The New Subway Math: The Best New York Metrocard

Paying for the subway in New York used to be easy. Buy a token from the clerk, stick it into the turnstile and you were done. Now it seems you need a degree in Mathematics from M.I.T. to figure out what's the best Metrocard to buy and how much you will have left on your card.

With the recent fare hikes on June 28th 2009 things have gotten a lot more complicated. A single pay ride now cost $2.25. When you put $8 or more on your Metrocard you get a 15% bonus. So an $8 purchase would give you $9.20 on your card, enough for 4 rides with 20 cents left over on your Metrocard.

To avoid having a leftover amount on your card you need to make a $45 Metrocard purchase which would give you $51.75 on your card enough for 23 rides. Any other purchase would leave you with spare change on your Metrocard which you would loose unless you combine that amount with another card or add extra money to it.

My guess is that the Metropolitan Transit Authority went out of its way to make this system extra complicated. Most people don't put $45 on their cards and may people don't bother doing anything with the extra change left on their old cards. Which means the MTA pockets the loose change left on the card.

The Transit Union must also love this new complicated system. For many years it looked like the token booth clerks (who make upwards of $50,000 a year) would have their jobs go the way of the subway token. With most people using unlimited passes or buying their Metrocards from vending machines token booth clerks had very little to do. Now they suddenly have a new responsibility, combining the loose change left on old Metrocards onto new Metrocards.

Here is a quick guide to how much various rides will now cost you. Multiply the number of rides you want by 1.9565217391304347826086956521739. It's simple, eh?

Well here is a cheat sheet to how much a certain number of rides will cost you. Keep in mind most of these cost do not include the fractions of a cent left over which the MTA keeps (I guess they were watching Superman III when they came up with this fare system):

4 rides $8 with 20 cents left over.
5 rides $9.79
6 rides $11.74
7 rides $13.70
8 rides $15.66
9 rides $17.61
10 rides $19.57
11 rides $ 21.53
12 rides $23.48
13 rides $25.44
14 rides $27.40
15 rides $29.35
16 rides $31.31
17 rides $33.27
18 rides $35.22
19 rides $37.18
20 rides $39.14
21 rides $41.09
22 rides $43.05
23 rides $45

As for when it makes sense to buy an unlimited Metrocard vs a pay-per ride card the new math breaks down like this.

A 1 day unlimited fun pass is $8.25. With the pay-per ride 15% you can get 4 rides for $8 with 20 cents left on your card. 5 rides would cost $9.79 (with a fraction on a cent left over). So if you plan on taking more than 4 rides in one day buy the unlimited 1 day fun pass.

A 7 day unlimited pass is $27 which would buy you 13.8 rides.

A 14 day unlimited pass is $51.50 which would buy you 26.32 rides.

A 30 day unlimited Metrocard is now $89 which would buy you 45.5 rides.

Good luck figuring it all out and remember to keep those calculators handy when you ride the buses and subways in New York City!