Paper fare cards will soon be a thing of the past. (Photo by ep_jhu)

Just 0.5 percent of Metrorail riders are still using paper farecards. In a few days, there will be zero.

The long project to phase out the soon-to-be-relic comes to its natural conclusion on Sunday, when Metrorail faregates will start only accepting SmarTrip cards.

Metro’s retrofitted machines stopped dispensing paper farecards in December. But anyone who still had a stockpile had a few months to use them up. Riders who still have some left over after this weekend will have until the end of June to transfer their value to a SmarTrip card (that can be done at the brown vending machines or at Metro sales offices).