Well, you could, but it would just be a token gesture.
posted by Eve:
This is news to me! Is this a fact or a rumor?
I have no idea why you are confused, manhattan.
When confronted with a turnstile, you have two options.
Immediately after you swipe, walk through.
Alternatively, you can wait a split second until instructions appear on the readout screen. There are only two instructions: PLEASE SWIPE AGAIN or GO. If people would wait before walking, they would know that they had to swipe their cards again instead of impaling themselves on the turnstiles.
Clear?
MR
I think it’s the whole concept of waiting in general that confused Manhattan, not the specifics of when to do it while entering a turnstile.
Maeglin:
Manny is referring to the fact that the word wait does not appear in a New Yorker’s vocabulary.
It’s a joke ha ha ha lol lol
Sax—many of the smaller stations no longer accept tokens and, yes, they ARE going to be discontinued in the next few years.
Baby is not happy.
Nemo:
You can buy a MetroCard worth any amount you choose. Either enter the amount into the ATM-like machine and insert cash (it gives you change in Sackies!) or give the friendly agent in the glass booth the specific amount and s/he’ll issue you a card encoded with that much money on it.
So if you’re only planning on riding the train twice, buy a three-dollar card. If you’re hoping to pick up some poontang, buy a four-fifty card so you can pay her fare on the way back to your automobile (it’s a gentlemanly thing to do).
Now. If you strike out with the chicks, you’ll have a card with a buck-fifty left on it when you head home. Under the new system, the card will stay good for a YEAR. If you don’t get back to NYC during that time, you’re out the dollar and a half.
The old way, you’d have a token to keep in your pocket-change dish as a souvenir of your good time in Gotham.
WHOOSH
Nemo should also consider the Fun Pass, which I believe is $4.00, though I could be wrong. Whatever it costs, it’s good for one unlimited day of subway riding, so you could go to Scores, then on to Legz Diamond, and should you be feeling a little funky over to the Gaiety as well, all for one low fare.
It’s not sold in token booths, but in some obscure location that tourists are supposed to find. I don’t know any more about it because I’m a “monthly” sort of person myself.
If I was to rant about something in the subways, it would be “People who step back, but not aside, when you are trying to leave the train.” Fucking morons.
But not if you put it with your credit card in your wallet. (Though I think the black strips have to touch) I lost a thirty dollar farecard because of that idiotic mistake.
Fortunately my dad had accumulated about one hundred (I kid you not) farecards with about a quarter still on each.
I also used to be a fan of tokens.
Then, when a fare increase was announced, all the (now bargain-priced) tokens were immediately bought, and were sold out. So, I had to go for a month paying cash, forgoing a 10% discount for using tokens.
Then, before farecards were introduced, but after transfer cards came out, stations were set up to allow only one turnstile to accept coins (including tokens!). The downtown station I used had a long line at that turnstile while the others weren’t even used.
I was suspicious, but since farecards came out a few years ago where I live, I’ve had no problems with them.
Goddam fucking subways . . . The 25th Street & 8th Avenue station doesn’t ACCEPT tokens anymore, so I had to run around to find one that DOES.
Then, I get out at Times Square and figure I’ll take the shuttle over to my office near Grand Central (maybe a 5-minute walk aboveground). I had to wend my way through about 20 miles of tunnels, ramps and stairways to find the entrance to the fucking shuttle, which took me twice as long as WALKING it would have!
That does it, I’m moving to New Orleans, where at least you KNOW you’ll never get anywhere and people will rob you in your sleep . . .
25th Street and Eighth Avenue?
Geez, Evie, what were you doing in the Anchovy District?
Hey, I know what’ll cheer you up…here’s a link to an image of contemporary American hyperrealist George Tooker’s great 1948 painting, SUBWAY:
http://www.allposters.com/Galleryc.asp?item=142625&aid=85097&parentaid=0
Omigod, that’s no painting—it’s a photo of me trying to find the entrance to the goddam shuttle!!
I was on a “getting to know you” lunch with someone at a photo archive, for a possible job sometime in the misty future, should one become available.
Good heavens, don’t they give you a replacement card if yours should become demagnetized?
And you call yourselves a civilized people. 
Had an irritating MetroCard Moment on the subway this morning, so I’d thought I’d share.
I was taking my son to school in Brooklyn Heights; he ducked his four-year-old head under the turnstile, as usual, and I ran my card through the scanner. INSUFFICIENT FARE. So I used one of the tokens I keep in reserve.
After dropping him off, I got back in the IRT station at Borough Hall and bought a new 30-day unlimited use card. Immediately smacked my forehead, “Why did I do this just before the WEEKEND?”
Quick second thought: “Ah! As Maeglin pointed out earlier, the date sensitivity doesn’t get activated until you use the card for the first time! Use another token now…hey! I have to walk all the way around to the other side to find a token-accepting turnstile! How much more SHIT will Th’ People TAKE?..and save the card fresh for Monday morning!”
So now I have an unactivated card all fat and sassy in my little leatherette wallet, and I’m thinking “The week after next is Thanksgiving Week…that’s two days holiday I won’t be using the card, and I might take other days off that week as I have ten days of vacation left for the year…”
Huh. Tokens AGAIN next week, and save the card so’s I can get full use out of it? But then the 30-day period runs over into Christmas, another season of not-having-to-take-the-subway every day…
What a pain in the ass. Who has the time and inclination for 30-day planning and sheets of arithmetic?
Eve’s right. MetroCards suck. From now on I save myself the trouble of critical thinking and just agree with Eve on everything right off the bat.
Um, Uke, it’s really not that difficult.
When traveling or encountering holidays, don’t buy a 30-day Unlimited card. Buy a $20 or $40 or whatever card and save the Unlimited card for when you can get tons of use out of it.
What’s the difference between the $20 Metrocard and $20 worth of tokens (besides their size, shape and weight)? Oh, right. You get free rides with the Metrocard!
Wow—does this mean I can finally catch Ike in a weak moment and get him to admit that Lupe Velez did NOT drown in her toilet?
“What’s the difference between the $20 Metrocard and $20 worth of tokens?”
You lose a token, you’ve lost $1.50. You lose a card, you’ve lost $20. Maybe that’s pocket change for you upper-crusts who work at [a prestigious megacorporation] and live in [a lovely section of New York]. . .
[Actual real-life information hidden to protect the innocent. And SaxFace.]
[Edited by Alphagene on 11-10-2000 at 10:43 AM]
Hey! Cut it out, Miss Eve W. Moscowitz, 346 Elm Street, Apartment 3-C, Bayonne, N.J. 06875 (203) 793-7920 fax (203) 793-6737!