MTA boss gets the price of a MetroCard wrong while flippantly touting tap-to-ride switchover

MTA boss Janno Lieber didn’t seem to remember how much a monthly MetroCard costs Tuesday as he claimed commuters are “loving the benefit” of the potentially more expensive tap-to-ride system.

The decades-old MetroCard system will officially vanish by year’s end, to be fully replaced by the pay-as-you-go OMNY system.

“You don’t have to have $100 bucks in your pocket to pay for a monthly,” the transit agency’s CEO said on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show — even though a month unlimited actually costs $132.

OMNY is flexible but caps weekly charges at $34 — which could total $1,768 for a year — or nearly $200 more than a current unlimited pass costs.

“People are loving those benefits,” Lieber bragged about the new program, which was riddled with software bugs at launch.

Two MTA spokespersons did not respond to an inquiry from The Post about Lieber’s confusion over fare pricing at his own agency.

Addressing apprehension about the switch, Lieber insisted the process will be easy for straphangers.

“It’s going to be a smooth transition,” he said, noting that 90% of riders already use OMNY, including Fair Fares customers. 

The agency will stop selling new MetroCards by the end of 2025, with straphangers able to trade in remaining cards for OMNY credit during the first half of next year.

Lieber defended the shift as an “equity step forward,” arguing that riders “don’t have to pre-purchase” unlimited rides. 

“If you hit 12 rides in the seven days, you automatically get free for the balance of the seven days,” he said.

Lieber compared the OMNY switchover to the city ditching subway tokens in the early 1990s in favor of the MetroCard — saying doing away with the tokens at the time was a “better deal” for New Yorkers.

Lieber suggested that some riders’ opposition to the OMNY system is because “New Yorkers are nostalgic,” reminiscing about how he used to carry a special “Biggie Smalls” MetroCard.

“We’re going to celebrate that nostalgia,” Lieber said, offering up “MetroCard-themed” sendoff parties hosted by the MTA, and MetroCard branded food from New York City staples such as Zabar’s and Carvel. 

A listener who texted into the show wasn’t buying it. 

“Feels like I get charged way more than I would if I could buy a monthly flat out,” read the text from the unnamed listener.

Lieber restated how the weekly unlimited pricing works and claimed OMNY would be a “much simpler system.”

The transit boss was similarly flippant about riders’ cost concerns at a hearing over MTA price increases in August.

Then, Lieber was seen openly mocking riders who were testifying about how difficult the 10 -cent price hike would be on their budget.

When that price increase takes effect in January, the pay-as-you-go weekly cap will increase, costing riders $35 per week, or $1,820 per year if they meet the cap each week.

Eric from Brooklyn called in to the radio show Tuesday to ask Lieber, “where is the money going?”

Lieber, who has been in charge since 2021 and makes more than $400,000 per year, said 60-70% of the MTA’s money goes toward wages — and that Eric can sort through “billions and billions of lines of data” if he wanted to know more about MTA’s spending. 

“We have literally billions and billions of lines of data, and it’s all publicly available through open data,” Lieber snapped.

“If you want to know anything about the MTA’s budget, by all means, go on the open data of the state of New York or you can actually go on the MTA’s website and get into it,” he challenged the Brooklynite.