How Long Before You Can Swipe Again With an Unlimited Metro Card

The MetroCard

The MetroCard is a thin, credit-carte du jour sized farecard made of (cheap) plastic. Information technology has been the farecard for the subway many decades, but is currently being phased out by the new contactless OMNY system. However, the MetroCard is still fully operational at least until July 2023. Virtually of the time, the card looks like this (front and back):

Occasionally, the MetroCard as well carries advertisements on either side, so it might non be yellow as to a higher place, but it always has a black magnetic stripe at the bottom, three rounded corners, and one "cutting off" corner.

The back of the card has what I call a concrete expiration date which is usually set pretty far in the future. This concrete expiration date is fixed and indicates the time when the carte becomes unusable and must be exchanged for another one at a token booth. This physical expiration date has goose egg to do with the value and time on the card, so don't confuse this appointment with the expiration of an Unlimited Ride window (which I volition explain that subsequently). This physical expiration date is merely in that location to forcefulness old cards out of rotation.

A MetroCard tin operate in ii modes: Regular and Unlimited Ride. Physically, the card looks identical regardless of which mode it is currently in, so yous can't tell the difference unless you swipe it at a card reader. Regardless of the type of MetroCard, it costs $1 only to buy the menu. At that place also exists an all-white Single-Ride ticket for $iii that you lot can buy at ticket booths, simply unless yous really only going to take a single ride, it is not economic to buy information technology.

Children nether 44 inches (112 cm.) regardless of age can ride trains for costless and don't need to buy a card as long as they are accompanied by a fare-paying adult. (The children tin can just walk underneath the turnstile.)

Regular MetroCard (Pay-Per-Ride)

The regular MetroCard (also known as a Pay-Per-Ride menu) carries a real dollar value that decreases every time you accept the subway (hence "pay per ride"). You tin keep on adding value to the card whenever your residue runs low. The fee to purchase the card itself is $1 and is not refundable. This $1 cannot be used to pay for rides (and is therefore not reflected in the rest).

In this carte du jour mode, the price of riding the subway is $2.75 per ride (regardless of the destination or length of the ride).

Pay-Per-Ride cards tin can exist shared past up to four people. To share a card, you can swipe the carte multiple times to permit multiple people through the turnstiles. Yous can do this individually past swiping the MetroCard, letting the first person enter, swiping it over again to permit the adjacent person enter, and so on, or you lot can swipe the card multiple times dorsum to back and then let the respective number of people walk through the turnstiles.

You can likewise employ this Pay-Per-Ride card to pay for some other public transportation in New York City, such as the buses, the AirTrain to/from the JFK airport or the PATH commuter trains from/to New Jersey.

Y'all can combine the values of multiple Pay-Per-Ride cards by going to the information booth and asking the attendant to combine them for you. When you lot practice so, only the current balances are accumulated; the $one fee for each menu is non taken into business relationship.

Unlimited Ride cards

Unlimited Ride cards allow you to ride the subway (and buses) equally often every bit yous desire, as long as the time window that y'all bought for the menu hasn't passed. There are simply ii time windows available:

• 7-Day Unlimited Ride: $33 (+ $1 fee for the card itself);
• thirty-Solar day Unlimited Ride: $127 (+ $1 fee for the menu itself);

Sorry, there aren't any single-day or weekend passes. If you think y'all are going to make more than 12 individual trips (a very likely scenario for tourists staying more than than two days), buying a vii-Day Unlimited Ride card will be cheaper than paying 12 times.

The time window does not activate until you swipe the carte du jour for the very starting time time at a turnstile to enter the system. For example, you can buy the card on January 17, actuate it on April ane, and information technology will expire at midnight betwixt April 7 and April 8.

Unlimited cards ever elapse exactly at midnight on the 7th or 30th day, regardless of the time you activated the card on the start twenty-four hour period. For instance, if yous activate a 7-Day Unlimited Ride menu on Monday morning, it will expire Sunday night at midnight. If y'all activate the card Monday evening at eleven:30pm, information technology still expires Sunday night at midnight. As a consequence, you finer get to utilise it only for half dozen days and 30 minutes. In that case, you are amend off paying for a single ride using the Pay-Per-Ride card and then activating the Unlimited Ride bill of fare the next morn.

