Video: How to Outsmart the MTA with Simple Math

Refilling your MTA card is a pretty standard procedure for anyone traveling underground in New York City. But for those who pay attention to the details, you probably noticed that annoying leftover balance that’s either a nickel or dime, or just a few cents shy of a ride. In other words, it’s useless.

According to Ben Wellington, a data guru and assistant professor at the Pratt Institute, that odd number is no accident.

17 Comments

  • Anonymous

    You can always combine a few cards togeter or tou can buy a card for $19.05. it will get you exactly 4 rides

    • Oren Bala

      Actually adding $19.05 to your MC will give you a card valued at $20.00. $20/$2.50=8 rides.

  • Dumb Dumb

    This is stupid!!! If you are not just buying one fare and you are spending all that money to fill up your card then chances are you live here and actually use the train and you just keep up refilling that same card. I don’t see what all that bozos math is all about…

  • Not exactly

    B’shem omro, from the comments on pix11.com:

    The formula is:
    S = 2.5*R/1.05 , where S = amount you need to pay, R = the number of rides you want. For example, if you want 5 rides, S = $11.90 is the amount you would pay. (from Jun Yan)

    But,

    Professor Ben Wellington is partially correct.
    When you add the 5% bonus to $9.55 you get $10.02 so $9.55 isn’t a magic number. You can buy pre-valued/packaged MetroCards for $9.52 which will get 4 rides ($10.00) at authorized stores.
    The $11.90 (which will give you $12.50) for [5] rides as cited by Jun Yan and $19.05 [8 rides] and $38.10 [16 rides] as cited by Professor Wellington are correct.

    It should be stated that the MetroCard Vending Machines will only accept transactions in multiples of 5 cents so $23.81 for 10 rides (value of $25.00) will not be accepted.

    You can, however do the “odd” amount transaction at a subway booth. Subway booths are cash only. (from A S Berlin)

  • Milhouse

    The whole premise of this story is false. If the female reporter is telling the truth when she claims to have multiple cards with odd amounts on each, that she will never use, she’s a very wasteful person, and very unusual. Some people did that before the MTA started charging $1 extra per card, but nowadays who does that? When a normal person’s card gets down to less than one ride (or even a short time before that) they refill it. That means the extra amount will be part of the new balance, and will be used exactly when it would have been used had it come to a full ride!

    Think about it: suppose you use the MTA twice a day, Mon-Fri. On Monday morning you put $20 on your card, and get 8.4 rides. On Friday morning you’re down to 0.4 rides, so you put another $20 on it, and now have 8.8 rides. Next Thursday morning you’re down to 0.8 rides so you put another $20 in and have 9.2 rides. Next Wednesday morning you have 1.2 rides left, so you use the 1 ride, and in the evening you refill it, let’s say this time with $40; that brings you neatly to exactly 17 rides, which is enough to carry you through that week and the next, and Monday of the following week.

    Now imagine that you put $19.05 in each time. What would you do any differently? Well, the next time you’d have to refill your card would be Friday morning, exactly as now. Next refill would be the following Thursday morning, again exactly as now. But the next refill would have to be on Wednesday morning rather than evening. And if you put in $38.10 on Wednesday morning it would only carry you through that week and the next, and the following Monday you’d be left with nothing and have to refill it. So what have you lost, or the MTA gained, by doing it the way they do it now, with you putting down $20 each time? Nothing, really.

    What’s more, the claim that the MTA is making a fortune on the float on those extra 0.4 rides is ridiculous. When you buy 8.4 rides, how is the float on the 0.4 different from the float on the first 8 rides? If you paid $19.05 for exactly 8 rides, they’d still be getting the float on that, which is 20 times bigger than the amount this Pratt prat is worried about. And they were getting that float even in the days of tokens!

    If they were to adjust the preset buttons on the machines to come to a whole number of rides it wouldn’t affect this float in any way, and it would make life impossibly difficult for those paying in cash. Imagine having to come up with exactly $19.05 in cash every time you refilled your card, or the machine having to give 95 cents in change to everyone who paid with a $20 bill.

    • Nope

      Having multiple cards is not unusual since many people don’t regularly ride the train and thus don’t always carry a card. If you follow the math that’s discussed in the video (and pay attention to your balance) then there’s nothing to talk about. If, however, you have deeply rooted emotional problems and can’t escape the need to litter virtually every post with your self-righteous, condescending banter, then I would suggest finding a qualified psychotherapist to help you iron things out.

  • 9 19 39???

    why dont they just make the preset buttons 10 20 40
    who carries a 9 dollar bill on them and if their going with a 10 or 20 they most likely dont want to carry the last dollar on them

    but anyway this would be a great idea for syupid people (that is if they remember to use his trick)

  • To Genius # 9

    the 9.19. 39 is listed because there is a one dollar additional charge for each new card which would then total 10, 20 or 40.

  • declasse' intellectual

    The skinny is that this was–until publicized–another way to rip off New Yorkers for money without calling it a tax!!!!!

    • Milhouse

      What are you talking about? How is anyone being rippped off or taxed? When your card runs down you refill it, and the remaining balance is included. How would it be different if you had a whole number of rides on your card?

  • DA

    Been telling people this for months. Didn’t think it was such a big deal to make the news. Can’t anyone do math anymore?

  • ok

    there are so many reasons why MTA trains is so stupid and are not organized sometimes the machines they don’t work if you refill your MetroCard and you put in let’s say 20.00 in the card doesn’t come out that means its stuck the best thing is you get a new fresh card it is worth it to get a new card if you complain to the teller you know what they going to say to you here is a application and write your complaints again they are giving you excuses taking advantage they lazy and stupid and not organized and they don’t care

  • awacs

    One other little wrinkle, which we found out the hard way:

    If you have an empty card, that’s not expired, you can just refill it.

    And, if you have even a penny left on your card, and the card expires – no problem, the token clerk rolls it over to a new one.

    But, if you have an expired card with no balance, then you’re SOL: the clerk will tell you to throw away your card, and spend a $1 on a new one. And the MTA, when you call up, will tell you: “Cry me a river about it.” I thought the point of the $1 fee was to cut down on discarded cards. Silly me.