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.
Azza El, 17, who lives in the South Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, said she was glad that the student card program was improving, since the MetroCard system was so popular.
“I would use those cards until like 9 o’clock on the dot,” she said. “I used to hate the time limits. So the fact that they don’t have that anymore is good.”
Angelie Cando, 16, who lives in Queens, agreed.
“No time restraints is way better,” she said. “Sometimes I would be getting out of school late, like when you stay for programs or clubs, and then the card stops working so we would have to pay out of pocket.”
Ms. Cando’s friend, Daniela Zamora, 16, who also lives in Queens, was more excited about the updated technology.
Ms. Zamora hoped that she would be able to add the new OMNY card to her phone’s Apple Wallet, which would make it easier to use. The old MetroCards were hard to keep track of, she said, and would stop working if they got bent.
“I think I lost it during last school year two times,” she said of her MetroCard. “I had to pay $3 to get it back.”
Overall, the new cards will make taking the subway more seamless, said Denise Cortez, 16, who lives in the Bronx.
“It will be way easier,” she said. “We’ve been riding the subway every day this summer.”
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