A friend wonders if it's "wrong of the MTA to place a public announcement ad about sexual harassment next to an ad for silk boxer shorts with the subway map on them." And the Transit Museum Store's description of the boxers ($25) is pretty racy, too: "These days, finding your way on the MTA can be as easy as taking a peek down under, thanks to our silk boxer shorts featuring the official New York......

The police arrested Darius McCollumn for impersonating a federal employee at Penn Station on Sunday. McCollum's 25 previous arrests were for impersonating a NYC Transit employee--most famously for taking the E train for a 6-stop ride when he was 15 years old. More recently, the 43-year-old has tried to steal a train at the Long Island Rail Road yard in 2004 and tried to enter a restricted area at Columbus Circle wearing a transit worker-like......

Police are investigating the death of someone hit by a subway at the Union Street Station in Brooklyn. The person was struck by a southbound N train, and WABC 7 reports that a witness says the victim, apparently a male, was "pushed onto the tracks" just after 5 a.m. Currently, there are delays: NYC Transit says Bay Parkway-bound M and Bay Ridge-bound R trains are running on the N line from the Pacific Street Station......

Not satisfied with making sure New Yorkers know exactly how fat they're going to get off food at chain restaurants, the Health Department is taking its calorie crusade underground with a new educational campaign that launches today. The posters confirm your worst suspicions about fast food and also expose deceptively harmless snacks, like a perfectly innocent-looking apple raisin muffin, for the high-calorie frauds they are. That cute little muffin packs 470 calories—nearly a quarter of......

Photograph by Badison on Flickr New data from NYC Transit reveals subway commuters are getting slower in recent years. The NY Post reels off the depressing numbers: "Through June, the number of delayed trains is up an average 24 percent from two years earlier, and 71 percent from three years earlier. And the distance trains travel without breaking down was down 7 percent in July from two years earlier, and 17 percent from three......

Photos via the MTA and the History Channel. Behold! This morning the MTA unveiled the first "full advertising wrap of the exterior and interior of a New York City subway." Synergy alert! The ad is for the History Channel's Cities of the Underworld, which follows urban explorer Don Wildman on his adventures beneath major cities. Adventures happening ever further down from the ones New Yorkers experience on the 42nd Street Shuttle. The underground ad......

Design by Grimshaw Billings Jackson with Systra/HNTB, photo courtesy MTA/Rob Wilson.. It's prototypelooza today! First ten possible prototype back racks of the future were revealed, and now the MTA has upstaged the DOT with their own street furniture prototype, installed in front of 151 West Broadway between Worth and Thomas Streets. The second of three multi-purpose prototypes, it's designed to prevent subway flooding while ventilating the subway system AND providing benches to sit on AND......

The guy behind the Take a Seat project has spoken out against his criticizers (ahem). Listen up, haters: just because the chairs are found as curbside trash, doesn't mean they are no longer functional, and it certainly doesn't mean they're infested with bedbugs. However, the point about taking up space on already overcrowded platforms was a good one, he admits, although he notes that the stations are chosen with that in mind (here's a map......

A pilot program to keep subway stations cleaner on the No. 7 and L lines was a success, but transit officials are balking at the cost of implementing it citywide, which would be approximately $100 million. The test run increased the number of cleaners at all stations on two subway lines, providing round the clock service; an MTA analysis found that those stations had heavy litter just 10% of the time, down from 33% before......

Ah, the Second Avenue subway project—that mythical, subterranean Chimera that mayors and governors have spun tales about since time immemorial—is once again in danger of abandonment. With all the talk of service cutbacks as the MTA stares down the barrel of a $1 billion budged deficit, some are wondering if the transit authority should really be spending an estimated $3,000 every minute of every day to dig under Second Avenue at this particular juncture. Even......

Photo by Jason Eppink. While the MTA starts taking seats out of the subway cars, the Take a Seat project is continuously building up their public furniture installation which brings in more seats to subway stations. "Perfectly functional chairs are rescued from trash piles and reassigned to stations where limited seating options leave subway patrons no choice but to stand for extended periods of time." Great idea as long as the rescued furniture isn't......

Get ready for primal screams across the region, if the MTA decides to cut subway, bus, and rail service as it faces its nearly $1 billion-deficit next year. The Daily News reports that MTA CFO Gary Dellaverson said the agency "recently told its divisions to detail ways to cut spending by about 4.5% in the event the economy deteriorates beyond the MTA's latest budget projections - or if city and state funding isn't increased to......

For the past ten months, the MTA has been experimenting with a new management structure on the L and 7 lines that officials hope will improve subway service. But has anyone noticed? Most passengers stopped by the Times say they've seen little change, though one woman believes the L has been slightly less mobbed when it pulls into Lorimer Street during rush hour. The experiment calls for a general manager to take charge of each......

One morning in August, an unidentified 28-year-old woman who caught a man taking cellphone photos up her skirt as she climbed the subway stairs decided to retaliate. “Since he is taking pictures of me, I am going to take pictures of him,” she tells the Times. She followed him onto the 1 train and told him to smile as she took his picture, because she intended to call the police. Fast-forward to Tuesday, when an......

