Photo via Jay Parkinson. Yesterday there was some chatter about the Hello Health subway ad campaign, mainly how its empty word bubble design (unsurprisingly) acted as a magnet for vandals! AnimalNY mentioned that the MTA was responsible for pulling the ad campaign, which launched when Hello Health opened its doors in Williamsburg. Today, however, they uncovered that there was a little bit of finger pointing going on, and it was actually "CBS Outdoor, the......

More details have emerged in that “magic MetroCard machine” story the Post broke yesterday. Turns out it that it wasn’t a MetroCard machine, but a LIRR ticket machine (which also dispenses MetroCards). And make that machines; the Times reports that from 2004 until last May, countless people have unwittingly used the machines to get free tickets and MetroCards, exploiting a software glitch that let riders with insufficient funds on their debit card or credit card......

Your evening commute might be somewhat worse today, because of signal issues at Franklin Avenue that are affecting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 lines. The MTA says to expect delays on that line, and also reminds people that the "ongoing police investigation at West 42nd Street and 6th Avenue" (from the falling glass at the Bank of America building), the M42 and M104 buses are being re-routed.......

Though the 35 new "sleep-mode" escalators to save $2000/year per escalator) at select subway stations were supposed to start working yesterday, only some were actually working. Some were working with sleep mode functionality, but others weren't. CityRoom found out only 22 "were working as intended," due to technical glitches, and detailed how some of the working ones were confusing, like to the man who started walking down a sleeping up escalator: "As he walked down,......

A trio of grifters allegedly bilked the MTA out of $800,000 over the past three years by exploiting a software glitch in a single MetroCard machine in Penn Station. According to the Post, police have arrested a Roosevelt, Long Island resident named Cary Grant (ha), his wife Lisa Foster Jordan, and their friend Christopher Clemente, a former student at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School whose scholastic career ended in 1990 when he was convicted......

Eric Davis, the twenty-year-old man who fell through a broken sidewalk subway grate in Bed-Stuy on Friday morning has told his story to the Daily News from the confines of his bed at Kings County Hospital, where he's convalescing after plummeting ten feet into a filthy shaft: "I don't feel like it's bad luck ...because I survived. The one thing I did [was] I made sure I didn't bump my head. The lady paramedic made......

The MTA's problems with current escalators aside, the agency has just introduced new escalators that go into a "sleep mode" when they aren't being used. The pilot program includes escalators at 34th Street-Herald Square, Roosevelt Island; Jamaica-Van Wyck and Parsons/Archer. MTA hopes to save almost $2,000 (per each escalator) in energy costs annually. While some riders are wary, one found the glass half full, telling NY1, "It's much better than them not working at all!......

Underground there are shootings and stabbings and the subway stations may just generally be in a state of disaster, but at least the MTA can guarantee you a cool ride on its city buses. A study conducted by Transit Workers just released shows that New York City buses stay cooler on a more consistent basis than many other cities. The study showed that buses did not have working A/C less than 4 percent of the......

While police are investigating an earlier shooting a the 5th Avenue Station, there is no No. 7 train service in both directions between the Queensboro Plaza Station and the Times Square-42nd Street Station. As an alternate, customers are advised to take the nearby "N," "R" and "W" trains to and from Manhattan. Update: A reader wrote in that they saw 6 teenage males being detained by police at the 5th Avenue Station. There were sure......

Photograph of a West 72nd Street subway stair hairball by Joe Schumacher on Flickr; the hairball has been there for 3 years and counting. Okay, maybe it's not a news flash, but New York City Transit Riders Council has put it on paper--61 pages to be exact (PDF)--as it reported that many stations are in need of a lot of cleaning and care. The NY Times noted that the worst conditions at some included......

Headed to a subway next month: New SubTalk posters that remind straphangers groping is a crime and encourage any victims to report incidents to an MTA employee or a police officer. Last month, it was rumored NYC Transit didn't want to run the campaign, due to concerns it would actually increase the number of unwanted gropings (you know, the way the anti-littering ads increase littering). Now the NY Post reports "the first 2,000 posters......

LoveItMadly's Flickr. How has the summer been treating straphangers underground? Allegedly, the subway system's air conditioning is cooling everyone off...everyone except those taking the E train. The Daily News reports that "subway riders on the E line have the highest chance of getting stuck on a sweltering subway car because of faulty air conditioning." But their score, the lowest of them all, was still pretty good on paper--coming in at 83.3%, meaning that 16.7%......

Photograph by ianqui on Flickr NYC Transit President Howard Roberts Jr. doesn't seem to have a very positive self-image when it comes to the 468 subway stations he governs over. In an interview in today's NY Post, Roberts admits that maybe 100 of the stations are in good condition saying, "There's nothing out there that anybody's proud of." What's worse is that Roberts admits that even with the proposed fair hikes, no improvements can be......

Just think of how many more people could cram into each subway car if there were no seats! That's the idea behind the latest MTA plan which WNBC reports will bring flip-up seats underground. The seats will be unforgiving during rush hour, as they'll be locked in the up position. Hmm, this isn't going to help the different lines raise their grades! The pilot program will feature the seats in 4 of 10 cars,......

NYC Transit revealed why the Metrocard vending machines were so screwed on Monday and Tuesday: An encryption device wasn't working! The NY Times explains usually 2 devices "[encode] transmitted data for customer and bank security and [are] housed at a data center on Staten Island," but when one failed, the other couldn't deal with the demand. When the broken device was discovered--and replaced--the problem stopped. The agency says that everyone whose credit/debit cards were charged......

