Talk:MetroCard (New York City)

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What happened to the page???

Possible disambiguation candidate ?

In the Washington, D.C. metro area, "MetroCard" means a card used for payment in the Washington metro system.

I was considering that as well, although I really don't know anything about the DC metrocard, or any of the other existing metrocard systems. If anyone wants to write a stub for those, the NY page should probably be left on the main page with links to other pages or a separate disambiguation page if there are enough other metrocards. If someone writes a full article for the DC system, then the main page should become a disambig. page. Anyone interested?
wikipedia does have a page for the Washington metro, Washington_Metro. I suppose you mean a whole page for the Washington metro metrocard system, though, and I guess that has to wait until someone finds that a sufficiently interesting topic to write about.

There's also a new Oyster card in London which is pretty much identical. Maybe rather than writing articles on all of these we need to make a general article on them - and mention any differences in the article. Then metrocard, oyster card and all the others could be redirects? Secretlondon 22:23, Dec 21, 2003 (UTC)

Wouldn't a lot of detail be left out if there was one general article for electronic payment of subway fares? On the current metrocard page, almost all of the information is new york city subway-specific information. The cards function in the same way, but I'm sure that the fares and history of the oyster card and NY metrocard are not identical. I support disambiguation for the metrocard and a separate page to link to pages like the metrocard and oyster card, but I don't see how combining all of them would be useful.

Do we need fare information? That must change almost every year! Secretlondon 22:36, Dec 21, 2003 (UTC)

Fare information changes, but other elements of the system don't. The only reason I put the fares on was to show the differences between the three types of cards that can be purchased. Just a note, the last time the NYC fare changed before 2003 was in 1995.

Contents

[edit] Antenna Design

The firm hired to design the outside of the MetroCard Vending Machine was IDEO. The person that headed the design for IDEO was Masamichi Udagawa. He left IDEO to form another company, which is Antenna Design. Antenna Design has been involved with Transit since that time, but I felt it was important to make that distinction.

[edit] Blue MetroCard

I don't think there's enough potential detail in Blue MetroCard to deserve its own article. Wouldn't it be better off as a section in this article -- perhaps with the History section rewritten to describe the transition from blue to yellow? --Polonius 13:36, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Merge. --CComMack 23:01, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What about TransitCheck?

Can someone add info on that? Pacific Coast Highway (blah • I'm a hot toe picker) 21:49, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Very, very good point. I don't really know much about it, but we should really put some more information about it in the article. alphaChimp laudare 02:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It should be covered. The TransitCheck card is notably different from standard metrocards. The reverse side bears the TransitChek logo in full color.

[edit] MetroCard value adding

I removed:"($3.00 cards available from PATH vending machines [1])" as it is misleading. PATH Vending machines although set for the basic PATH fare values can also issue cards in any amount. The reference of the $4 to $80 is mainly for sales at station booths. On MVMs you can put any amount on an existing MetroCard. You can get a new card for $3.00. --Allan 17:22, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I removed this from the article as it doesn't provide any good informational value related to the MetroCard.

[edit] Police Metrocards

There is a NYPD Metrocard that while plastic, bears a remarked similarity to the Bus Transfer paper Metrocard (Blue on white). Apparently, it is not restricted by any time or person limit.

[edit] $2 & $4 Cards

Actually, wrapped retail labeled $2 and $4 cards exist, but are not distributed to retail (that I've seen). They are provided to customers in instances where the remaining balance of a damaged or expired card is of equal value, or by businesses or agencies who provide carfare reimbursement. The denomination color coding of the particular wrapper is aqua for the $2 variety, and green for the $4 variety.

[edit] Predecessor systems elsewhere

Previously, since the late 1980s, the MBTA, the mass transit system of Boston, Massachusetts has had monthly passes that worked as unlimited farecards.

--Allan 15:01, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Expiration

Does anyone know how/why the cards expire? I always felt that was an unfair practice, since there are no refunds given for unused cards. --Do Not Talk About Feitclub (contributions) 19:46, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disabled Metrocards

Some of the information about discount Metrocards for the disabled is incorrect. The article states that these cards are labeled "photo ID cards"; mine has my photo, but says "Disability" in bold, and has a giant letter "R". This is embarrassing to people like me whose disability is usually not visible, and wish to keep it that way. 66.65.134.18 13:39, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anonymity and data retention

The article omits any discussion of anonymity. If a card is purchased with a debit or credit card, there is enough information to identify the purchaser and tie it to travel history. I would like to know the policy for retaining this data, and what kind of court order or subpoena is needed to obtain it. 66.65.134.18 13:40, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fare evasion article?

I just started a discussion at Talk:Token_sucking#rename which is also related to this article. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:38, 2 December 2007 (UTC)