Amtrak41

With all this procrastination and foot-dragging, I don't expect Metrocard retirement to occur until 2024.

OK, but one should be able to activate it on your own computer. Peel off a sticker as you would a credit card.

Is it possible to simply buy a OMNY card off the rack for $5 and put no value on it at the store ?

You'd think with all the assaults, they would not pick arguments when they could avoid it.

Why were the drivers acting like it came out of their own pockets ? Were some clown bean-counters at the depot yelling at them for not collecting OMNY fares through some other means when the OMNY devices were broken ?

When Metrocard came out, and if all the turnstiles in a station said "please swipe again" (and again, and again), were we supposed to have a token ready or just jump the turnstile ? I'll go with the latter.

New PATH turnstiles in 2023 will be Smartlink and OMNY compatible, but would replace Smartlink card with something else in 2024, like their own clone of OMNY. PATH multi-ride Smartlink cards are bought for number of rides, not a monetary amount per se. We'll see what happens with that in 2024. Smartlink seems to be in the same predicament as CTA's old Chicagocard. It was tap-and-go and worked fine, but technology killed it, and the firm that came up with it I think went belly-up.

That's great, but shouldn't MTA have figured this out a couple of years ago ? OMNY rollout, compared to Ventra, ORCA, and WMATA, is going at a glacial pace. I don't see them capping for 1 -day. They got rid Fun Pass, or whatever they called it, years ago since MTA believes in soaking the tourist.

Sounds like your OMNY account might have been hacked. First off, I only use a bank debit card with no minimum balance, no checks, no fees, no other uses, or any other account at that bank, so it is totally isolated, and keep balances under $15. Anyway, when I opened M&T Bank for that, M&T called one day a few months later to say we are replacing the card since it was hacked by someone in Europe. That card had never seen an ATM machine, and I was not recently in the New York subway. So I assume either M&T was hacked, or OMNY was. I will never know. I shut down M&T for unrelated reasons - discontinued ability to transfer funds online from other banks last January, and their upcoming merger with Peope's United, for which I would expect screw-ups, and degraded customer performance. It is not a friendly merger. MBNA did some sabotage to BofA systems right after that takeover. I have since switched to Capital One. No problems and far and easier to use superior online systems.

For adult, pay per ride purposes, and you have a contactless debit or credit card registered with OMNY, what reasons would you have for getting an OMNY card ? Risk of exposure or fraud ?

I think for an introductory promotional period, they should reduce or eliminate the $5 fee by applying it to travel. They are ripping off the unbanked.

I use a Debit card with tap ability for only OMNY purposes.. I was not going to wait for the physical card and not certain if it would have Unlimited capability if it right when it were to come out. I opened a Captial One "360" checking account with no fees, no checks, no minimums, and keep a very low balance. That is the card is registed with OMNY. I have run down the balances on my 2 Metrocards to nothing, and no longer use them. The only place you can't use OMNY is on NICE, and I have no intentions of riding their system for the foreseeable future. PATH is slow-walking OMNY this until 2023.

They send money trucks out to Montauk, Medford, and Port Jefferson. They can handle the 5 boros, where there are plenty of people with no plastic. If 11% of the NYC population is unbanked, that is about triple LIRR's daily ridership, and NYC is far more transit dependent than Long Island. It is elitism, pure and simple. If they try to go totally cashless, there will be court fights, who couldn't care less about MTA's overhead costs.

It is not an OMNY issue, but it is an MTA elitism issue, which has been going on one way or another since 1967. Commuter railroads accept cash, but 11% of NYC residents are unbanked, and about 25% have zero credit history. MTA evidently wants people to return to the system, but not "those people".

If OMNY is incapable of handling unlimited, or used as an excuse to kill Unlimited, then OMNY should die.

That's how it works with OPUS card in Quebec. With Montreal STM trips on it, I also have several from the Quebec City RTC bus system, and added trips at a newstand at the QC inter-modal VIA Rail/intercity bus terminal.

Reduced fare July "soft launch" (whatver that means) with no OMNY card until September. How will they do it ? OMNY card in September, but no machines until December, means the only way to fund it is on-line. I don't think many will be getting OMNY cards until well into 2022. Any indication of PATH or NICE ?

I have not been in the subway system since just before the pandemic. If there any place in the stations to check the balance on your OMNY card without using the turnstile, just as there is for Metrocard ?

Because that is not how it works with Smartlink. MTA does not set PATH fare policies.

Will you be able to load plain money and PATH trips on the same card ?

On PATH's smartcard, you pay for a number of rides, whatever the current cost. How that will work with OMNY, I don't know.

PATH will transtion to OMNY in 2022, and get rid of their own Smart card in 2023 https://www.panynj.gov/path/en/modernizing-path.html

NJT has found most credit card fraud is eliminated by requiring a zip code. Something must be entered for a non-American, perhaps 00000, but I forgot what.

The reason I ask is that I tried this new card on an NJT TVM machine, and it wanted me to key in PIN number. I suppose that is an NJT thing with their machines. Likewise, with a credit card, they want your zip code.

Has there ever been an issue of a Contactless Debit card not working since its bank demands a PIN for any transaction, and there is no way to do that when entering the transit system ?