693 of 700: CUNY Students Have Claimed Nearly Every Free OMNY Card in the Council's Pilot
The City Council's $700,000 pilot put 700 unlimited transit cards in front of selected CUNY students — and 693 of them have been picked up, a 99 percent uptake the Council announced at a city transportation summit.
Nearly every free transit card the City Council offered CUNY students this fall has been claimed. The Council and the City University of New York announced that the CUNY OMNY Pilot Program — which provides free, unlimited OMNY cards to CUNY students through $700,000 in funding secured by the Council — saw a 99 percent uptake in its inaugural rollout: of the initial 700 students selected to participate, 693 have picked up their unlimited cards.
The cards are physical OMNY cards configured for unlimited usage, collected at designated locations on the students' own campuses. They are active from October 5 through December 25, 2026 for the fall semester, and the pilot carries a second term with it: a 120-day unlimited pass covering the full spring semester beginning January 28, 2027. Students will also be able to add their cards to a virtual wallet once the MTA introduces that capability, which is projected for the end of 2026.
Speaker Julie Menin announced the uptake figures at City & State's Transportation in New York Summit, where she and Majority Leader Shaun Abreu spoke about affordable, reliable transportation. The program itself launched last month alongside CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez and the CUNY University Student Senate — a Council-funded benefit run through the university's own student structures rather than through the MTA's fare programs.
The number that matters in the announcement is the uptake itself. Transit affordability programs routinely strand benefits in unclaimed cards and uncompleted sign-ups; a 99 percent pickup rate in the first rollout says the selected students wanted the cards and the campus distribution worked. What the release does not say — and the desk does not invent — is whether the pilot expands beyond the first 700 students, or what it will cost to renew when the spring passes run out.
For the 693 students holding cards, the practical fact is simpler: their rides to class are paid through the end of the fall term, and again from late January through the spring. In a city where the fare is the first cost of getting to a campus, the pilot is a small program with an unusually complete result.
