Straphangers will now be able to tap their credit card to pay for a ride on the Roosevelt Island Tram using the MTA’s OMNY system.
It’s the first time the tap-and-go system has been expanded to a transit line that is not run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which has already rolled out the OMNY system across the city’s subways and buses.
Politicians on the Upper East Side had pressed the MTA to make the new system available for the tram, which first opened in 1976, whose riders were pushing hard to ditch the MetroCard and the lines for its machines for the more convenient tap pay option.
“This is the first OMNY expansion outside of the subways and buses that are the heart of the MTA’s service,” said MTA chairman Janno Lieber, who called the rollout a “milestone.”
The boost for the tram comes just days before the MTA plans to dramatically scale back subway service between Manhattan and Queens via Roosevelt Island as it replaces the tracks inside the 63rd Street tunnel, which is scheduled to begin August 28.
The F line will run between Manhattan and Queens via the E line through the 53rd Street tunnel — bypassing Roosevelt Island — until spring 2024.
The MTA says it will offer a shuttle train that will run every 20 minutes between 63rd Street/Lexington Avenue and 21 Street-Queensbridge, which will make a stop at Roosevelt Island, maintaining some subway service. However, the train will not run overnight.
There will be additional bus service between Manhattan, Roosevelt Island and Queens, too.
Officials JFK AirTrain will be the next to get OMNY, which currently only accepts payment of its $8.25 fare with cash loaded directly onto MetroCards, but acknowledged that the rollout was potentially still four months away.
Documents obtained by The Post show that the MTA and Port Authority, which runs the AirTrain, finally struck a deal in May to bring over OMNY.
The 31-page contract states that the tap-and-pay system will be installed on three fare gates at Jamaica Station and another three gates at Howard Beach.
Riders can transfer at Jamaica to the J/Z or E trains and the Long Island Rail Road and at Howard Beach to the A train.
The current setup leads to long and frustrating lines at the MetroCard machines at the two transfer points to the subway system as straphangers and tourists are forced to queue up to load the cash onto their cards before entering or exiting the AirTrain system.
A Post investigation published in May revealed how programming snafus, pivoting priorities and management turnover led to the OMNY project running $130 million over its $645 million budget and falling years behind schedule.
The MTA has disclosed that its commuter railroads won’t switch over to the new system until 2025.
As the MTA’s struggles mounted, the Port Authority decided to ditch its initial plan to use OMNY for the PATH train system, which links Midtown and Lower Manhattan to Newark, Jersey City and Hoboken.
The PA, instead, opted to hire Cubic — the same contractor that developed OMNY — to build a similar but incompatible tap-and-pay system.