MetroCard

The Gap is the first advertiser to purchase space on the front of New York’s MetroCards.

In an effort to squeeze money out of every available surface, the MTA announced in July an initiative to sell ads on Metrocards. With the potential to make up to half a million dollars per ad campaign, the cash-strapped authority saw this venture as a potential revenue maximizer, and this past weekend, the MTA unveiled the first such cards carrying an advertisement for The Gap.

The cards themselves, seen above, come as something as a shock to those of us used to the familiar gold background with blue lettering. Gone is anything identifying the thing as a Metrocard, and in its place is a coupon for The Gap. In honor of the clothing giant’s remodeled flagship store at 34th Street and Broadway, just possessing and presenting the Metrocard at any Gap in the city nets its owner a 20 percent discount from October 10 through November 18. These cards are the first in over 15 years that don’t say Metrocard on the front.

“Opening up the front of MetroCards to advertising gives the MTA a new source of revenue,” said MTA Chairman and CEO Joseph J. Lhota. “We will monitor public acceptance of ads going forward to ensure that it doesn’t interfere with use of the transit system. There is no reason why the MTA shouldn’t put every resource it can toward helping its fragile finances.”

According to the MTA, The Gap cards will make up around 10 percent of the monthly Metrocard sales and will be available at station booths and vending machines at 10 stations near the new flagship store. Those stations include Herald Square, Penn Station, Union Square, Grand Central, Columbus Circle, Times Square, 59th/Lexington, 86th St. on the East Side and the E/M stop at Lexington — essentially all of Manhattan’s most popular stations. The cards are inserted randomly into the preexisting supply of the regular blue-and-gold cards in the vending machines, but station agents can sell ad-supported cards with rides until supplies run out.

Interestingly, The Gap’s reasoning for using the Metrocard as an ad platform contains some interesting contradictions. “Because the MTA MetroCard is an iconic element of every New Yorker’s life, it felt like an appropriate vehicle to promote the opening of our newly remodeled flagship store at 34th and Broadway,” Chris Gayton, Gap’s senior director of media, said. “We’re excited to take part in this historic moment as the first advertiser on the front of the MetroCard.”

Of course, by buying out the entire front of the Metrocard, the flimsy piece of plastic is hardly iconic. In fact, it’s even easier to lose in one’s wallet because nothing on it other than a magnetic strip identifies it as a Metrocard. It’s just a generic fare payment card with some Gap branding, and nothing about it screams “everyday New York life.” This problem will be solved in the next full-card ad campaign, likely to launch in December of January. The MTA will print ad-supported cards with the word “MetroCard” on the back in the white space near the top. This is designed to “remove any doubt a customer could have about what he or she was purchasing.”

Still, the MTA can’t complain about the new revenue stream, and in fact, MTA officials say the calls from interested advertisers keep pouring in. “Since we first announced that we would accept branded MetroCards, our phones have been ringing non-stop with inquires,” Paul J. Fleuranges, the MTA’s Senior Director of Corporate and Internal Communications, said. “In the coming months, MTA customers will see other branded cards in the system. Like The Gap, advertisers are looking to showcase their logo and provide customers with a call to action. We look forward to seeing how creative advertisers can get with the card.”

On another note, the site went unexpectedly dark last Wednesday for a few days, and more than a few of you wrote in concerning my disappearance. My grandmother passed away on Wednesday evening, and I took a few days off to spend some time mourning and remembering her with my family. She was an avid reader of this site and always loved seeing where I’d end up next. Thanks to those who wrote in, and thanks for your patience over the past few days.

Imagine, if you will, the computer you owned in 1993. Perhaps it was a Macintosh Quadra 660AV. For over $2000, you could get a blazin’ fast 25-MHz with 8 MB of RAM and a 230 MB hard drive. Perhaps it was a seven-pound laptop with an 80-MB hard drive or perhaps it was something else from Apple’s cutting-edge 1993 catalog. Whatever it was, that machine has long since gone to meet its maker. If you’re like most people, in fact, you’ve probably gone through four or five computers over the past 19 years.

The MTA meanwhile is still working off of that early 1990s computer. Every time we buy our Metrocards or swipe through the turnstile, we are using that computer system purchased in 1993. In reality, it’s even older, with the underlying technology dating from the 1980s. It’s end though isn’t as near as we’d like to think.

