Don't shoot — the OMNY isn't working!
MTA workers propped open a gate at the Bedford-Nostrand G station on Wednesday morning after the OMNY system failed at that location, horrifying some riders who were reminded that cops shot four people days earlier while chasing down a man ... who allegedly walked through an open gate at another Brooklyn station.
With the OMNY, credit card and phone readers down, and the gate propped open, the only option for riders was to buy a MetroCard (and pay the $1 new card fee) or enter through the open gate and risk being identified as a fare beater.
That risk can now be seen as life-threatening, after the city’s war against fare evaders turned violent on Sunday: Two NYPD officers shot 37-year-old Derrell Mickles after police said he didn’t pay the fare at the Sutter Avenue L station, and allegedly came at police with a knife. Two bystanders and one cop were caught in the crossfire; one victim had bullet shrapnel removed from his head and is in critical condition.
“It’s interesting that we’re in a time where ... if they don’t have money to pay the fare, you could be collateral damage in some cop’s need to prove a point to enforce a police state in this city,” said Joan Summers, a Philadelphian who was at the Bedford-Nostrand station on Wednesday.
“People need to pay their fare share,” added Jeremy, a Bedford-Stuyesant resident. “But getting shot? No, that’s way more aggressive than it needs to be for a fare evader.”
On Tuesday night, protesters gathered in Brownsville to oppose the crackdown, leading to 18 arrests. Another demonstration is set for tonight at Union Square, as anger lingers, though the problems at Bedford-Nostrand were eventually fixed.
But for hours, OMNY readers at the turnstiles displayed yellow “MetroCard Only” notices at both the Bedford Avenue and Nostrand Avenue entrances.
At the Bedford entrance, riders streamed into the station towards the end of the morning rush with many looking perplexed as they put away their phones and credit cards after they failed to tap into the system.
Some people dug MetroCards out of their wallets to swipe into the station, but not everyone has them on hand in the age of OMNY.
“I always use my phone [to tap in], so I don’t know what people do that don’t have a smartphone,” said Jeremy. “It kind of surprises me that people still use MetroCard.”
“I don’t have a MetroCard because we have OMNY now,” added Summers. “Why would I have a MetroCard?”
Ximena, a subway rider who lives in the neighborhood, usually taps in with OMNY at this station because the MetroCard machine rarely accepts cash. This time, the MetroCard machine was up and running, allowing her to load $30 onto a new card — which triggers a $1 fee. Meanwhile, the adjacent OMNY machine flashed an “out of order” message — the one time when the OMNY machine's failure was not an inconvenience.
On the Nostrand side of the station, the MetroCard machine — next to another defunct OMNY machine — was not accepting bills.
“I’m disappointed,” said one commuter, who declined to give her name, after she used her credit card to add funds to a MetroCard.
While there is a gate agent booth at that end of the station, the MTA staffer disappeared a few minutes after Streetsblog arrived at the scene. The gate at this side wasn’t propped open by a rope and cone, but riders held the door for each other to make the train.
“The MetroCard machine is always messed up,” a commuter named King told Streetsblog as he exited the station. “I had a situation like that two nights ago in Harlem. I was coming down to the train. It wouldn’t take my card, the card reader was messed up. The train’s about to come now. I’m gonna do what I need to do now.”
Riders in Bed-Stuy aren’t the only ones who have had problems with OMNY lately. Students who live more than half a mile from their school are being left out of the free student OMNY program. Earlier this summer, numerous commuters reported that OMNY was preventing them from tapping into the system, and batch charging credit cards after a bungled software update.
The MTA has increasingly been pulling out the stops to curtail fare evasion on transit, which it says cost the system $644 million in 2022. The agency has deployed private security guards across the system to help stop would-be fare-beaters, with The City reporting that the agency has budgeted for more than $35 million to expand the program. At the same time, the MTA is exploring the possibility of employing a “behaviorist” to stop fare evasion through Jedi mind tricks.
Fare evasion is most common on MTA buses, where poor service and slow speeds are leaving riders stranded in the hot sun. The agency has started cracking down on bus-specific fare evasion and ended a free route program as commuters wonder what they’re even paying for.
The MTA is investigating Wednesday's OMNY snafu, a rep for the agency said.
“The OMNY validator interruption resulted from a temporary loss of network communications that is under investigation," spokesperson Meghan Keegan said in a statement. "New York City Transit sent rapid-response teams who quickly rectified the conditions.”
