Whether you’re eager to embrace OMNY or aim to stick with the MetroCard for as long as possible, here’s what you need to know about the new payment system. The goal is for OMNY to be commuters’ passport to the New York region across all of the MTA-controlled subway, buses, and commuter rail lines. The system will function on a full-fare, pay-per-ride basis until every train station, bus route, and the Staten Island Railway is outfitted with the new tap-and-go tech by late 2020 Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North will follow in early 2021. Just shy of 100 OMNY readers were already installed at 34th Street-Penn Station in December. The MTA also rolled out OMNY to 60 other stops in January, including five major transfer hubs: Herald Square, Rockefeller Center, Bryant Park, West 4th Street-Washington Square, the World Trade Center, and Jay Street-MetroTech. Now, some 60 percent of all subway stations are equipped with OMNY readers, including in every single Bronx station. The system started with 16 subway station on the 4, 5, and 6 lines in Manhattan and Brooklyn between Grand Central-42 Street and Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center riders have also been able to try out OMNY on all Staten Island buses since the system’s launch. In the more than year since its launch, OMNY has steadily expanded across the city and has been used more than 10 million times by New Yorkers and tourists from 130 counties. The pandemic, so far, has not affected the timeline of OMNY’s rollout. The contactless payment method is especially relevant in light of COVID-19. “OMNY is designed to save New Yorkers their most precious commodity: their time,” said Pat Foye, the chairman of the MTA, at an event launching the system last year. With OMNY, riders can bypass lines to refill their MetroCards and simply tap their contactless bank cards or mobile wallet app on their smart phones to pay the fare. The fare technology is rolling out in phases, allowing transit officials to iron out the kinks as they work toward fully retiring the MetroCard in 2023. In 2019, the MTA launched a pilot program of its new tap-to-pay system, known as OMNY, that will eventually replace swiping a MetroCard. It’s the beginning of the end for the MetroCard.

Omnipass app