Who needs a wallet anymore? With apps like Venmo, a mobile “easy-pay” app, people can transfer funds quickly and easily between multiple bank accounts without ever having to reach into their pockets or visit an ATM. Last month when looking for babysitting jobs around the city, I joined the craze and hopped aboard the Venmo train. Venmo enables me to receive payment for babysitting jobs without having to wait for mothers to rummage through their purses. Thanks to the future of smartphone technology, I can now be paid as I leave an apartment; no wait time necessary. After leaving one of my babysitting jobs, I trudged down into the 72nd street subway station shuffling through my belongings as I searched for my plastic Metro card. My search made me wonder why paying for my ride home couldn’t be as green and efficient as a plastic-free click of a button on my new Venmo app. With smart phones has come smart paying. Why then, has New York, a city of hustlers and bustlers not yet taken the green and efficient mobile-pay craze underground?
In recent efforts to bring the green movement underground and decrease consumption, the MTA enacted a “green tax,” or one-dollar surcharge on new Metro cards. But contrary to expectations, this has not significantly decreased plastic consumption. The next step forward then in sustainable transit payment is through the use of mobile ticketing. With smart-phone technology, the MTA would be able to create a more sustainable solution by keeping payment both plastic and paperless, allowing riders to “never have to hold a piece of paper.” While this solution is still in the future for New York, other city transportation systems in America have made this dream a reality. In Portland, Oregon, the TriMet Tickets app allows customers to purchase tickets electronically by downloading the free app and registering their debit or credit card. In November 2012, the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, or MBTA, became the first public transportation network in the nation to make smartphone ticket purchases available to customers with iPhones or Androids. This has catered to the number of smart-phone owning riders that steadily increases from year to year. In June of 2012, MBTA reported that 76% of their riders had smartphones, an increase of 10% from the previous year. Of these smart phone owners, sixteen percent of all tickets are now purchased using MBTA’s mobile app. While the number of those using smart-phone transit payment continues to advance, not all commuters can instantly adapt accordingly. Mobile transit payment, like any technological advancement, is a gradual process. Like the shift from paper maps to GPS or snail-mail to email, not all people will hob aboard immediately. Like Venmo, GPS, and e-mail, mobile transit ticketing jumps on the technology train and shifts people’s habits from wasteful paper to digitally stored technology. Transit mobile-pay increases efficiency while decreasing both production costs and the environmental toll of plastic cards by serving as both the vending machine and the ticket. Using a phone also decreases the risk of stolen or lost credit cards in the stations. However, it must be noted that with the increasing usage of smart phones, riders must to be additionally cautious of phone theft. So get ready, because smart-phone payment for public transportation is coming. This past January, MTA announced plans to mobilize the LIRR and the MNR. Yet when it comes to green and efficient intercity transportation, change is still a slow moving process. I urge the MTA, with the support of us New Yorkers, to hop aboard the technological train that is already sweeping so many other aspects of our daily lives. I challenge New York to embrace change as it comes and adapt accordingly so that collectively, we can work towards a broader future of sustainability and efficiency.
This piece was originally published by the Columbia Undergraduate Law Review and can be found here in its original form!
Works Cited “MTA Press Releases.” MTA. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2013..
“MTA Weighing MetroCard “Green” Surcharge.” NBC New York. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2013..
“Public transit gets on the bus with smartphone ticketing — GCN.” Public transit gets on the bus with smartphone ticketing — GCN. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2013..