When word of the impending MTA fare hike leaked out earlier this month, the headlines concerned unlimited ride cards. Once responsible for revolutionizing the way New Yorkers use mass transit, these cards are set to become limited in January 2011. Now, we learn that a few unlimited ride options may be on the chopping block.

According to WNYC’s Matthew Schuerman, the MTA is going to propose the elimination of the one-day fun pass and the 14-day card as part of its slate of fare hikes. The one-day card, transit officials say, is most prone to abuse by scammers while the 14-day card just hasn’t seen wide-spread use as the Straphangers Campaign, influential in promoting the idea, had hoped. “I can’t say I feel great,” Gene Russianoff said. “I had hoped that we would be helping people who could do better than a seven-day card and I’m sad that we didn’t convince more New Yorkers to use it.”

Schuerman had more on the demise of these various fare options and the history of the one-day Fun Pass, aimed initially at tourists:

Former Gov. George Pataki included the Fun Pass as part of an array of unlimited MetroCards that the MTA introduced back in 1998. At first, it was only sold at tourist locations. But the MTA quickly expanded Fun Pass distribution so that ordinary New Yorkers could also take advantage of unlimited rides for one day.

But transit sources say the one-day Metrocard never really caught on and now accounts for less than 1 percent of all fares paid. They say the Fun Pass also has a sinister side: scammers stand at turnstiles and sell swipes off of them for $2 as people come through. The scammers buy them in bulk so they don’t have to re-use any of them more than once every 18 minutes—the time lag the cards are programmed for. Over the course of a day, each one could be used dozens of times, at great profit to the scammer, while the MTA only receives the $8.25 face value of the card.

The MTA also wants to get rid of the 14-day MetroCard, first offered in 2008 to provide low-income riders better value than a weekly card without requiring them to shell out as much as a 30-day pass requires. But only 2 percent of straphangers use the card, and transit sources say that the other fare changes that will be proposed this week will make the 7-day card a relatively good deal. (The cost of the 7-day card will go up a dollar or two, while the price of a monthly will go up $10 or $11.)

For the Fun Pass to work, those riders who use pay-per-ride cards with the discount must take five or more trips per day, and most New Yorkers simply do not ride the subways that often. According to the MetroCard market share table from May 2010, only 0.9 percent of MetroCard trips were made with a one-day pass. That low figure also seems to contradict the MTA’s claims of widespread fraud.

The 14-day cards were, by and large, useless. Currently priced at $51.50, they’re cost-efficient only when compared with the $27 seven-day cards, and they pro-rate to over $110 for 30 days. By making the week-long cards a better deal, the MTA can hope to target lower-income users as the Straphangers originally wished to do. As Schuerman notes, only two percent of riders used the two-week cards anyway, and that figure had been static since they were first introduced.

By 2011, the fare hikes will have outstripped inflation by nearly 25 percent since Unlimited MetroCards made their entrance into the subway scene in 1998, and now, New Yorkers will have fewer options as well. Two percent may seem insignificant but nearly 150,000 commuters just found out that their preferred method of fare payment will no longer be an option come January. When flexibility is king, fewer choices is not the way to go.

The MTA will debate the contours of these proposals at its board meeting tomorrow morning. Due to my work schedule, I won’t be able to attend, but you can watch live right here beginning at 9:30 a.m. The presentation on the MTA’s finances and the fare hikes proposal is currently the last item on the meeting’s agenda.