For the better part of seven years, the MTA has engaged in various pilots and initiatives to find a replacement for the Metrocard. As various transit agencies the world over have adapted smart cards, a 2006 pilot picked up again in 2010 examined a contactless system that used similar chips found in credit or debit cards. After the most recent pilot, the MTA unveiled its plans for an E-ZPass for transit in mid-2011, and Joe Lhota affirmed his commitment to the project in early 2012.

Since that statement in 2012 and really since 2011, the future of the Metrocard replacement is anything but clear, and late last week, Dana Rubinstein wondered why we’re still stuck with the antiquated, swipe-based technology. In a statement to Capital New York, the MTA remained a bit vague about the whole thing. “Yes, we are still working on it, always have been,” Adam Lisberg, said to Rubinstein. “But, no I don’t have a date for you.”

Rubinstein runs through the litany of arguments in favor of a next-gen solution: The Metrocard costs far too much to maintain; fare collection costs are through the roof; there’s no interoperability across transit systems as a new card would bring; swiping takes too long; etc., etc., etc. Meanwhile, even as the MTA’s BusTime installations allow for an open-payment system, the MTA’s progress has been slow.

Time, though, could force the agency’s hand. As Bill Henderson of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA noted, twenty years might just be too long a time for us to continue to rely on the Metrocard. “The MetroCard system is reaching the end of its useful life,” he said. “You’ve got to replace it with something.”

The problem with technology is that it all eventually becomes obsolete. Maintenance costs grow too high and compatibility declines. With the Metrocard pushing 20 in New York, its time has come, but when will something replace it? Based on the MTA’s technological adoption rates — bad for countdown clocks, good for BusTime, bad for CBTC — even if the agency had a plan in place today, we’re still a few years away from anything concrete, and no plan exists.

So much like we often do, we’ll wait. The MTA is going to spend tens of millions of dollars on an intercom system for the subway as the next-gen fare payment system inches slowly forward. One of those technologies will have a real impact on the MTA and its riders while the other will feature soothing blue lights. That seems to say it all.

An all too familiar message no one likes to see.

Earlier this week, when we learned that subway turnstiles have started to show the expiration dates for unlimited ride MetroCards, I thought of it as a parting gift from Cubic. The MTA has repeatedly stressed plans to phase out MetroCards by 2015, and straphangers had been clamoring for such information on the turnstile screens for upwards of 15 years. So for the next two or three years, we’ll enjoy a piece of information that’s been available on buses nearly since the beginning.

While having an expiration date reminder in front of us sure will be convenient, it got me thinking of the other pearls of wisdom subway turnstiles display on a regular basis. Tops among those are a message to keep swiping. “Please Swipe Again.” We’ve all been done that path, sometimes on the receiving end of the message and sometimes in a growing line as an out-of-towner or just an unlucky sap can’t quite swipe fast or slow enough for the card reader to pick up the bits of information it needs to process the transaction. It’s an annoying and tedious part of life with MetroCards.

It’s also been a part of the post-token world we live in since the beginning. Take a ride into subway news past with me. Our first stop is in 1998 as New Yorkers are still adjusting to these strange things called MetroCards. City Council Speaker Peter Vallone alleges that the MTA’s new system is seriously flawed. Nine out of ten straphangers report problems with their MetroCards, he says. It’s a number that seemingly defies logic, but I’d wager a guess that every single one of you reading this has, at one point or another, gotten that dreaded “Please swipe again” message.

At the time, Vallone railed against the tendency of a MetroCard reader to double-charge riders. That “Please swipe again” message often meant that the turnstile had deducted the fare but not yet properly waved the passenger through. Moving to another turnstile would cause a second fare to be culled from that card. “The transit authority needs to do much more to educate people about the Metrocard,” Vallone said. “Riders should be warned that they can be bilked out of an extra fare and told how to avoid it.”

In response, we are now told to “Please swipe again at this turnstile” when applicable, but the problems didn’t stop there. A year later, politicians and subway riders were again bemoaning the same problem. In a City Council survey from 1999, over 60 percent of riders said they had to swipe again after receiving an error message. The card readers weren’t going to get any better with age.

