Quote:
Originally Posted by BK1985
What phase out? The 30 day still exists
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Unlimited rides are being phased out in favor of the OMNY, and many paying passengers have already moved away from Unlimiteds.
Here's my theory of what's going on. Unlimited cards were a sunk cost. People with unlimited cards were generous in helping others evade the fare by swiping them into the subway system as they exited. If you rode the subway anytime prior to 2020, you saw people at turnstiles asking for swipes on a daily basis.
But with the fare structure change under OMNY, there are fewer unlimited cards floating around and people are far less willing to pay an extra fare for others (I can count on one hand how many times I've been asked to do that in the past two years). This was true even before the introduction of OMNY, as people with cash MetroCards were not likely to give away swipes, but people with unlimited MetroCards were often willing to give them away. The MTA couldn't complain about fare evaders borrowing swipes before, because who is the MTA to tell me that I can't donate swipes to other people? So they just got rid of it and converted many of those swipe borrowers into "fare evaders".