Apples and honey to bring in the new year. (Via Shutterstock)

With the realization that its new Rush Plus service wasn’t quite compelling as many commuters to switch from the Blue Line to additional Yellow Line trains as hoped, Metro figured one way to entice the switch would be to offer riders complimentary $5 fare cards.

At first, the “Hello Yellow!” blitz was scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week and next week. But Metro employees ready to offer free rides to Blue Line commuters hesitant to try the modified rush-hour service failed to appear this morning after the transit agency realized it had scheduled its promotion against Rosh Hashanah, the new year on the Jewish calendar.

The commemoration of the beginning of the year 5773 started Sunday evening at sundown, but as a two-day observance, it runs through tonight. The Washington Examiner reports that while Metro officials thought they had scheduled around the High Holy Days, they didn’t check the calendar precisely.

And next week’s planned distribution is a bust, too, before it even starts. Next Tuesday evening, Jews will observe Yom Kippur, the day of atonement marked by making amends for transgressions committed in the past year along with a 24-hour fast.

Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said in an email that the transit agency does not yet have a makeup date for this promotion of a much-heralded service change that has failed to yield the desired results. Though Stessel hesitated to call it a a “giveaway,” he said that Metro will hand out the $5 fare cards eventually, though he did not say exactly when or where.

“The effort will be rescheduled, but we won’t be getting into specifics on where or when,” he said. He also did not provide an exact number of cards that will be given out, though it will likely be a few hundred.

In the mean time, sundown tonight is at 7:11 p.m.