a journey for both New Yorkers and the Metropolitan Transit Authority.
From tokens to cards
The New York City Subway’s iconic tokens were the standard way to pay fares before the creation of the MetroCard. When the tokens were introduced in 1953, they were about the size of a dime and most had a hollow Y between an engraved N and C, spelling out NYC.
Although clumsy to carry, they were easy to use: all passengers had to do was place the tokens in a turnstile or ticket box. For the MTA, it helped overcome the challenge of raising fares without having to redesign fare collection systems to accept multiple types of currencies.
But in 1983, Richard Ravitch, then an MTA commissioner, began to imagine a different fare payment system. Instead, he released a magnetic stripe card with a stored value.
“His argument was that New York is a very modern cosmopolitan city and that there are other modern cosmopolitan cities that are using this as a fare payment system,” said Jodi Shapiro, curator of the FAREwell MetroCard exhibit at the New York Transit Museum.
But as his idea gained traction, it quickly became more than just keeping up with other cities. At one point, the MTA considered integrating MetroCards with payphones so that users wouldn’t need to put in coins (however, that ended up not happening).
The MTA initially thought the switch to MetroCards “would spell the death knell for fare evasion” since many riders were already getting away with using various other types of coins and tokens, said Noah McClain, a sociology professor who has researched MetroCard technology and fare evasion trends.
But this was not the case: “Tariff evasion certainly persisted, although often in different forms.”
The “swipers,” as they came to be known, sold crooked MetroCards that allowed passengers to fraudulently bypass turnstiles. Separately, a group of hackers managed to successfully reverse engineer many parts of the MetroCard.
But passengers also saw benefits. One of MetroCard’s biggest selling points was that users could purchase different, more flexible fares. These included discounts for seniors, people with disabilities and students, as well as cards that offered unlimited travel throughout the month.
The cards also came with a big advantage that tokens didn’t have: free transfers. A swipe of a MetroCard on a bus or subway meant passengers would not have to pay again if they transferred to another bus or subway.
A collector’s item
But just as New York subway tokens became icons of the city, so did the MetroCard. And that was intentional.
“MetroCards were made to be collected,” said curator Jodi Shapiro. In the same year that the MetroCard was launched, 1994, the MTA also released an inaugural limited edition card.
Since then, around 400 commemorative MetroCards have been issued. Some of them featured advertisements, an important source of revenue for the MTA, while others celebrated historic events such as the centennial of Grand Central and the first game between the Yankees and Mets in 1997, a tradition now known as the “Subway Series.”
Other famous cards include those of the Supreme brand and those of David Bowie. New Yorkers reported hours-long lines to buy them at stations.
Glenwick has nearly 100 MetroCards in its collection, and the first few show players from the New York Rangers after the team won the Stanley Cup in 1994 for the first time in 54 years.
The idea of collecting MetroCards immediately caught his attention: “It was something affordable to collect. I didn’t spend extra money because we use MetroCards anyway,” he said.
An art form
Thomas McKean has lost track of how many MetroCards he has accumulated over the past 25 years. It all started on a subway trip where he forgot to take a newspaper or a book, something he used to do before the era of smartphones.
To pass the time, he stared at his MetroCard, wondering how many words he could extract from its letters. When leaving the subway, he picked up a handful of MetroCards scattered on the floor of the station and, when he got home, he started making MetroCards with different words.
“And then, without even realizing it, I was hooked, because I love the material and the aesthetic,” McKean told CNN. His designs were initially flat, using the front and back of MetroCards cut and assembled like a mosaic, but eventually he began experimenting with 3D designs as well.
McKean’s art has been featured in Manhattan home goods store Fishs Eddy as well as on the cover of Time Out New York magazine. His art will also be featured in an upcoming exhibition at the Transit Museum’s Grand Central gallery.
Over the years he received several commissions. To their surprise, many of these customers don’t live in New York, yet they show the same admiration for MetroCard as longtime New Yorkers.
McKean said he still has several thousand untouched MetroCards in his reserves, in addition to all the scraps from previous projects. “I never throw anything away until it’s too small to use.”
An instant future
The transit system going forward, OMNY, short for One Metro New York, replaces tapping at turnstiles with smartphones or smartwatches with digital wallets, credit cards or OMNY cards.
For now, riders can still use cash to buy OMNY cards for $1 at subway vending machines and in stores throughout the city.
But many feel it’s a matter of time before the MTA stops accepting cash, as many vendors have done, which has essentially excluded people who don’t have a bank account and don’t have a credit or debit card. The MTA did not respond to the MTA’s request for comment. CNN.
“While there is no doubt that the MetroCard will remain an iconic symbol of New York City, tap-and-go fare payment has been a game changer for everyday riders and visitors, making using the New York City transit system much easier,” Shanifah Rieara, MTA chief customer officer, said in a statement in March when the MetroCard’s elimination was announced.
At the time, the MTA said the change would save $20 million annually “in costs related to MetroCard production and distribution; vending machine repairs; and cash collection and handling.”
But despite all the benefits the MTA has touted about OMNY, including unlimited rides after the 12th trip of the week, the Glenwick collector isn’t ready to make the transition.
“I feel like part of my childhood is disappearing… I don’t want to let it go until I have to.”
