New York to Replace Student MetroCards With Less Restrictive OMNY Cards
The New York Times
New OMNY transit cards for public school students, rolling out in September, will be usable 24 hours a day throughout the calendar year.
New York City students will have expanded access to the transit system beginning this coming school year, city officials announced on Thursday.
A new OMNY transit card will replace the MetroCards that have been given to public school students across the city since 1997, Janno Lieber, the chief executive of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said at a news conference.
Students will be able to use the new cards all day long, and can take four rides every 24 hours, a marked departure from the MetroCards, which offered students only three rides a day, and only between 5:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. on school days. And while each MetroCard was valid for only one semester, the OMNY cards will work year-round, including on weekends and holidays and during the summer.
The move comes as the city is working to phase out the MetroCard for all transit riders in favor of the digital tap-and-go system provided by OMNY — short for One Metro New York — and as the cost of riding the subway has increased.
“These expanded student OMNY cards are a game changer for families across New York City,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement on Thursday. “Particularly for working-class families that need just a little more help to afford our city — families where older siblings pick their younger brothers and sisters up from school, or where kids have after-school and summer jobs to help make ends meet.”
The new student cards — physical green-and-white passes that can be tapped at electronic readers at subway turnstiles and on city buses — will be distributed in September.
