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| Riders queue at a diminishing number of MetroCard Vending Machines across the system (Photo: The LIRR Today) |
7-day and weekly passes have traditionally been priced higher to encourage riders to buy up for the more expensive 30-day or monthly passes, which provide better value. Therefore, buying four separate 7-day or weekly passes usually works out to be more expensive than buying a 30-day or monthly pass (and also usually leaves you a few days short each month).
For NYCT's case, the elimination of the 30-day unlimited option will stiff its most frequent riders with a whopping 14% increase in their out-of-pocket commuting costs over the course of a year.
| Current 30-day unlimited | Current 7-day unlimited | Proposed 30-day fare cap | Proposed 7-day fare cap | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Days in year | 365.25 | 365.25 | 365.25 | ||
| Days per period | 30 | 7 | 7 | ||
| Periods per pear | 12.18 | 52.18 | 52.18 | ||
| Cost per period | $132.00 | $34.00 | none | $35.00 | |
| Total cost per year | $1,607.10 | $1,774.07 | none | $1,826.25 | +14% |
Fare capping vs. prepaid unlimited passes
The MTA says that doing away with the practice of having riders prepurchase unlimited passes in favor of fare capping provides riders with better value, allowing riders to keep money in their pockets for longer and makes fares more flexible.
In a statement, MTA spokesperson David Steckel said “85% of riders already use tap-and-ride because they know fare capping eliminates upfront costs and guesswork about which type of MetroCard to buy, makes unlimited rides available automatically, and ensures that they never leave money behind.”
It is definitely true that fare capping takes away the upfront guesswork and provides better flexibility in the event that travel plans change partway through a week or a month. But that flexibility coming at the price of higher total out-of-pocket costs is choice that the MTA is making, and does not necescarily mean it provides better value for all riders.
The MTA says that, pre-pandemic, riders were leaving behind $170 million of fare value annually by using unlimited 30-day and 7-day MetroCards less than the number of trips needed to break even with the pay-per-ride rate. That is a very compelling statistic, but the MTA has not presented any data or seem to have done any evaluation of how the shift towards fare capping with OMNY has changed rider behavior. For example, we don't know what percentage of riders hit the fare cap more than once but less than four times a month (meaning they are saving money with fare capping, but not spending more than they would if they just got a 30-day Unlimited MetroCard).
Fare capping rose in popularity across the Americas from advocates who argued that it was more equitable—since riders who are struggling to scrape by or living paycheck to paycheck may not be able to front the entire price of an unlimited pass upfront at the beginning of the month. But we have been sold up the river in a pretty big way by this thinking. First off, there are better ways to help the very small population of riders who cannot afford mass transit through social fare programs that offer reduced or free fares for those riders. Let's be honest, is someone that has more than $1.45 but less than $17 in their bank account really paying the Subway fare, or are they just jumping the turnstile? And, at the end of the day, is requiring these riders to pay 14% more in total out-of-pocket costs over the year really doing right by them?
Upfront sunk cost vs. incremental per-trip costs
The shift away from prepaid passes to fare capping changes the whole psychology of how riders evaluate the cost of travel using mass transit—and the approach being taken by the MTA and other agencies across the nation run counter to what is considered best practice elsewhere in the world.
When you purchase a prepaid unlimited pass, that is, for right or for wrong, a sunk cost. Therefore, the marginal cost of each additional trip you take is zero. In fact, you are encouraged to use mass transit as much as possible to squeeze the most value out of your pass. Pre-pandemic when I would have a LIRR monthly, if I was going into the city on a weekend, taking the train was a no-brainer...since it didn't cost me anything extra.
But with fare capping, almost every trip has an incremental cost, and there is a very visible reminder of that each time you use the system and get a notification from your bank or mobile wallet. The marginal cost of every trip is high, and that is a cost that could be avoided if you just didn't make that trip, or used a bike or walked. The less you travel, the more you save.
In the several years since MTA launched fare capping, I have hit the cap a handful of times—but never by accident. Each time I hit the cap, I knew in advance I would be taking more than 12 trips that particular week. And once I knew I was going to hit the cap, I would take the Subway or bus for all sorts of extra trips, including short hops that I would not ordinarily take the other weeks.
Unlimited passes also discourage fare evasion. If I have a prepaid unlimited pass, there is no sense in jumping the turnstile or walking past the bus driver—I already paid. But with fare capping, fare evasion is an opportunity to save money, especially if you don't expect to hit the fare cap.
New York's multipliers are among the highest in the world
A major reason why unlimited passes have historically been not that popular in New York—pre-pandemic, unlimited MetroCards were used for only about half of trips—is because of how expensive they are. NYCT's multiplier (the ratio between the price of a single trip and the unlimited pass) have historically been very high, among the highest among major metro systems across the globe. Because of how expensive they were, the unlimited MetroCards didn't make a lot of sense for many riders (e.g. if you were a suburban commuter taking only two trips a day on weekdays), and you really had to use the Subway or bus multiple times a day to get your money's worth.
With the elimination of the 30-day unlimited option, that will get even worse. The price of unlimited travel for a 30-day period will rise from $132 to $152.19 under these changes, a 50.7 multiplier over the $3 base fare.
The table below compares the cost of a single trip to the cost of unlimited travel for 30 days for major metro systems across the United States and the world. For any transit systems in foreign countries, their current fares were converted to US dollars using the exchange rate in effect on October 1, 2025. For all agencies, the cost of unlimited travel for 30-days was determined by taking the cost of best value unlimited pass or fare cap and prorating it for a 30-day period. For example, calendar monthly passes are prorated downwards to account for the five extra days at the end of the year; annual passes are prorated downwards; 1- or 7-day passes are prorated upwards to put all agencies on an even playing field. The multiplier is the cost of unlimited travel for 30-days divided by the single trip cost:
New York's forthcoming 50.7 multiplier is the highest in the nation, and significantly leads most major European cities.
In fact, you can see a significant difference in how the pricing of unlimited passes is approached in the United States vs. major cities in Europe. With the exception of London and Paris, the two most expansive and expensive metro networks in Europe, every other major city prices its unlimited passes at multipliers lower than the lowest American city, Honolulu. Transit operators elsewhere have cracked the code that lower-priced passes, even when purchased upfront, encourages more transit ridership from the people who live and work in the city by making transit travel very affordable and at a near-zero marginal cost.
Take the example of Vienna. Wiener Linien offers an annual ticket that costs €365 for unlimited travel across the city, which works out to just €1 per day. At just €1 per day, it is a no-brainer for anyone who lives or works in Vienna to just buy the annual pass. And once you have the annual pass, taking the train 5 times a day doesn't cost anymore than riding once per day.
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| Fare control in Vienna is simple and straightforward, since most riders have an unlimited pass, they just walk on (Photo: The LIRR Today) |
Unlimited passes pay for themselves in as little as 8.2 trips per month in Barcelona, 15 trips in Berlin, or 23 trips in Rome—half the breakeven point of what the MTA will have in New York.
As the MTA continues to grapple with the fare evasion problem on Subways and buses, the push away from prepaid fares and towards OMNY/contactless with fare capping without addressing the high multiplier has made the problem avoidably worse.
By eliminating the 30-day unlimited option, the MTA is punishing its most frequent and loyal riders with a whopping 14% increase in their out of pocket costs, and making it more difficult to grow ridership and combat fare evasion, too.
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