The Metrocard’s Farewell Tour

New York City’s iconic yellow transit payment, the MetroCard, makes its final swipes at the end of 2025. The last day for riders to purchase or refill their card will be on the last day of December.

The MetroCard will be replaced by the OMNY (One Metro New York) card.  The OMNY system offers passengers contactless tap-and-go payments for all city buses and subways.

However, commuters like Allie Carter, who travels from Manhattan to Brooklyn each day, are skeptical of the transition. “Why are we switching to OMNY?” she asks, adding that she's been using her credit card to access the subway since she lost her MetroCard last month.

“I figured it wasn’t worth replacing since they’re being phased out in a few weeks,” she said.

Carter says she’ll miss the MetroCard's unique design. “The classic yellow's really nice. It's pretty iconic,” she said.

But some other riders, like Darren Oscan, already see the MetroCard as a relic of the past. Oscan recently moved to New York for school. Even though he rides the subway often, he said he’s barely had any interaction with the MetroCard.

“It’s become a little obsolete, I just tap,” Oscan said. “It makes me think of the Le Tigre song, 'My My MetroCard.' That's just like the only thing it makes me remember now.”

But the 31-year-old transit card isn't gone yet. Commuters might still see the distinct yellow cards swiping into next year. In honor of its retirement, the New York City Transit Museum has curated a FAREwell MetroCard exhibit to celebrate this iconic piece of New York history.

Jodi Shapiro is the curator of the new exhibit and an expert on transit currency. She said the transition from the subway token to the MetroCard in the mid-1990s was a huge advancement for the city’s transportation system.

“When MetroCard was introduced, a stored value magstripe card was unheard of here for anything unless you worked in a high-security facility,” she said.

Shapiro said it was a huge achievement to teach millions of New Yorkers how to use the new technology.

“This whole educational campaign had to happen," she explained. "You know, this is how you swipe your card. This is the proper direction. When you swipe the card, this is what the digital readout is gonna tell you. This is how you know how much money you have left on your card."

Shapiro said the transition to OMNY will be less of a learning curve for riders since many are already familiar with tap to pay. She says OMNY will also make transit more accessible, especially for foreign travelers and make New York a more modern metropolis.

"The way OMNY is set up, you don't need to convert whatever currency you use to live your life into transit currency, which is a revelatory idea for New York because it's always been you give cash and you get something that will get you into our transit system,” she said.

The FAREwell MetroCard exhibit opens December 17 at the New York Transit Museum.