MTA going to where you live: Three new borough service centers

Straphangers will no longer need to schlep to lower Manhattan to exchange an expired MetroCard or apply for reduced fares.

The MTA opened three dedicated customer service centers in the subway system Tuesday designed to save riders the trip to the agency’s Stone St. headquarters.

“People had to come from the northern Bronx, eastern Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island — wherever — to do simple transactions,” said MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber at the opening of a center in Coney Island. “I said, ‘This makes absolutely no sense.’ ”

Two of the new centers are in Brooklyn — at Coney Island-Stillwell Ave. and Barclays Center — and the third is at 161st St.-Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.

A dozen more customer service centers are to open by the end of the year, according to the MTA. When all the centers are open, there will be three in Brooklyn, three in the Bronx, three in Queens, five in Manhattan and one on Staten Island.

The service centers are part of an MTA push to change how riders do business with the system.

Vending machines have gradually replaced the work of token booth clerks, who in 2021 were ordered to stop swapping riders’ damaged MetroCards and stop transacting business in cash.

The new service centers also won’t deal in cash — but they will give riders a place to recover cash from their expired MetroCards, get help setting up an OMNY account or apply for reduced-cost fare programs.

Lieber said the centers would provide more than just technical support. “Frankly, people deserve a place to come and bring their complaints,” he said.

Another change will be bringing customer service agents out of booths to walk around their stations. “We want this to be something [where] our customer service agents, who really are all about helping people, can get out from behind those thick walls of plexiglass and interact with customers,” Lieber said.

Station agents across the system are being trained for their new role assisting customers, said Robert Kelley, vice president of stations for Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents bus and subway workers. “Our members are embracing the new way of doing business,” he said.

Their placement outside Manhattan would also make it easier to reach riders in need of financial assistance and sign them up for relevant programs, Lieber said.

“One point that I want to underscore, part of the customer service operation … will be to encourage everybody who qualifies to apply for and enroll in Fair Fares,” he said, referencing a city/MTA program offering half-off bus, subway and paratransit rides to those who qualify.

“That is one of our principal goals — targeted affordability for those who need it the most.”