Unlimited Ride cards cannot be shared by two people. In fact, there is a (roughly) xviii-infinitesimal delay betwixt each swipe to prevent the card from being used past more than ane person.

As noted before, on the dorsum of every MetroCard yous'll detect a printed physical expiration date. Practise not confuse the printed physical card expiration date with the paid expiration of the Unlimited Ride time window.

A card can deport both time and value

A card tin carry "time ", "value", or both. In other words, you tin add a dollar value to an Unlimited Ride card or buy time to an existing Pay-Per-Ride card. When this happens, the time portion always takes precedence when you swipe it at a turnstile (it volition activate the time window every bit necessary). After the time portion of the carte du jour has expired, it will then (and only and then) start draining the value of your card. This also implies that you lot cannot use this card with multiple people as a 2d swipe on the card will be denied every bit "Just used" despite the card carrying budgetary value in improver. Lastly, MetroCards tin can exist refilled. Provided that the physical expiration date on the back of the carte has not passed, you tin reload a new Unlimited Ride time window or just money onto an expired or empty carte.

Buying a MetroCard

Yous tin can buy a MetroCard at any subway station, either at a staffed ticket booth or MetroCard vending machine located inside the subway station. They look like this:

The minor one on the left does not take cash, whereas the large machines on the right accept both cash and credit cards. While each subway station is guaranteed to have these machines, not every archway to a subway station gives you access to them. If you lot enter the station only do not run into these machines, but get out and find another nearby entrance to the same station.

The screen on the machine does not have the most intuitive layout. I've devised the following simplified flowchart to navigate this auto:

Recall that in addition to the price listed above, you must add $1 for the card itself.

When you pay with cash on the big machines, note that they tin can only return up to $nine in greenbacks (paid out in $i coins). When you pay past ATM or credit card, the machine will ask y'all for the ZIP code associated with your account. If you come from outside the The states, just enter 99999 as your Cypher code. Do notation that sometimes ATM/credit carte du jour companies foreclose y'all from buying multiple MetroCards in quick succession to minimize theft corruption. Commonly they limit purchases to 2 new MetroCards per credit carte du jour per day, so plan accordingly if you travel in a group that needs separate Unlimited Ride MetroCards on their first twenty-four hour period.

Inside subway stations you lot can likewise find some standalone MetroCard readers where you tin swipe a given MetroCard to check its balance and time:

The display of these MetroCard readers can be a little disruptive, and then let'due south accept a look at some common scenarios. If you but added an unlimited fourth dimension window to a MetroCard and take non activated this time window still, the carte du jour will display both the unactivated unlimited time window as well every bit any monetary value you might also have on the card:

In the to a higher place example, I take a seven-solar day unlimited time window and as well as $33.40 on my card. You might be confused by the first line displaying "Time EXPIRED", only that'southward just considering I used to accept a previous unlimited time window on the card that has already expired. The recently-purchased seven-twenty-four hour period window has not activated yet. To make matters worse, these readers also display on the terminal line the (mostly useless) physical expiration time (which is printed on the back of the menu anyways). Once again, don't confuse that date with any of the unlimited time windows.

Once you really have activated the unlimited time window portion of a MetroCard, these readers will display when the time window will expire too as the last time this card was swiped at a turnstile:

The keyword to look for is "THRU" to determine that the fourth dimension window is currently active until the specified appointment (of 06/15/xvi in the in a higher place example). Note that even though the reader only displays the expiration date, information technology is unsaid that the time window expires exactly at 11:59pm on that date.

Lastly, once the time window has expired, the reader might still display the fourth dimension window that you once had:

Because the display does non display "THRU <date>", it ways that the seven-24-hour interval unlimited time window has expired. The display besides shows "INSUFFICIENT FARE" because the available $0.40 I also accept on the card would not be sufficient to pay for a single ride anyways.

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Source: http://www.nycsubwayguide.com/subway/metrocard.aspx

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