MBTA to Launch Tap to Pay Card Readers in August

Contactless payments will be accepted on all buses, trollies, and gated subway stations beginning Aug. 1, the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority announced Tuesday.

The new readers will allow riders to pay for their rides directly at the turnstiles with their smartphones, smart watches, or credit cards as an alternative to loading a physical CharlieCard with funds at the station kiosks.

CharlieCards will continue to be accepted through at least 2026.

With the rollout, Boston will become the seventh American city to introduce contactless payment in their public transit systems, following similar programs in cities like Chicago, New York, Washington, and San Francisco.

The introduction, which has seen the installation of thousands of new payment terminals, represents a major milestone in a yearslong, over-budget effort by the MBTA to modernize its fare collection infrastructure.

Announced in 2018, the MBTA’s redesign of its fare collection system was scheduled to debut in 2021, until successive delays pushed implementation by several years. The project’s cost, originally slated as $723 million, ballooned to over $930 million by 2024.

Future fare collection initiatives will include the introduction of a new CharlieCard and fare vending machines in spring 2025, and new fares on commuter rail and ferries in 2026, according to MBTA officials.

Some local residents welcomed the change but remained critical of MBTA infrastructure at large.

Daniela A. Lilly, a graduate student at UMass Boston, said she saw the new system as a “simpler, faster” way to pay.

“I wouldn’t be missing trains all the time. I think it would definitely improve the quality of the experience of riding the train in the Boston area,” she said.

Thomas W. O’Brien ’27 said he expected the new readers to “slightly improve” his experience riding the T, but that cleaner stations with more frequent trains would also be welcome.

Nora Orzack, a Lesley University student, echoed the sentiment and said that she would prefer the MBTA invest in “making it actually run.”

Criticism of the MBTA’s efficiency and safety is not new, particularly following an slew of train delays that worsened in March 2023, when the MBTA rolled out new “slow zones” due to vulnerable stretches of track in need of repair.

MBTA infrastructure has come under particular scrutiny at the Harvard Square station, where a 20 to 25-pound aluminum panel fell and nearly hit a rider last year. A utility box and supporting brace fell and struck a Harvard Ph.D. student at the same location several months later.

— Kailey J. Calvo and Nadia F. Knoblauch contributed reporting.

—Staff writer Matan H. Josephy can be reached at matan.josephy@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @matanjosephy.