Top 10 reasons not to buy a MetroCard


1. No matter how much money you spend or how many MetroCards you buy, there are absolutely no discounts.

2. There are no daily, weekly or monthly MetroCards, which would allow buyers to use them as many times as wanted within a specific period of time.

3. Unlike tokens, MetroCards are easily damaged and are thus easily rendered unusable.

4. The constant replacement of unusable MetroCards will entail a large and totally unnecessary waste of paper and other resources.

5. As a result of the Transportation Authority's well-proven incompetence, wastefulness and lack of adequate planning, the MetroCard system requires two types of machines (one to tell you how much money is left on the card and one to let you through the gate), instead of just one, thereby doubling the possibility of malfunction or breakdown.

6. The removal of all tokens and their replacement by MetroCards will make fare increases much easier to implement, because every single MetroCard does not need to be recalled and replaced to make rides on the subways and buses cost more.

7. MetroCard's only selling point to the public -- that riders don't have to wait on line to buy them -- would not have any juice at all if the TA hadn't already laid off so many token-booth clerks.

8. The system-wide use of the MetroCard will inevitably mean the loss of all token-booth clerks jobs, and the complete de-personalization of the subway system (MetroCard machines can not answer questions, can not help lost children, can not call the police, and can not wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year).

9. The complete de-personalization of the subway system will not affect the day-to-day lives of the state bureaucrats, the politicians and the businessmen and women who support MetroCard, for the simple reason that these people do not ride the subways or the buses every day.

10. Purchasing and using a MetroCard shows both the TA bureaucracy and the workers it has laid off in the past and will lay off in the future that you approve of the TA's vicious and scandalous anti-worker policies.

To voice your opposition, call the MTA MetroCard customer service line at (212) 638 7622


Originally published as a flier, January 1997. Reprinted February 1997. Total copies distributed: 2,000

Evaluated for accuracy in September 2003. Incorrect predictions or problems that the Treansportation Authority took steps to solve: 1 and 2. Correct predictions or problems that remain: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.


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