By the end of this month, you’ll be able to pay for a bus ride through Manhattan with the tap of your credit card or digital wallet.
The MTA announced Monday that it’s expanding its OMNY payment system to include more than 600 buses on more than 30 routes serving Manhattan. The authority is also adding the contactless payment system to several subway lines in the Bronx and activating others set up in Brooklyn and Queens.
OMNY (One Metro New York) aims to replace the MetroCard in the next few years. The state-of-the-art payment system has already surpassed 10 million taps since its introduction last May.
“The OMNY rollout remains on time and we aren’t resting on our laurels,” said OMNY Executive Al Putre. “We continue to move full speed ahead, having just exceeded 10 million taps and expecting to rapidly surpass that pace in the weeks and months to come.”
MTA workers will install OMNY devices on Manhattan buses throughout the month, and the consoles will be activated by the end of March.
“This is another major milestone in the transformation of the NYC bus system,” said MTA acting Senior Vice President of Buses for New York City Transit Craig Cipriano. “As we work hard expanding bus priority and redesigning our bus system throughout the city, modernized fare payment is a key piece of how we can speed up buses and bring customers to our system.”
The use of OMNY aims, in part, to improve bus boarding speed, as customers can just tap their credit cards or cellphones on the device, rather than insert a MetroCard into a card-reading slot or drop coins into a fare box.
In addition, the MTA will be installing OMNY devices on turnstiles along the 5 line in the Bronx between Morris Park and Eastchester-Dyre Avenue. Once that’s completed, crews will begin installing OMNY along the 2 and 3 lines in Harlem, Lower Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn.
OMNY devices installed along the A and C lines in Brooklyn, between Hoyt-Schermerhorn Streets and Euclid Avenues, will also be activated this month. The MTA is expected to have OMNY ready on the 7 line at the Mets-Willets Point and Flushing Street Stations in Queens, just in time for the Mets’ home opener on March 26.
