The New York City Transit Authority, the MTA division that oversees the subways and buses, will be now split up the management of the subway lines and instead assign a manager to deal with a line or a number of lines. The NY Times spoke to NYC Transit president Howard Roberts Jr.:The goal, Mr. Roberts said, is to have 24 subway lines operating in many ways as 24 self-contained railroads. (The number may vary,......

If you've been paying for Wifi at coffee shops between 42nd Street and Central Park South and between 8th and 6th Avenues, you can start saving up for more grande mocha lattes. CBS will be creating a "CBS Mobile Zone" with free wifi in midtown. In turn, CBS will lead users to an ad-supported homepage. CenterNetworks says that Citi and Salesgenie.com have already signed up. CBS, which owns CBS Outdoor, will wire billbards, MTA displays......

amNewYork's cover story, "Grand Funk Railroad," takes a look at the special scent of subway stations. Subway smells were vividly described as being "rancid excrement" or "rotting garbage and vomit." Smelly subway platforms - and trains - are nothing new, but the New York City Transit Authority is adding 350 more cleaners to help fight the grossness; amNY reports the cleaners will "be able to respond to specific stenches faster." Bill Henderson, head MTA's......

Yesterday we visited the New York City Transit Authority’s Corona Maintenance Shop in Queens as part of a New York City Transit Museum tour. The Corona Maintenance Shop serves the 7 train and its fleet of 409 passenger cars along with 10 work cars. The shop runs twenty four hours a day, seven days a week and has 163 MTA employees who get 32 trains ready every day for straphangers. The new facility, put......

It's busy today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a water main break on Bergen Street in Carroll Gardens, a "fall victim in a hole" in Queens, a carjacking in Bay Ridge (and another one in Staten Island!), and an armed robbery with possible stabbing in Chinatown. Now that the Democrats have recaptured Congress, Charles Rangel is setting his sights on a new goal: standup comedy. Everyone likes the holidays: even rapists! Youngna Park, our little......

NYC Transit Authority is putting the subway photo ban back up for vote with the MTA board! Back in September, it seemed like the MTA was moving away from a full-blown ban. However, an amended proposal that would have put a ban on photographing sensitive areas, like dispatcher's room and towers (as the Daily News reports), was rejected. The full-up photo ban was officially proposed in the State Register (PDF) last Wednesday. Subchat speculates......