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The MetroCard isn’t dead yet, but some New Yorkers are already in mourning.
Hundreds of heartbroken visitors flocked to a Brooklyn museum to pay their respects to the transit payment system ahead of its looming demise — as some city slickers refused to let the yellow cards go.
The New York Transit Museum launched its FAREwell MetroCard exhibit Tuesday, inside an appropriately blue- and yellow-colored room, to recount the token replacement’s 34-year history that’ll end Dec. 31.
“New Yorkers especially don’t like change. If there’s something that works — even if the technology behind it is a little outdated — New Yorkers don’t want to let it go,” Jodi Shapiro, curator for the NYTM, told The Post.
Museum visitor Dan P. of Brooklyn, who was born just four weeks before the MetroCard in 1994, called the funereal exhibit “the best thing they’ve ever done.”
“It’s a piece of history for sure,” he said.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority in March announced that sales and refills of the slick subway cards will officially stop at the end of 2025, as part of the transition to the OMNY tap-to-pay system.
It set off a wave of woe among some transit aficionados, who heralded the payment pass as a Big Apple icon, as well as a panic rush to grab as many of the so-called antiquated cards as they could.
But hundreds of the MetroCard vending machines had already been carted away.
One of the few remaining machines is located at the 241st Street Station in the Bronx, where hard-headed straphangers ignored the tap-to-ride option Friday in favor of the tried-and-true swiper.
“I’m an old school guy, so I’m just going to use it for a while. As soon as it stops working, I will get the OMNY card,” one subway-goer said.
Henry Amfo, 47, griped about accidental overcharges with OMNY Tap-to-Pay system, saying he buys MetroCards instead when he can.
“I don’t trust these machines,” he said, adding, “a lot of people are complaining.”
MTA chief Janno Lieber this week still touted the transition to the pay-as-you-go option, though revealed that buses crossing from the city into Westchester and Long Island have not yet been upgraded to OMNY.
Only about four MetroCard vending machines are left — meaning New Yorkers’ best bet at catching a glimpse of the iconic yellow cards is behind glass at the underground museum in Downtown Brooklyn.
The NYTM memorialized dozens of versions, including the original blue card and the limited editions that featured celebrities, Subway Series games, artworks and more that at the time might have been discarded as trash.
The most expensive of the bunch was likely the 2022 Biggie Smalls MetroCard, which was being hawked on eBay for as much as $350.
Noticeably missing from the collection are the orange and green free MetroCards granted respectively to city middle and high school students, though they are mentioned in the sprawling text lining the exhibit walls.
At the time of its inception, the MetroCard was considered a “huge technological leap” for the city transit system — and it was met with as much resistance as OMNY is receiving, said Shapiro, the NYTM curator.
“Instead of having a token, this is a magnetic stripe store value and there’s all these systems behind it that have to happen before you can even use it,” Shapiro said.
“They had to design a computer system that’s going to process all the transactions, you’ve got to install electric-powered turnstiles … They had to reconfigure fare control areas,” she explained, noting that the turnstiles installed then are the same ones that OMNY is connected to today.
The MTA had lofty, but unrealized, goals for the MetroCard back in the 90s, including making it multi-purpose, almost like a credit card, meaning riders could use their transit cash at a payphone or for a bag of chips at the deli.
Delilah Delgado, of the Bronx, has completely transitioned to tap-to-pay, but lamented that there was a loss of “camaraderie” with the death of the MetroCard because multiple riders cannot share the same OMNY card.
“What’s cool about it, we would pass each other the MetroCard. With OMNY, you don’t get that camaraderie,” said Delgado, 26, who was visiting the exhibit.
“Growing up in the Bronx, having that as the mode of transportation transactions, we just have it as a part of us — to just let it go for ‘efficacy’ makes me a little sad,” she said.
“I wish I kept my student ones!”
— Additional reporting by Khristina Narizhnaya
English (US)