After years of students relying on plastic MetroCards to get to school, the city rolled out new paper student OMNY cards in fall of 2024, causing frustration among students and staff about whether the new transit passes are actually making commuting harder now that they are less durable, breaking midyear and failing to function.
The shift to paper OMNY cards was meant to modernize student transit access by replacing Metrocards with a new system offering year round access and more daily rides. The card’s flimsy material and long replacement delays have created new challenges for students who rely on public transportation to get to and from school. As the cards bend and get destroyed or just stop working, students are left to pay out of pocket, miss class, or fare evade to get to class.
The NYC DOE rolled out free student OMNY cards last fall in 2024 phasing out the old student Metrocards. The older Metrocards allowed three rides a day from 5:30 a.m to 8:30 p.m on school days, while the new OMNY cards offer 4 rides a day, working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and year round. The new system was meant to help students to get to school, sports, internships and their jobs. However, according to the Gothamist, the transition has been challenging for many students who say the paper like cards wilt, malfunction while wet and invite clashes with police when students are forced to fare evade.
Inside Thomas Edison High School, Ms. Barbra, the coordinator for the student OMNY cards, says that she has seen an increase in replacement requests from the switch from plastic Metrocards to paper OMNY cards. “Students are destroying and losing them on a daily basis. I’m actually activating between 30 and 50 a day,” she says.
“Since they’re paper, they get washed in the washing machine, they sweat, they rip, they lose them, and theft,” Ms. Barbra said. “I wish students would take into consideration keeping the OMNY card safe because it does take a lot of work to maintain and keep them organized.”
Many students agree that the cards cannot survive everyday use. Rifat Kabir, a Junior at Thomas Edison, has gone through multiple OMNY cards this school year.
“I’ve gone through about two OMNY cards so far this year. They usually just malfunction out of nowhere like one day they work and the next day they suddenly don’t,” Rifat said.
When his card stops working, Rifat is forced to either explain to the bus driver the situation with his card not working or pay out of pocket.
“If I’m on the bus, I ask the driver for a ride. But if I’m taking the train, I just pay the fare because there’s not much I can do without an MTA worker around. I don’t want to risk getting in trouble,” Rifat said.
Many other students have faced similar problems with their OMNY cards randomly malfunctioning and not working. Eliab Boatang, a Junior at Thomas Edison, had faced similar problems with his OMNY card and had caused him to be late to class.
“One morning I tried to scan my OMNY card and it wouldn’t work, so I had to wait for the station agent or another MTA worker to open the gate for me. It definitely made me late,” Eliab said.
The MTA is currently exploring virtual student OMNY Cards that could be directly on student’s smartphones, a pilot that was originally set for last fall, there is still hope that the physical paper OMNY cards will be phased out for stronger durable materials or virtual OMNY cards. However, Ms. Barbra has said the school has not received any information about when this digital option will arrive. Until then, students will continue to deal with the challenges of their OMNY cards malfunctioning and getting easily damaged.