The MTA has put out a request for proposals to transform its current toll plaza to an all-E-Z Pass and cashless payment system. Non-E-Z Pass users would be charged with license plate cameras (the same idea floated in congestion pricing), and NY1 says the MTA wants to "get rid of all toll booths in the next four years." The MTA's Bridges & Tunnels division has been in the news lately, from a jury awarding a......

After word that the MTA will raise fares in 2009 and 2011 due to huge financial shortfalls, many people called for the MTA to be privatized. And with Governor Paterson suggesting that maybe some public properties should be sold because of NY State's budget crisis, perhaps that idea is not too far off. However, Mayor Bloomberg weighed in against the idea of selling the MTA, saying, "It will not save you, necessarily, a lot of......

Photograph by [phil h] on Flickr Commuters trying to buy Metrocards with credit or debit cards on Monday or yesterday morning faced problems at non-working Metrocard vending machines and, worse, money taken out of their accounts though they were told the transactions didn't go through. The NY Times spoke to NYC Transit, which described the systemwide outages (yes, pretty much all the machines) as unprecedented. NYC Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges said there was "some......

Photograph of the L train platform at Bedford by tinatinatina on Flickr In its annual State of the Subways Report, the Straphangers Campaign said the L train did the best while the W train was the worst. How is that possible? The Straphangers Campaign found that the L did the best out of all lines on measures of "regularity of service and announcements" and well on "frequency of scheduled service, delays caused by mechanical......

The NYC Transit Authority announced that it's adding service to a few subway lines starting tomorrow, perhaps to soften to blow of another impending fare hike. Notably, the 3 train will resume 24/7 service to 145th and 148th Streets (it was stopped 13 years ago because of "low ridership"), and there will also be additional overnight service between Times Square and 148th Street during the week. The W will finally have more rush hour morning......

That mayor Bloomberg has an answer for everything. Cabbies want a fuel surcharge to help cover gas costs? Let them drive hybrids. The MTA is promising another fare increase? Let the smokers pay for it. Hizzoner said yesterday that the cost of subway and bus rides won’t have to go up much at all if the state collects taxes on cigarettes sold on Indian reservations. "That just alone would replace one of those fare increases,"......

So, the MTA offered some more information about the kinds of fare hikes they want to see. According to CityRoom, "Not only is it seeking an 8 percent increase in revenue from fares and tolls, to take effect July 2009, but also an additional 5 percent to take effect by January 2011 — for a cumulative increase of 13.4 percent over just 18 months." While MTA CEO Eliot Sander said, "I recognize that what we......

Like Governor Paterson, Mayor Bloomberg expressed his dismay over the MTA's plans to raise subway and bus fares next year. He gave his usual spirited (and sort of annoyed) thoughts to reporters yesterday, and the Observer's Azi Paybarah took this video, that includes Bloomberg's proclamations the city can't afford to give the MTA any money (the city gives the state $12 billion each year and doesn't get much in return) and that the MTA......

Governor Paterson expressed his disappointment about a proposed MTA fare hike next year, telling reporters, "Another fare hike this soon after the last fare hike, just in my opinion, is not wise. This just cannot become the new way that the M.T.A. solves problems. Every time there is an issue, pass along the increase.” He wants the MTA to "explore other options." It doesn't seem like Paterson will offer up any state money, since he's......

Photograph by unlisted sightings on Flickr On the day we learn the MTA wants to raise fares again, there's finally data to confirm what we all knew: NYC Transit offered up statistics that show on-time subway performance has gotten worse. The least on-time line is the 4--for the year ending with May 2008, the 4 was on-time only 79.7% of the time, compared with a systemwide average of 92.0%. And in May, the 4......

What, you thought this fare hike earlier this year that raised unlimited Metrocard costs and decreased discounting for multiple pay-per-rides, was it? Well, the MTA has a budget gap of about $900 million, so a fare hike is naturally the solution if you don't know what kind of money the city and state will offer up. The Post reports the MTA decided to move up a potential 8% fare hike by six months, because......

It's about time: The MTA will reportedly text and email customers about unexpected service problems starting this fall. Last August, wild weather brought the subway system--and the MTA's website--to a halt and left customers clueless, which prompted the MTA to look for text messaging and email alert providers. The MTA tells the Daily News riders will be able to choose which routes they want alerts for. Currently riders can subscribe to weekly service advisory notifications,......

The MTA is sick and tired of your careless newspaper disposal, so they made a mock newspaper to school you in changing your ways! WNBC reports on the Subway Gazette, which outlines the hot topics underground, including how your trash can lead to subway delays.Once on the tracks, trash can help spark track fires or clog drains along the roadbed and that can lead to flooding. Smoke conditions and flooding lead to delays in train......

“Crushed by crowds? Have to wait for more than one bus to go by? It’s not your imagination. Transit officials have never caught up to the waves of new bus riders,” says Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign. His group is reporting that despite an increase in average weekday bus ridership of 22 percent over the past ten years (to 2.45 million), weekday service on city buses increased less than 15 percent. In Brooklyn, the......

There are signal problems at Times Square, so there are no Times Squard-bound 7 express trains, as of 8:30 a.m. The MTA recommends the E, F, R, and V at Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue as an alternate, as well as the N and W at Queensboro Plaza. Check the MTA's service alerts website for the latest details.......