Over the years, the same complaints kept creeping up. A 2005 story in The Times noted that service calls to turnstiles had been holding steady at around 2000 per month. The most frequent culprit were dirty heads that couldn’t read all four of the MetroCard’s data points, thus delaying customers trying to get to their trains. Even then, seven years ago, as Cubic worked to replace the aging card readers, the MTA said it would “study” smart card technology but was “nowhere close to making the leap.” We’re still waiting.

These days, swipe failures are a fact of life. The Wall Street Journal tried to teach its readers how to swipe properly in a 2010 article, and a 2011 report from the MTA found that 20 percent of all swipes were misread. Straphangers have simply come to accept a certain number of error messages, and regular commuters pick up on the prickly turnstiles and card readers at their local stations. We adapt because we have to.

Within the next few years, MetroCards will go the way of tokens, and with them, hopefully, the never-ending exaction to please swipe again. The contactless fare card should cure these swipe-related woes. We won’t suffer through people who don’t dip properly on the buses, and it’s much harder to mess up a tap than it is to mis-swipe. That’s one element of the MetroCard no one will miss.

Back in March, I mused on monthly (and weekly) MetroCards via my Twitter account:

I wish the NYC turnstiles were programmed to display expiration dates for Unlimited MetroCard.

— Second Ave. Sagas (@SecondAveSagas) March 24, 2012

Wishes apparently do come true.

This morning, an astute reader noted that the turnstile at Roosevelt Ave. had given him an expiration date. At first, I thought it might be a glitch, but after posing the question on Facebook, it seemed to be more than an isolated incident. Straphangers in Brooklyn, Chelsea and the Upper East Side reported seeming similar displays at Altantic Ave., 14th St. and 86th St., respectively. So I asked the MTA about the upgrades, and they confirmed it for me.

As part of what Transit is deeming “routine maintenance of the MetroCard system,” the agency is testing new software that displays expiration dates for unlimited-ride MetroCards when these cards are swiped through subway turnstiles. It’s unclear how long it will take for this test to arrive throughout the system, and it’s even more unclear why it’s taken 17 years since the introduction of the MetroCard for this basic piece of useful information to make its way to turnstile displays.

Even with MetroCards potentially on the way out in a matter of years (rather than, say, decades), this is a welcome, if long delayed, development. I’ll try to snap a photo when I see this in place somewhere, but I didn’t notice it this morning at Grand Army Plaza or at lunch when I swiped through on a whim at Times Square. Keep your eyes out, though; it’s coming soon.

For parts of the last two years, as I mentioned last week, the MTA has discussed a $1 surcharge on new Metrocards purchased via the Metrocard Vending Machines. With the Metrocard technology nearing the end of its life, the MTA is looking to both realize revenue and cut down on waste and costs by encouraging straphangers to reuse their cards. They’ve even made unlimited cards refillable.

Yet, the surcharge has yet to materialize. Some technological problems led to a delay, but now, as part of the 2013 budget, the MTA is gearing up to introduce the surcharge. We don’t know when the surcharge will go into place; we just know that the MTA will cut costs by $2 million while generating $18 million in revenue. And someone is unhappy.

That someone is coming to us from Bayside, Queens, a neighborhood not served by the subway. The complaint comes to us from Edward Braunstein, the area’s Democratic Assembly representative. He said:

“Unlike MetroCard vending machines, LIRR vending machines are incapable of refilling previously purchased cards,” said Braunstein. “The MTA justifies this surcharge by arguing that recycling MetroCards is good for the environment. Therefore, the MTA plan to promote refilling by adding a $1 surcharge for new cards serves no purpose at these machines and is unfair to commuters in the outer boroughs.”

“Many of my constituents purchase their new MetroCards at the vending machines at LIRR stations because they are only available outlets. After I reached out to the MTA and informed them of this problem, the agency still refused to reconsider the proposed surcharge.”

For Braunstein this isn’t the first time he’s voiced such complaints. He expressed identical sentiments back in 2011 when the MTA announced a delay in implementing the fee. Now, he’s back on his soapbox. His concerns though ring more a bit false.

First, Braunstein’s overall point is moot. When the MTA announced the surcharge, the agency said it would be in place only at spots where customers could refill their cards. Since they cannot do so at the LIRR machines, the surcharge won’t apply. Problem solved.

On another level, though, Braunstein’s all-or-nothing approach isn’t the right one anyway. Just because some Bayside residents purchase their Metrocards at LIRR vending machines doesn’t mean they have no other option. If they’re taking the LIRR to Penn Station (or even to points in between), Metrocard Vending Machines are in abundance. Purchasing a Metrocard with an LIRR ticket saves time but no money. If residents are that concerned with the fee, they can just buy their cards at vending machines in the subway.

