‘It’s OMNY time’: MTA wraps up installation
of contactless fare payment system
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
Every subway turnstile and MTA bus
in New York City now has the contactless
OMNY fare payment system
— giving all customers the ability to pay for
a ride with their smartphone or bank card,
rather than coins or a MetroCard.
The MTA celebrated the accomplishment
on Dec. 31 with MTA OMNY Fare
Payment Programs Executive Director Al
Putre and Chief Customer Offi cer Sarah
Meyer making the fi rst OMNY tap on
the fully-installed system at the Eastern
Parkway-Brooklyn Museum station on the
2/3 lines.
Putre, who’s retiring from the MTA after
a lengthy career, said that the authority
was able to complete the rollout on time
even as the COVID-19 pandemic hit New
York. The peak of the fi rst wave, which
sunk ridership into the abyss and plunged
the MTA into a fi nancial crisis, also caused
a 43-day pause in the OMNY installation
effort.
In the end, Putre noted, they got the job
done anyway.
“Well, we did it. We told you we would.
It’s OMNY time at every station and on
every bus systemwide, on schedule and on
budget,” he said.
The OMNY contactless fare-payment system is now fully installed at all subway
stations and buses, the MTA announced on Dec. 31, 2020.
Acting MTA New York City Transit
President Sarah Feinberg called the full
installation of OMNY in the subway and
bus system “an extraordinary accomplishment
that will transform the way that
people pay their fare.” Since OMNY fi rst
went online at select stations in 2019, the
system has recorded 35 million taps from
paying customers.
FILE PHOTO
“OMNY is fundamentally also about
bringing a critical part of our system into
the 21st century,” she said. “No more failed
swipes, no more losing your MetroCard.
Just bring your own device and you can
enter the system with ease.”
Now that the entire New York City
Transit system has OMNY online, the
MTA will proceed with the next phase in
2021 in rolling out the OMNY Card for
customers who wish to pay their fares with
cash, or independently from their bank or
credit cards.
Like the MetroCard, the OMNY Card
will be available for purchase through
vending machines to be installed in the
new year at subway stations. The cards will
also be sold at “drug retail chains” citywide,
Putre added.
Reduced-fare OMNY Cards will also
be provided to eligible riders in 2021, he
noted.The MTA will also install OMNY
readers at stations on the Metro-North
and Long Island Rail Road commuter rail
systems.
If you still have MetroCards, not to
worry — they’re not yet as obsolete as the
token.
According to Putre, you’ll still be able to
purchase and use MetroCards at all MTA
subways and buses until the OMNY Card
has all the same functionalities. The MTA
projects it will phase out the MetroCard
in 2023.
In the meantime, Meyer said the authority’s
embarking on a new “Tap On, Get On”
publicity campaign encouraging riders to
abandon the MetroCard and get used to a
brand new way of paying for their subway
or bus rides.
Transportation Alternatives call on NYC to
expand bike parking infrastructure
BY MARK HALLUM
A new report from cycling advocates
claims that the only thing harder
than parking a car in New York
City is trying to fi nd a safe place to lock
up one’s bike.
Transportation Alternatives released the
study Tuesday morning and are calling on
the de Blasio administration to build out bike
parking to go along with bike lane infrastructure
that is growing across the city as having
a place to lock it up will likely infl uence
whether or not New Yorkers choose cycling.
“Simply put, there is not enough bicycle
parking in New York City,” Danny Harris,
Transportation Alternatives Executive
Director, said. “Despite more households
owning bikes than cars, bike parking has
taken a back seat to free private car storage
on our streets. Even peer cities like Chicago
and Washington, D.C. have signifi cantly
more bike parking per-capita than New
York. As more New Yorkers turn to bikes,
our city needs to start building more bike
parking now. Installing dedicated spaces at
scale will send a strong signal that biking
is safe, reliable, and accessible for all New
Yorkers.”
According to DOT, however, the agency
has installed up to 1,150 spots for bikes
throughout the fi ve boroughs and will
install 13 corrals, which amount to 200
individual spaces, over the course of the
winter. The majority of these in 2020
FILE PHOTO
were focused around hospitals, schools,
commercial corridors and central business
districts.
One obstacle to bringing more bike
parking, according to DOT, is a lack of
private partnerships.
“NYC DOT takes bike parking very seriously
and contrary to the report has without
question brought about a successful broadening
of parking availability across the fi ve
boroughs, and done so facing Covid-related
challenges which created operational challenges
impacting several of our priorities,”
a DOT statement read. “It appears that
three of the initiatives mentioned in the
report actually fold into one – the secure
bike pilot – that DOT pursued assiduously.
Please refer to prior DOT responses on this
subject provided to Streetsblog. The lessons
from that will help inform us when looking
at future parking initiatives.”
While the city DOT expanded bike
lanes by 28 miles in 2020 which has accommodated
a cycling boom, Transportation
Alternatives says there has been no
signifi cant investment in bike parking and
while storage for cars outnumbers those for
cyclists by 100 times.
As 2020 turned out to be the secondmost
horrifi c year for cyclists since 1999
– 2019 saw 29 fatalities – Harris has called
the desertifi cation of New York City streets
due to the pandemic in the spring a giant
missed opportunity for the city to reserve
that public space for pedestrians and bikers.
12 January 7, 2021 Schneps Media