Don’t Give The MTA That Metrocard Dollar!

Choire Sicha
The Awl
Published in
1 min readMay 13, 2013

In Union Square this morning. The MTA is making millions off that extra buck you pay for a new metrocard. We’ve got reaction

— kristen shaughnessy (@kshaughnessy2) May 13, 2013

Each Metrocard costs the MTA about six cents to make. Since March, they’ve charged you a dollar for each one, because it’s not “green.” Because… that’s your fault. That they make Metrocards. Yeah.

So the other 94¢ the MTA makes on each card goes to planting a baby tree in Queens. Because that’d be GREEEEEN. Just kidding, it’s all profit. The idea of this having to do with the environment is as fake as the scammy carbon credits market that Goldman Sachs invented. The unsurprising news today is that the MTA is raking it in on the new Metrocard fee. This is unshocking. Sometimes you need a Metrocard, you know? Like when you’re one of New York City’s 47 million tourists each year. (The other news is that they won’t tell anyone how much they are making on it? Because apparently they don’t have to? Until I guess their annual report?)

I haven’t bought a new Metrocard since March, even though mine is all raggedy and always looks like it’s on death’s door. I’ll pay $2.50 for a terrible bagel in midtown or $4.50 for a coffee but I won’t give those jerks that stupid dollar. Please join me. I’m gonna start giving dollars to homeless people on the subway, since that’s actually still illegal, while scamming customers in the name of the environment isn’t.

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