Furthermore, the MTA could waive the fee for Metrocards purchased at these LIRR machines or figure out a stop-gap solution. They don’t need to discard the fee just because some — but not nearly all — folks a neighborhood of a around 80,000 people in total may be inconvenienced. That’s a typical all-or-nothing response from an Assembly representative.

I’m not the biggest fan of the $1 surcharge. It strikes me as a money grab with some positive side effects, but seeing as how the Metrocard should be phased out within the next 2-3 years, I can’t get too worked up over it. Braunstein, though, an opponent of congestion pricing, is a position to do so. He offers no other solutions and just wants to say no, just like every other politician who could champion transit in New York City.

For the last twenty months, the MTA has talked on and off about instituting a $1 surcharge on all new MetroCard fees. Instead of refilling a non-expired unlimited or pay-per-ride card, straphangers would have to pay $1 for a new card. The MTA says such a surcharge would net them $20 million annually in fees and savings, but many New Yorkers have called it a typical nickel-and-dime move. Mostly, it’s just been an idea on paper.

The idea, though, reared its head earlier this week as the MTA’s fragile 2013 budget includes an interesting line item. In the four-year projections, the MTA is, starting in 2013, relying on $20 million annually from the MetroCard “Green Fee” and Cost Savings. That seems to jibe with the revelation from October that the fee would not be instituted until 2013.

Today, Pete Donohue has a a piece on the surcharge. While the news isn’t, well, new, some of his details are. According to Donohue, as Transit is pushing the surcharge as a production savings, the reality is that it’s more of a fee. The agency will realize $2 million in cost savings from reduced MetroCard printing volumes while enjoying $18 million in added revenue from the fee.

“We want people to use fewer MetroCards,” Adam Lisberg, MTA spokesman, said. “It’s good for the environment and will reduce litter in our stations. Everyone has had the experience of walking into a station and seeing MetroCards littering the ground. If it costs $1 to replace your card, you won’t see that anymore.”

I’m mostly intrigued to see the impact the surcharge will have on the MTA’s fare media liability total. I’ve speculated in the past that encouraging straphangers to reuse their cards could actually cause decline in other revenues. Meanwhile, the MTA has plans to replace the MetroCard in 2015 (or so) and has offered up no date yet on when this “Green Fee” surcharge will actually be put into place. Perhaps all this hand-wringing is for naught.

As New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli continues his ongoing series of MTA audits, he’s starting to get to the juicy bits. Late last week, DiNapoli released his examination of Metro-North’s now-defunct On-Board Services Unit and found that employees who were supposed to monitor train conditions and crew performances were not doing their jobs. The unit was rife with no-shows and poor job performance while one particularly egregious case of nepotism may have run afoul of the New York State Public Officers Law.

The audit, available here as a PDF, has already led to some changes. The MTA, accused of offering no oversight for the On-Board Services Unit, has since disbanded the team, and the matter has been referred to the Office of the Inspector General for further investigation. It’s possible that criminal charges could be filed.

“The public got taken for a ride,” DiNapoli said. “When workers in this unit did bother to show up for their jobs, they did shoddy work or personal tasks when they should have been ensuring that trains were operating safely and smoothly. The MTA needs to do more to tighten up accountability. I am pleased that this audit brought an end to this situation.”

What exactly did the audit find? DiNapoli’s office provided a summary:

The audit covered the period January 1, 2009 through June 20, 2011 and examined whether employees in Metro North’s On-Board Services Unit fulfilled their duties and performed their assigned tasks. As of July 2011, the unit consisted of a supervisor and five employees who earned a total annual compensation of $832,676.

Auditors and investigators examined 300 rides that were expected to be taken and documented, of which 29 percent (89 rides) had no logs to support that any work was done. In 14 percent of all rides, staffers were not on the job, though they were scheduled to work and were paid for those hours. None of the 211 logs that did exist reported any significant performance or safety issue, raising serious questions about the quality of oversight provided by the unit.

Staff was supposed to take six train trips daily to work an eight-hour day, but auditors found that staff averaged only four train trips daily. Auditors and investigators estimate that four unit staff members were paid in excess of $170,000 annually for work that might not have been performed.