Attention passengers: The next stop on this westbound 7 train extension will not be 10th Avenue and 41st Street. Due to a sick economy, MTA officials will bypass plans for a 10th Avenue station. However, they're still going through with building a new station at 34th Street and 11th Avenue to accommodate the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. City Room reports that last fall the MTA signed a $1.14 billion contract with a company to......

We've received conflicting reports regarding this morning's A train service. As early as 10 minutes ago it's been reported that service from Queens into Brooklyn is "SUSPENDED DUE TO A BROKEN RAIL ALONG THE LINE." Yikes! However, the MTA is saying there are only "residual delays" due to an earlier incident. Has anyone experienced a headache this morning on the line? We'll update as more information comes in.......

"The most important band in the planet" could be slumming it in the subways this week. The Spinner reports that Oasis, in order to totally unnecessarily promote their Terminal 5 show on Friday, will have musicians from MTA's Music Under New York program "covering nothing but new Oasis songs in various locations." Not only could you hear nothing but Oasis all day underground this Friday, but the band's label is saying "that one of the......

Yesterday we explored commuters who place their bare feet on the subway seats, but just what is the consequence of placing bare skin on anything underground? Well, Dr. Jay Parkinson just happened to discuss the dreaded "subway warts" over at Free Williamsburg recently. He says that "fungi really like warm, moist environments like showers and locker rooms. The last time I put my hand on a subway pole, it wasn't warm nor moist. But it......

Reader Raphael sent us this photograph of a subway rider getting pretty comfy on the subway. Now, it's nice to stretch your toes and all, but...shudder. One of the MTA's state violations is placing "one's foot on the seat of a subway, bus, or platform bench" (it could mean a $50 fine). Besides you have no idea what's been on that seat before--it could be something like this. Which is why many people like to......

Photos via Reclaimed Home. Sure, we're all familiar with subway tiles, but would you ever go so far as to recreate the Dekalb subway stop in your bathroom? One Glasgow resident did just that, making good on a 21-year-old promise.21 years ago I arrived in New York City from Scotland to visit...and was immediatedly fascinated by The Subway. I was an undergrad painting student at the time, and returned to Scotland to begin making......

Earlier this morning, two work trains "collided east of Willets Point-Shea Stadium," according to WABC 7. The 7 line was suspended and shuttle buses or the Q48 were recommended alternative routes, but the 7 is now running local (no Manhattan-bound express). And no crew members or passengers were reportedly hurt in the incident. As subway enthusiasts know, the Corona Yard, where 7 trains and work trains are parked, is nearby.......

Did you wake up this morning thinking you'd like to be a little more Kanye? In all likelihood the Be Kanye subway ad campaign has sunk in to your subconscious, but watch out--as learned from the video ad that circulated last month, being Kanye is really just being drunk...on Absolut Vodka. Or more accurately, on corporate sponsorship. Today the Daily News takes a look at the subway ads, which state: "For a few hours -......

Neil Diamond riding the subway shouldn't be too surprising, since he was born and raised in New York, but the crooner is sort of a "big deal" -- so it's nice to see he's still swiping his Metrocard like the rest of us. One fan spotted him Wednesday around 2 p.m. on the N train and reports back, "I was coming from my office on 37th and 5th to take the subway to Union Square...the......

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......

"People have seen them sitting on benches," says Andrew Albert, an MTA board member and chair of the NYC Transit Riders Council. "From what riders have told us, they appear to be getting bolder." That's the subway rat population he's talking about, which many commuters say is surging, at least according to an amNY article that's teeming with great quotes. "Next thing you know the doors are going to open and one is going......

Around 10 a.m., people were evacuated from the 53rd Street and 7th Avenue subway station in Midtown because riders on a B train had complained of eye irritation and trouble breathing. The FDNY and other emergency service crews were on the scene for a possible hazmat situation. Now it turns out the issues were caused by an overheated elevator motor. That makes us feel so much better about the MTA budget gap.......

What's the craziest thing you've ever encountered underground? Try to trump this Park Slope family's disturbing, X-rated experience; Gowanus Lounge reports that they (kids and all) ran into a man being orally pleasured on the steps of the 15th Street F Station in Brooklyn. "As we entered the turnstile, I looked up towards one of the staircases, and saw a man sitting on the stairs receiving oral sex from a woman whom I recognized from......

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......

Women in heels and skirts know to steer clear of sidewalk subway gratings, as do most people averse to fetid gusts of air from beneath the city’s streets. But sometimes when you’re rushing down a crowded sidewalk, you take your chances. And sometimes you fall in, as happened this morning to a man who crashed through a subway grate at the corner of Willoughby Avenue and Marcy in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The victim was rescued and taken......

The MTA is taking another look at corporate sponsors for their stations, because the fare hikes just aren't mending their financial crisis. amNewYork reports that they are looking (again) to significantly raise their current annual ad revenue, which is around $100 million. What would a station ad sponsorship entail? MTA board member Norman Seabrook describes one possible scene: "Imagine Disney coming in and painting the entire station and painting a yellow brick road...It may sound......