New MTA LIRR Credit/Debit Card Acceptence at Station Ticket Windows

[Trainspotter]

New MTA LIRR Credit/Debit Card Acceptence at Station Ticket Windows

 

The MTA Long Island Rail Road is installing a new type of ticket selling machine at a number of high volume stations that will be a big help to customers who may be a bit short on cash and want to use credit or debit cards instead. The new blue credit/debit machines sell most LIRR ticket types, pre-valued MetroCards, and UniTickets. They accept card payments only: ATM/debit cards, and MasterCard, Visa, American Express and Novus/Discover credit cards. No cash is accepted.

 

Fifteen of the new blue credit/debit machines will go into service over the next several weeks. Penn Station and Babylon have the first ones in operation with three more to be installed at Penn eventually. The following stations are to receive one apiece of the new machines: Bayside, Flatbush Avenue, Freeport, Great Neck, Manhasset, Mineola, Rockville Centre, Valley Stream and Woodside.

 

The installation of the new machines will allow for the relocation of some existing full service (gray) and daily (red) machines to augment those at some higher ticket volume stations including Hicksville, Port Washington and Ronkonkoma, and provide additional customer services at Stony Brook, Kew Gardens and Forest Hills.

 

The LIRR has provided ticket selling machines for customer convenience since 1983. There are 144 gray full service and 112 red daily ticket selling machines in use at most of the LIRR's 124 stations. Full service machines sell most LIRR ticket types, pre-valued MetroCards and UniTickets. They accept cash (bills, coin, returning up to $17.75 in coin change) as well as ATM/debit cards and MasterCard, Visa, American Express and Novus/Discover credit cards. Daily machines sell one-way and round-trip tickets and $20 pre-valued MetroCards only. They accept cash (bills, coin, returning up to $17.75 in coin change) as well as ATM/debit cards, and MasterCard, Visa, American Express and Novus/Discover credit cards.

 

For further information on LIRR tickets and fares customers can consult the LIRR's web site at http://www.mta.info/pubs/TicketInfo. LIRR travel information is available 24-hours a day from the LIRR's Travel Information Center in Suffolk County at 631-231-LIRR, in Nassau County at 516-822-LIRR or in New York City at 718-217-LIRR. The Travel Information Center's TDD telephone number for the hearing impaired is 718-558-3022.

 

The LIRR is expanding the use of credit and debit cards for the purchase of tickets to include station ticket office windows by late summer of this year. This convenient payment feature was previously available only through the ticket selling machines at stations. The LIRR is also installing 15 credit/debit-only ticket selling machines at high-volume stations to supplement the ticket machines already in service.