Supervision was also almost non-existent, with no log of time and attendance records, no observation of staffers on trains and no written schedule of trains to be monitored. Auditors and investigators also found that staffers surfed the internet during work hours, including spending 6.5 hours on firearm sites and Google and 5 hours on various commercial sites such as Chuck E. Cheese. Reviews of cell phone usage found little communication between staff members and their supervisor but did find out-of-state calls and calls home.

So essentially, Metro-North employees earning an average of $138,000 simply did not do their jobs. When they did, they did a poor job and tried to exploit the situation for family members. The audit found, in fact, that an assistant V.P. hired a family member at a salary of $84,700 when the candidate ranked lower than two others and was supposed to be paid under $60,000.

I’ve always said that DiNapoli’s audits are more obvious than they should be, and I don’t think one is any exception. Corruption and croneyism have ruled the day at the region’s railroads for time immemorial. But now, we see the impact this has on public perception and political beliefs. The MTA has worked hard under a few chairmen to get its house in order, but it’s such a mess that these stories continue to crop up in division after division. For progress to be made in terms of funding, Albany will have to trust the MTA with the dollars. Right now would you if you were in their shoes?

For as long as I can remember, the key time for a Metrocard has always involved 18 minutes. The cards, the MTA has long said, cannot be used on the same bus route or at the same subway station for 18 minutes. It’s a delay long enough to frustrate the average straphanging family looking to take advantage of an unlimited ride card, but it hasn’t stymied scammers.

Those who sell swipes have long been a thorn in the MTA’s side. We’ve all seen the folks who stand in station agent-less entrances offering to sell swipes for less than the cost of a ride. Some of them are more menacing than others, and some will go so far to jam up Metrocard Vending Machines to make sure their scams are the only ways into the subway system. I’ve seen them at some of the more desolate entrances to the Columbus Circle station, and they are positioned all over.

For years, the MTA has tried to cut down on these scammers. Summonses are ineffective, and arrests are just temporary setbacks. With only an 18-minute gap between swipes, these scammers can buy multiple Metrocards and simply swipe through the pack until the time is up. Now, the MTA is upping the fight against scammers in an effort to capture more money. As Pete Donohue noted in The Daily News, the authority has quietly upped the swipe time at a few stations and is generally being more aggressive in combating those who are using the same card multiple times at one station.

Donohue writes:

In the test program, the MTA targeted 28 stations where MetroCard records indicate high rates of fraud. Turnstiles were tweaked to reject a time-based card that had been used in the same station in the previous 36, 48 or 60 minutes. For decades, the lockout time has been 18 minutes, but that’s easily skirted by rotating through a series of cards.

The MTA’s theory: increase the lockout time and a scammer needs more MetroCards to make the investment in time or money worth it. “We know the police are out there doing everything they can to address this problem,” MTA spokesman Charles Seaton said. “We think we can do some things internally to make this kind of fraud less financially attractive.”

Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign has some concerns about the plan. “It’s OK to make things harder for illegal swipers with longer blackout periods,” he said. “But transit officials have got to balance that against the mobility of the rest of us, such as when we’ve forgotten something at the office and have to reenter a station. We are New Yorkers and we are always in a hurry.”

As a frequent swiper, I am having a tough time finding too much fault with his idea. While Russianoff is right to raise a concern, do legitimate subway riders swipe in more than once in an hour at the same station? The only time I could imagine doing so is if I swipe in, realize I’ve forgotten something and then have to return home to pick it up. Even then, I could still journey a few extra blocks to enter at a different station.

The MTA has often proclaimed loses due to Metrocard scams in excess of $20 million. That’s enough to save some bus routes or avoid a future service cut. While no business can reduce its bleed rate to nothing, a 60-minute time limit at the same station seems perfectly reasonable to me as the familiar yellow-and-blue fare payment system lives out its last years. Once the Metrocard vanishes, I wonder what future scams will resemble.

I wish the NYC turnstiles were programmed to display expiration dates for Unlimited MetroCard.

— Second Ave. Sagas (@SecondAveSagas) March 24, 2012

Are you following me on Twitter? If not, you can do so right here. The limits of the MTA’s fare payment technology may be obvious, but don’t let that stop you from exploring various ways to consume Second Ave. Sagas. (And for those wondering, the card expired on Sunday night.)