other than St. George by onboard conductors. In the past, passengers had avoided paying the fare by exiting at Tompkinsville and walking a short distance to the St. George Ferry Terminal. As a result, the MTA installed turnstiles at Tompkinsville and a new station building, which opened on January 20, 2010. On October 23, 2017, it was announced that the MetroCard would be phased out and replaced by OMNY, a contactless fare payment system also by Cubic, with fare payment being made using Apple Pay, Google Pay, debit/credit cards with near-field communication technology, or radio-frequency identification cards. The St. George and Tompkinsville stations, the only two Staten Island Railway stations with turnstiles, received OMNY readers in December 2019. Support of the MetroCard is slated to remain until 2023. Freight service During the early 2000s, plans to reopen the Staten Island Rapid Transit line in New Jersey were announced by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ). Since the Central Railroad of New Jersey became a New Jersey Transit line, a new junction would be built to the former Lehigh Valley Railroad. So all New England and southern freight could pass through the New York metropolitan area, two rail tunnels from Brooklyn (one to Staten Island and the other to Greenville, New Jersey) were planned. On December 15, 2004, a $72 million project to reactivate freight service on Staten Island and repair the Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Bridge was announced by the NYCEDC and the PANYNJ. Projects on the Arthur Kill Bridge included repainting the steel superstructure and rehabilitating its lift mechanism. In 2006, the freight line connection reopened from New Jersey to the Staten Island Railroad, including the Arthur Kill Bridge. Regular service began on April 2, 2007 (16 years after it had closed) to ship container freight from the Howland Hook Marine Terminal and other industrial businesses. The service at the marine terminal is part of the PANYNJ's ExpressRail system completed with of the single-track Chemical Coast connector. Service is provided by and Conrail Shared Assets Operations (CRCX) for its co-owners, CSX, Norfolk Southern Railway. As part of the project, a portion of the North Shore Branch was rehabilitated, the Arlington Yard was expanded, and of new track was laid along the Travis Branch to Staten Island Transfer Station at Fresh Kills. Soon after service restarted on the line, Mayor Michael Bloomberg officially commemorated the reactivation