Group wants a swipe at change for charity

Brother, can you spare a dime -- from your leftover MetroCard?

A group of New York University technology students with a humanitarian edge invented a kiosk that reads MetroCards, tabulates their remaining value and allows the user to donate the amount to local charities. As an extra benefit, the card gets recycled.

MetroChange wants to take those MetroCards -- with leftover fares ranging from a few pennies to a few dollars -- that end up at the bottoms of purses, tucked in wallets, tossed in garbage bins or otherwise just lost to make a difference, said Paul May, 31, one of the NYU graduate students who worked on the 18-monthlong project.

Reading magnetic strips doesn't allow MetroChange to turn MetroCards into gold, however. The Metropolitan Transit Authority must give its OK to mine the fares from the cards. But the agency hasn't been receptive.

Around $52 million worth of bus and subway fares are left on discarded or unused MetroCards each year, according to an MTA financial report.

"This is a great opportunity to do something charitable with these leftovers, or awkward values," said May, of Dublin.

"Though it sounds like a good cause, unfortunately the MTA is in no position to give millions of dollars to charity. We always encourage riders to reload their MetroCards," said Kevin Ortiz, a spokesman for the MTA, which faces a projected deficit of $68 million in its 2012 budget. He would not comment further about MetroChange's proposal.

May said many MetroCards end up in trash cans or in souvenir scrapbooks when tourists return home after visiting the Big Apple. At the AirTran at Kennedy Airport, he said he and his MetroChange partners -- Stepan Boltalin and Genevieve Hoffman -- found 20 discarded MetroCards with $30 worth of unused fares. He said airports would be prime locations for kiosks.

The kiosk-building project was prompted by an NYU technology design graduate course called "Urban Experience" that required students to use technology to "improve the quality of life," May said.

Despite the MTA's reluctance to aid the project, May said he wasn't discouraged. He believes the authority will come around when it realizes that similar charitable programs work around the world.

In San Francisco, the East Bay Community Foundation, a charitable group, and Bay Area Rapid Transit introduced the "Tiny Tickets" program in 2001. It lets riders donate the unused portion of their tickets to local nonprofit organizations, according to the foundation's website.