MTA rolling out reduced-fare OMNY cards for senior transit riders

Senior straphangers and others who get a reduced fare from the MTA can now stop swiping and start tapping, as the agency swaps out reduced-fare MetroCards for the modern OMNY system.

MTA Chairperson Janno Lieber announced Friday that the transit authority has started mailing the new tap-to-pay cards to the 1.5 million riders already enrolled in the reduced-fare program.

“Those are principally seniors — folks over 65 — and people with medical disabilities,” Lieber said. “It is the largest single group that has not truly been on the OMNY system up until now.”

The four-year-old system, a successor to New York’s iconic yellow MetroCards, allows riders to pay their way simply by putting a tap-to-pay-enabled credit card, debit card or smart phone near a turnstile reader.

The OMNY card — which, much like a MetroCard, can be purchased with cash or a credit card at vending machines throughout the system — has largely been billed as a backup to that system, marketed toward those without bank accounts or smart phones.

But while seniors and other reduced-fare riders have been able to register to get their discount through tapping their bank cards since 2022, only 75,000 of the 1.5 million reduced-fare riders have done so.

Currently, roughly 65% of all subway riders use the OMNY system to pay their way. Eighty percent of those paying full fare use a tap-to-pay method.

New applicants to the reduced-fare program can sign up and receive an OMNY card at the MTA’s main customer service center, at 3 Stone St., in Lower Manhattan. Transit officials say the service will be expanded to other service centers systemwide early next year.

The cards can be refilled at OMNY-card vending machines, which the MTA has been quietly adding throughout the system over the past year.

Jamie Torres-Springer, MTA’s head of construction and development —who had been tasked with kickstarting the program after early delays — said there are now some 400 vending machines throughout the system’s 472 stations.

“We expect by the middle of next year we’ll have the card vending machines fully rolled out in the system,” Torres-Springer said.