Riders who paid for an unlimited MetroCard during Hurricane Sandy may see a rebate, after all.
MTA board members will demand that straphangers be reimbursed for time lost on monthly and weekly MetroCards while the subways were down — despite the agency managers’ insistence it would not dole out refunds, officials said.
“When the service is interrupted by no fault of the rider, the right thing to do is extend the card for the period that the service is out,” said Andrew Albert, a nonvoting board member who plans to bring the issue up at the transit committee meeting Nov. 26.
The agency didn’t refund riders for the system shutdown during Tropical Storm Irene, but it did following the transit strike in 2005 — a sign that it can figure out a way to grant some form of refund to riders this year, Albert said.
“The hurricane was not the MTA’s fault, but it shows good faith with the riders,” he added.
Allen Cappelli, a voting board member, said that the MTA should consider applying to the feds for the lost revenue, then passing along any funds to riders who lost MetroCard time.
Parts of the R, 1 and A trains are still down.