The MTA is really working to stop MetroCard swipe sellers. As the News' Pete Donohue reports today, the Authority has gone so far as to begin a "secret pilot program" designed to make life harder for the swiping scofflaws. There are downsides to progress though. more ›

Police are currently looking for a fortysomething man who allegedly attacked his bus driver yesterday morning in East Harlem. For unknown reasons the man apparently punched the driver, a 58-year-old woman, in the face before jumping off the bus and making a run for it. more ›

Subway station internet service is coming to Verizon and Sprint customers. Eventually. Yesterday Boingo Wireless announced that it had struck a deal with Transit Wireless, which manages cell service underground, to bring its wi-fi services to customers underground. Because not everyone has AT&T or T-Mobile! more ›

Cameraphones, the best tool going to prevent subway touching? The NYPD is actively seeking not one but two alleged subway perverts caught on camera by their victims. Both are said to have recently behaved inappropriately towards women on the subway. more ›

We've seen rain inside the subway stations—this subway waterfall photo is the gold standard in crumbling infrastructure porn—and witnessed water leaking inside plenty of older subway cars, but this is the first time we've spotted a good gusher inside one of the newer trains. It's always good for a laugh—as long as you aren't the one getting sprayed with scary city juice. This video was taken on an N train this morning by writer Kristina Monllos. Gotta love the defeated expressions on everyone's faces: more ›

A tipster passes along this video of these men smoking, spitting, and loudly cursing on the 7 train this past Friday. Lets give these two guys the benefit of the doubt: they could be from the future, where 50-year-olds dress like 18-year-olds waiting for their dorm's laundry room and cigarettes are made of healthy moondust. more ›

In today's installment of "Damn Teenagers," the Post reports that packs of adolescents are throwing emergency kill switches on MTA buses, bringing commutes to a halt and making riders nervous. One woman said a "wolf pack" of teens shut down her S46 bus in Staten Island three times before she gave up and left. “It was a scary thing to know that kids could shut it off,” she said. And they can vote, too! more ›

A man was struck by a train on the LIRR around 1 p.m. today near Robbins Lane just west of the Syosset Station. Reporter Carrie Dennis is on the train and says that a conductor told passengers that the man jumped onto the tracks, was run over and dragged by the train and that the injuries were likely fatal. "The engineer who was driving is a wreck," Dennis says. more ›

The police are looking for the public's help in identifying and finding a man accused of punching a MTA subway conductor last week. And the NYPD has also provided a rather vivid sketch of the suspect. more ›

So the 7 train to New Jersey is probably (definitely) not going to happen. But that doesn't mean the line's expansions will stop when it hits 11th Avenue. MTA head Joseph Lhota today says that, "I'd like to see the 7 train in other parts of New York City." Specifically, he'd like to see it going to Chelsea. more ›

This July the MTA is planning on cutting service on 12 bus lines in four boroughs, but it isn't all bad news. In one of those rare moments, the Authority is also planning on adding service to an additional 5 lines. And most of the cuts are coming on the weekend. more ›

Earlier this morning, subway riders at Borough Hall's northbound 4 platform in Brooklyn were startled by the presence of a dead body. One person Tweeted, "Be nice to us: @bethpinsker and I both saw a dead body on the Borough Hall 4/5 platform this morning," while another weighed in, "Walking past a dead body at Borough Hall station was the absolute last way I wanted to start my day." more ›

Andrew Cuomo is not a straphanger. In news that shouldn't really surprise anyone, the Governor, who splits most of his time between Westchester and Albany, has admitted he hasn't taken the subway since taking office. Mayor Bloomberg, who gets driven 22 blocks when he deigns to ride underground, probably loves this. more ›

The subway system should have its own special prosecutor dedicated to subterranean justice, an MTA board member says. amNY reports that at yesterday's transit committee meeting, NYPD transit bureau chief Joseph Fox revealed that 40 people prosecuted for crime in the subway this year are on parole and not supposed to be using the subway system. “What is it that the district attorneys and courts are doing?" board member Charles Moerdler wants to know. "If they are not assisting us and incarcerating this garbage, and putting them in the pen, they are causing or assisting the crime rate." more ›

One of the few things that makes a trip out to Long Island remotely tolerable is the sweet succor of alcohol, which you can legally consume on board the LIRR to get rid of the pain of going to Hempstead. But all that's about to change, as the MTA announced an experiment next month: Are Long Islanders strong enough to endure an LIRR train ride without consuming any alcohol between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m. on weekends? We're about to find out, starting May 14th. more ›

