Dear Diary:

My father, Ernest Fishman, died recently just shy of 87. He was a trivia lover, particularly about New York City. In his memory I wrote to mta.info and asked, “What is the speed, in miles per hour, of a proper MetroCard swipe?,” knowing that this was a piece of information my father would have appreciated knowing.

To my surprise, I received the following response, just three days later:

“We appreciate your interest in M.T.A. New York City Transit and MetroCard. In response to your inquiry, a speed of 10 to 40 inches per second (i.p.s.) is the valid range for MetroCard acceptance by the Swipe Reader/Writer (SRW) device of our turnstile. We hope this information is helpful.”

Ten inches per second is 0.57 m.p.h.; forty i.p.s. is 2.27 m.p.h.