is transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.
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This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the intersection of transportation and technology, follow Andrew J. Hawkins. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.
How it started
I vividly remember the first time I used my phone to ride the New York City subway. I tapped my device against the translucent rectangle thing, the light turned green, and the turnstile made a familiar click inviting me to push through the metal arms. On the other side, the future beckoned.
After a two-decade run as New York’s preeminent pass to the subway, the MetroCard has officially joined the brass token in the annals of subway history. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) says it will officially stop selling the iconic yellow-and-blue plastic cards by the end of the year. NFC-equipped credit cards and apps like Apple Pay and Google Pay are the new currency of the underground.
New Yorkers have been living with the tap-to-ride OMNY system for a few years now, but other cities are still getting up to speed. Last month, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) became the latest to introduce a tap-to-pay fare payment system, joining New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Juan, and Washington, DC, as cities with open-loop NFC fare readers. Many cities, like London, have had tap-to-pay transit systems for years or even decades, while others still fumble with card swipes.
But it’s not all going swimmingly. Many riders are still on the fence about the new payment systems. A lot of people, especially low-income folks, lack bank accounts, home internet, or even smartphones needed to use these systems. Contactless payments aren’t completely immune to security vulnerabilities that could expose individuals to fraud or identity theft. And transit systems across the country still face a massive budget shortfall, as ridership has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.
London was the first major city to adopt a contactless payment system, first for the buses in 2012 and then for the Underground in 2014. In New York, the idea was batted around for years but didn’t gain traction until the mid-2010s, when Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that electronic fare readers would help usher in the subway system to “the 21st century.”
The covid-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of contactless fare systems for many cities. Transit officials saw the benefits of promoting a touch-free experience during a pandemic while also letting riders pay for trips the same way they would buy a cup of coffee.
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