A 75-year-old woman was hit by a northbound D train this morning at the Herald Square subway station, around 10:15 a.m. The woman's condition is currently unknown—the FDNY only confirms that she was removed from the station and transported to Bellevue. There were extensive delays on the B/D/F/M lines after the incident, but normal service has now resumed, with residual delays. more ›

Former Governor Paterson will be joining the MTA board, filling the vacancy left by Nancy Shevell, who resigned from the board in January after marrying Paul McCartney. Since wrapping up his three-year, scandal-plagued term as Governor, Paterson has been keeping a lower profile, teaching a college class and hosting a daily talk-radio show on WOR-AM. The Daily News reports that Governor Cuomo is expected to announce the appointment today—the position is unpaid, but Paterson seems thrilled. more ›

[Update below] We guess it was an hour before request-a-stop kicks in, but still! Last night a 29-year-old MTA bus driver was arrested by the NYPD for not letting a passenger off his bus. Seriously. Driver Michael Luca is now facing charges of resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration and unlawful imprisonment. more ›

To commemorate Earth Day, the MTA announced the installation of energy-saving LED lights that will be used during weekend track work. The move will save at least $500,000. If you're saying to yourself, "Nothing is sexier than energy-saving LED lights, absolutely nothing," you'd be wrong: a report released by the agency also shows that the average MTA trip keeps 10.39 pounds of carbon out of the atmosphere. Or in Earth Day currency, that's the amount of carbon removed by nine trees in a month. more ›

Another day, another awful story and video of a man touching himself on the subway. Meet Monique Henry, a baker whose commute from Queens to Brooklyn and back early this morning got decidedly gross when, after transferring from the Queens-bound F to the D train at Rock Center this morning, "a middle aged hispanic man" dressed "in a rumpled, cheap looking suit, and [carrying] a Jet magazine" got on the train and sat next to her. At first she didn't think anything of him and started to doze off. So when she woke up in Queens, imagine her surprise to find the man had moved across from her and, well, this is what she saw: more ›

The man whose public pain and suffering brought joy to Americans in 2007 thinks that arming MTA employees with Tasers is a bad idea. “Bus drivers aren’t law enforcement officers, and using the Taser demands a significant amount of training,” Andrew "Don't Tase Me, Bro!" Meyer told the Daily News. “It’s significant force at the push of a button, and not everyone appreciates how dangerous it is.” Whatever man, you shouldn't have, like, publicly voiced dissent unless you wanted electric current shooting through your muscle tissue. more ›

Should bus drivers and subway conductors be able to fight back against unruly riders with Tasers? State Senator Eric Adams and TWU Local 100's president John Samulsen are two prongs shooting into the chest of "yes." "Equipping and training our members to responsibly use Tasers will end the assaults that are currently plaguing our members." Lance McRubberneck, the president of Amalgamated YouTube Fight Video Aficionados Local 44, agrees: "Oh man, can you imagine a spaghetti fight/bus shouting match combo WITH Taser strike? I'm gettin' hot just thinking about it." more ›

Subway worker Michael Lee is lucky to be alive after a horrific accident on the third rail that left him with third-degree burns covering thirty percent of his body. The accident occurred at the 239th Street Yard when 45-year-old Lee dropped a 200-pound coupler onto the third rail, sending sparks and bolts flying, engulfing him in flames. Lee remained conscious throughout the excruciatingly painful ordeal, but he is just happy to be alive. "The adapter I was handling could have ricocheted off the rail and hit me in the chest like a missile,” he told the Post. “It could have been deadly.” more ›

After we found out that James Murphy had an idea to improve the city's underground by making the subway turnstile noises less terrible sounding and more arpeggiated, we contacted the MTA to find out what they thought of this pipe dream. Would they ever let Murphy institute his idea, even on a smaller scale (one turnstile)? What if it were funded like a public art project? Kevin Ortiz at the MTA told us: more ›

The NYPD and the MTA constantly remind New Yorkers to stay alert when wandering around in a daze wearing headphones listening to music on their iPhones and other devices. But it's hard to hear such warnings when when you're kicking a wicked air drum solo to Rush's "Tom Sawyer" cranking full blast on your iPod. Even more seductive are the lush orchestral indie rock stylings of Andrew Bird, as one area fan learned after getting relieved of his iPhone Tuesday morning. more ›

Clearly, New York City's criminal masterminds are not reading Gothamist. Because just this weekend we warned them about skipping subway fares while packing heat and yet it happened again yesterday. On the same subway line, even. Not that we're complaining. more ›