The positioning of the device you need swipe looks a little inconvenient. You'd need to look down and stoop a little to touch your card to it (assuming the picture in the article is representative of normal positioning).

In the London Underground, the Oyster Card readers are placed on top of the dividers between the turnstiles, so you just move through as normal and swipe as you go.

I also wonder whether combining a credit card and subway payment card is necessarily the best idea. If you want an Oyster Card in London, you can usually grab a pre-paid one in the terminal itself, or in a newsagent by the entrance. If you lose your card, then you've only lost what you put on it.

Getting a contactless card seems more work, and I'd be a little more nervous about it being taken whilst I was waving it around.

I wish I had access to Mayor Bloomberg on this one. This entire pilot has been surrounded by mysticism. How many companies were allowed to bid for this "pilot"? Why will it take 5 years to mimic what other countries have done already? Why is a credit card company and not pure contactless OEMs or service providers not the ones doing the pilot? Why 5 years to do the implementation?

I bet you that my company (or any other NFC startup, for that matter) would've done the entire implementation in less than 1 year and at 1/10th the cost. Shady MTA, shady!

Reading into this more: While we surely need an easier way to swipe for a subway ride, other than buggy MetroCards, why is .24% usage considered a success? Worth the cost?