How Much Time After Use the Metro Card Can I Use Again

The MetroCard

The MetroCard is a thin, credit-card sized farecard made of (cheap) plastic. It has been the farecard for the subway many decades, merely is currently beingness phased out by the new contactless OMNY system. Nevertheless, the MetroCard is still fully operational at least until July 2023. Most of the time, the menu looks like this (front end and back):

Occasionally, the MetroCard also carries advertisements on either side, and so it might not exist yellow as above, but it always has a black magnetic stripe at the bottom, iii rounded corners, and ane "cutting off" corner.

The back of the card has what I call a physical expiration date which is usually prepare pretty far in the future. This physical expiration engagement is fixed and indicates the time when the bill of fare becomes unusable and must be exchanged for another one at a token booth. This physical expiration date has nothing to do with the value and time on the carte, so don't confuse this date with the expiration of an Unlimited Ride window (which I will explain that later). This physical expiration date is merely in that location to force old cards out of rotation.

A MetroCard tin can operate in 2 modes: Regular and Unlimited Ride. Physically, the bill of fare looks identical regardless of which style it is currently in, and then you can't tell the deviation unless you swipe information technology at a card reader. Regardless of the type of MetroCard, information technology costs $i just to purchase the card. There also exists an all-white Single-Ride ticket for $3 that you can buy at ticket booths, only unless you really only going to take a unmarried ride, it is not economical to purchase it.

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

Regular MetroCard (Pay-Per-Ride)

The regular MetroCard (also known every bit a Pay-Per-Ride card) carries a real dollar value that decreases every time yous take the subway (hence "pay per ride"). Y'all can continue on adding value to the card whenever your residue runs low. The fee to buy the card itself is $1 and is not refundable. This $1 cannot be used to pay for rides (and is therefore non reflected in the balance).

In this carte du jour mode, the price of riding the subway is $two.75 per ride (regardless of the destination or length of the ride).

Pay-Per-Ride cards can be shared past up to four people. To share a carte du jour, y'all can swipe the card multiple times to let multiple people through the turnstiles. Yous can do this individually by swiping the MetroCard, letting the beginning person enter, swiping it again to permit the next person enter, and and so on, or yous can swipe the menu multiple times back to back and and so let the respective number of people walk through the turnstiles.

You tin can likewise utilize 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.

You can combine the values of multiple Pay-Per-Ride cards by going to the information booth and asking the bellboy to combine them for you. When yous practise so, only the current balances are accumulated; the $1 fee for each card is non taken into account.

Unlimited Ride cards

Unlimited Ride cards permit yous to ride the subway (and buses) equally often equally you want, every bit long as the time window that y'all bought for the card hasn't passed. There are only two time windows bachelor:

• 7-Mean solar day Unlimited Ride: $33 (+ $ane fee for the card itself);
• xxx-Day Unlimited Ride: $127 (+ $1 fee for the card itself);

Sorry, in that location aren't whatsoever unmarried-24-hour interval or weekend passes. If you recollect yous are going to make more than 12 individual trips (a very likely scenario for tourists staying more than than 2 days), buying a vii-Solar day Unlimited Ride card will be cheaper than paying 12 times.

The time window does not activate until you swipe the card for the very showtime time at a turnstile to enter the system. For instance, yous can buy the menu on January 17, activate it on April 1, and it will expire at midnight betwixt April vii and April eight.

Unlimited cards always expire exactly at midnight on the 7th or 30th twenty-four hours, regardless of the time you activated the card on the first mean solar day. For instance, if yous activate a 7-Day Unlimited Ride carte du jour on Monday morning, it volition expire Dominicus nighttime at midnight. If you activate the carte Mon evening at eleven:30pm, information technology nonetheless expires Sun nighttime at midnight. As a result, yous effectively go to use it only for half dozen days and thirty minutes. In that case, yous are improve off paying for a single ride using the Pay-Per-Ride carte and so activating the Unlimited Ride card the next morning time.

Unlimited Ride cards cannot be shared by two people. In fact, in that location is a (roughly) 18-minute delay between each swipe to prevent the menu from being used past more than one person.

As noted before, on the back of every MetroCard you'll discover a printed physical expiration appointment. Do not confuse the printed physical card expiration date with the paid expiration of the Unlimited Ride time window.

A card can behave both time and value

A card tin can carry "time ", "value", or both. In other words, y'all tin can add a dollar value to an Unlimited Ride card or buy fourth dimension to an existing Pay-Per-Ride bill of fare. When this happens, the time portion always takes precedence when you swipe information technology at a turnstile (it volition actuate the time window equally necessary). After the time portion of the carte du jour has expired, it volition so (and just then) kickoff draining the value of your menu. This also implies that you cannot apply this card with multiple people as a second swipe on the carte du jour will be denied equally "Just used" despite the menu conveying budgetary value in add-on. Lastly, MetroCards tin can be refilled. Provided that the physical expiration date on the back of the card has not passed, you tin reload a new Unlimited Ride time window or just coin onto an expired or empty card.

Ownership a MetroCard

You can buy a MetroCard at any subway station, either at a staffed ticket booth or MetroCard vending automobile located inside the subway station. They wait like this:

The small-scale ane on the left does non accept greenbacks, whereas the big machines on the right take both cash and credit cards. While each subway station is guaranteed to have these machines, not every entrance to a subway station gives you access to them. If you enter the station just do not encounter these machines, simply go out and discover some other nearby entrance to the same station.

The screen on the machine does non have the nearly intuitive layout. I've devised the following simplified flowchart to navigate this automobile:

Remember that in add-on to the price listed higher up, you must add together $ane for the card itself.

When you pay with cash on the large machines, notation that they tin can just return up to $9 in cash (paid out in $1 coins). When you pay past ATM or credit carte du jour, the motorcar will ask you for the ZIP code associated with your account. If you lot come from exterior the U.s.a., just enter 99999 as your ZIP lawmaking. Do note that sometimes ATM/credit carte companies prevent you from buying multiple MetroCards in quick succession to minimize theft abuse. Usually they limit purchases to ii new MetroCards per credit bill of fare per day, so programme appropriately if you travel in a group that needs divide Unlimited Ride MetroCards on their offset day.

Inside subway stations yous can also find some standalone MetroCard readers where you can swipe a given MetroCard to cheque its balance and time:

The display of these MetroCard readers can be a little disruptive, so permit's take a look at some common scenarios. If y'all just added an unlimited fourth dimension window to a MetroCard and have not activated this fourth dimension window nonetheless, the card will display both the unactivated unlimited time window too as whatever monetary value y'all might also have on the carte:

In the above example, I have a seven-twenty-four hours unlimited time window and as well as $33.40 on my card. You might be confused past the first line displaying "Fourth dimension EXPIRED", but that'south just because I used to take a previous unlimited time window on the card that has already expired. The recently-purchased 7-day window has not activated yet. To make matters worse, these readers also display on the concluding line the (generally useless) concrete expiration time (which is printed on the dorsum of the card anyways). Once more, don't confuse that date with any of the unlimited time windows.

Once you actually have activated the unlimited time window portion of a MetroCard, these readers will brandish when the time window volition expire likewise 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 agile until the specified appointment (of 06/15/sixteen in the in a higher place instance). Note that fifty-fifty though the reader only displays the expiration date, information technology is implied that the time window expires exactly at eleven:59pm on that date.

Lastly, once the time window has expired, the reader might even so display the time window that you one time had:

Because the display does not display "THRU <engagement>", it means that the 7-day unlimited time window has expired. The brandish also shows "Insufficient FARE" because the bachelor $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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