MTA’s tap-and-go payment system comes to Queens next month

The OMNY tap-and-go payment system in action. MTA Photo via Flickr.

By Jonathan Sperling

The MTA will activate it’s contactless fare payment at 48 additional subway stations across the city in December — including at one of Queens’ busiest transit hubs.

Agency officials announced on Tuesday that OMNY — the MTA’s tap-and-go fare payment system — will be available at the Sutphin Boulevard — Archer Avenue subway station in Jamaica, where E, J and Z trains meet the Long Island Rail Road and AirTrain to John F. Kennedy Airport.

A total of 7,282,128 riders utilized the station in 2018, making it among the most popular in Queens.

As it stands now, only buses in Staten Island and subway stations located along the Lexington Avenue line between Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue and Manhattan’s Grand Central have OMNY readers. The readers work by allowing customers to utilize a contactless card or device to quickly pay for a subway fare, rather than using a MetroCard.

Other city stations scheduled to receive OMNY readers in December include Penn Station, Whitehall Street and South Ferry in Manhattan, 86th Street in Bay Ridge and the St. George and Tompkinsville stations on the Staten Island Railway.

Every No. 6 train station between 51st Street and 125th Street in Manhattan, No. 4 train stations between 138th Street—Grand Concourse and Woodlawn and stations on the No. 1 train between Rector Street and Columbus Circle will also be equipped with OMNY come December.