OMNY still sucks

 

NY Post

A plan to allow back-door entry on some city buses using the MTA’s OMNY “tap-and-go” fare payment system has failed to materialize nearly six months after being announced, transit officials conceded Monday.

MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said the agency is still “working on determining routes that could be a part of the pilot” originally announced last August.

The MTA in August said its “all-door boarding” test run would consist of 10 local routes, even though back-door fare readers have been installed on every bus for over a year.

All-door bus boarding has been shown to improve bus speeds where it exists, including on New York City’s “Select Bus Service” express routes. Transit officials first committed to extend the practice to local buses in 2018 as part of the multi-year OMNY.

Advocates who have pushed for back-door bus entry are growing impatient.

“Something’s not right. They should have chosen the routes months ago,” said Ben Fried of the Manhattan-based think tank TransitCenter. “Whatever is jamming this up, MTA leadership needs to unjam it because we’re talking about a change that could improve service for riders across the whole city.”

OMNY sucks

 

 Queens Chronicle

Installation of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s new tap-and-go payment system, OMNY, is running more than a year late, the Gothamist news outlet reported Monday.

The system is 15 months behind schedule, Gothamist said. It quoted Amy Linden, the acting lead for MTA Fare Payment Programs, as saying, “Substantial completion for the project has slipped.”

Linden made her comments during a committee meeting that day, saying that despite the delays, a quarter of subway and bus riders now pay with OMNY, which stands for One Metro New York.

The system, which is set to replace the MetroCard, was supposed to have been rolled out entirely by 2023. Now, however, the final design for the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North part of the project is not expected to be done until the end of that year or early 2024, according to Gothamist.

The article also said the cost of the entire project to convert all MTA trains and buses to OMNY will be at least $772 million, with some changes still being negotiated. The initial contract was for $573 million.

MTA abolishes station agents

 

NY Daily News

Cash is no longer king at the subway’s token booths.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said Wednesday that booth workers — who once handled thousands of cash and fare transactions each day — will no longer accept riders’ cash or swap their damaged MetroCards.

Hand-to-hand transactions were banned at the booths in March 2020 as transit honchos feared they put workers at risk of catching COVID-19. Now officials say that shift will be made permanent.

“We currently do not plan to resume cash transactions in the booths,” MTA chief safety officer Pat Warren said during a news conference.

Warren said OMNY — the MTA’s tap-and-pay fare system that will fully replace MetroCards by the end of 2023 — means the authority will no longer need workers in booths to assist riders with cash transactions.

Straphangers can still use cash to pay for MetroCards at automated vending machines in subway stations. The vending machines will eventually be replaced with OMNY machines that also take cash.

Token booth workers will also no longer swap out MetroCards that are damaged or expired. MTA officials said riders with damaged MetroCards will have to mail them in or go to the agency’s customer service center in lower Manhattan to get replacements.

Transport Workers Union Local 100 president Tony Utano — who represents a majority of the MTA’s workforce — feared the move away from cash was a step towards cutting the booth worker positions entirely.

“Not having cash transactions at subway booths is an inconvenience, and an insult, to subway riders,” said Utano. “Station agents alert the police on behalf of crime victims, summon ambulances for injured and sick riders [and] report suspicious, menacing and dangerous behavior.”

 Impunity City

The MTA is making a huge mistake.

Actually, a really fucking huge mistake, but in all honesty what else can they do? It was only over a year ago the MTA announced that they needed over 50 billion dollars to fix the subway and then the COVID-19 pandemic happened which inevitably led to devastating financial losses from low ridership. And now the transit system is broke.