It all culminated with today when I swiped so much that I lost my fare.

I’m hoping that the guy in charge of cleaning the MetroCard slots is on vacation or something.  At my home stop, I have yet to swipe through on the first shot since last Tuesday.

I figured it was my card.  Luckily, my card ran out on Thursday night, so I got a brand new one Friday morning.  Same damn problem.

Today I nearly lost my mind.  I swiped about 10 times, then out of nowhere the turnstile said that my card was “just used.” Yet, I still couldn’t push though.

I had to go to the damn booth and get them to let me in.

Subway maintenance cuts must be getting underway.  Lovely.

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Turnstile Swipes Messed Up?

At 28th Street, my train was stuck in the station because of a door problem. Perhaps some of the motormen that read this blog can chime in on what can cause this.

Clearly it was not something that was going to raise a red flag on this insanely crowded train because they managed to get it fixed after about 15 minutes of waiting.

I was about 3 train car lenghts away from the door that had the issue, so I could see them trying to fix it.  It consisted of one guy hitting the door close button over and over again while the other physically pushed the doors together with his hands.

From what I could see, the doors were closing just fine on their own.  I’m not sure what pushing the doors together by hand was adding to the equation.  I guess he was just trying to get the sensor to engage or something.  If you stepped back and looked, you would have no idea something was wrong with the door because it closed all the way by itself.

After the threee stooges finished slamming the doors together over and over again, we got back on our way.  Of course, we were so far behind that we immdediately had to start skipping stops to get caught up.

A frustrating way to start your Monday.

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Broken Subway Door?

• Gov. Paterson to MTA: Go ahead with Doomsday budget
• How Will You Cope With Higher Fares?
• MTA Committee Proposes Big Subway Fare Hike

I don’t claim to be that good at math, but eventually the unlimited card is just not worth it.  I mean, the average commuter is going to take the train twice a day, 5 days a week, 4 weeks a month.  That’s 40 total rides.  At $2.50 a ride, that’s $100.

Eventually, I think I’m just going to buy a $100 regular card and get my extra 6 free rides ($15).  There’s rarely a month that goes by where I take 6 rides on the weekend.  When I head out on the weekend, I’m usually cabbing it up.

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Another Nail in the Fare Hike Coffin

I happen to be at a station that is under construction, so it only has two machines at this entrance.  Of course, there’s always a line because there’s only the two machines.

So I got in line.  Once I finally got to the front of the line, I’ll bet you can guess what happened.  No credit cards.

For whatever reason, the credit card reader wasn’t able to read my card.  At first I thought it was just me.

So I got back into line for the second machine.  From there, I saw that other people were having the same issue I did with my original machine.  So I had to wait in line all overagain.

You know, I really need to get involved with TransitChex or something.  I’m getting pretty sick of this crap.

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Another Metrocard Machine Run-in

Hell, why not?  If banks, auto manufacturers, and more are all bellying up to the pork buffet, why can’t the MTA?

Senator Chuck Schumer wants the federal government to write a check for a few billion dollars to bail out the MTA.

Just think, this could have been done back when Congestion Pricing was all the rage.  It wouldn’t have been a bailout either.  Under the Congestion Pricing plan, the city would have received a massive grant to fund the building of the infrastructure to get the system off the ground…to the tune of $500 million.  Much of it would have also went to improving services to handle the expected increase in ridership.

Then, the city would have created a new and massive revenue source…all of the congestion pricing fees (taxes) that could have been funneled right back into maintaining the MTA services.

But noooo…we had to block that.  F*cking idiots.  Everyone who opposed that plan should be booted out of office.

Would it have completely avoided the current crisis?  Probably not, but it would have done a ton to make it better.  The estimated yearly revenue generated from the congestion pricing plan is around $491 million.  That would have gone a long way to helping get us out of the disaster we are currently lost in.

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Federal Bailout the MTA?

Apparently, there was a 10 foot wall that collapsed at a construction site.  Emergency officials evacuated a neighboring building as a precaution because they feared that the ground movement might make the foundation of that building unstable.  It wasn’t really that bad though.

Then they ordered the MTA to slow train traffic on the 4, 5, and 6 through the area.  The train vibration can cause more ground settling.

Just wondering if there really was a big delay or not.  I’d imagine not.  Probably just right when it happened.

People in my office were flipping out that another building had collapsed.  Uhhhhh no.  Go back to work.

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Wall Collapse & Subway Delays

My ride home was all f-ed up.  I got onto the platform only to see 10,000 other people already waiting for the train delayed due to rain.

By pure miracle, I made it onto the first train that finally came 15 minutes later.  People were getting so pissed that they left the station (to go back out into the rain!).  It just so happened that a guy in front of me got fed up and left.  A minute later, the train came and a door lined up with me perfectly.

The train immediately switched from a local to an express train…pissing off many.

So yeah, being right all the time is getting pretty old.

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Being right all the time gets boring

For that price, it had better come with at least two drinks.

The latest news is the very real possibility of subway fares going over $100 for monthly cards.  I call bullsh*t there not because of the price necessarily, but what we get.

I love the lead from the Daily News:

Brace yourself for the C-note MetroCard.

It is so true.

Anyway, back to my point about what we get.  Here’s the breakdown of what we could be facing in a C-note fare world.  A 30 day Metrocard goes from $81 to $104 with service cuts -OR- $107 without.

So basically, you’re going to get raped for a new Metrocard, it’s just a matter of how hard.  If you want to get your ass slapped with a $104 fare and decreased services (the double whammy), that’s one option.  If you want to get raped for $107, but still enjoy the same crap services you’ve always received, that’s the other whammy.

Notice that there was no fare for BETTER service than what we have now.  How about a $125 rate structure where we could actually benefit from better technology, faster service, less frequent breakdowns, and a fresh coat of paint.  Nooooooo…why think of that.

It’s way more fun for politicians use their chewing gum to plug the leaks in the dam than actually fix the problem.

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

WTF? A $107 Metrocard in the Works

So now law makers are scrambling to find revenue alternatives.  They are getting very desperate.

Governor Paterson is throwing around things like East River tolls, fare hikes, service cuts, and on and on.

You can refresh and vote up to three times if there’s more than one you like.

There’s probably some ideas missing, so hit them up in the comments.

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Poll: How the Hell Do We Pay for this Crap?

These plans are not official, but they seem like they’ll have to be put into place.

Additionally, as many as 1,500 jobs could be cut, overnight waiting times up to 30 minutes, and a fare hike making a single ride $3.00 seems to be right around the corner.

Here lies the problem.  The MTA is a bureaucracy controlled by the State up in Albany that really only impacts the lives of people in New York City.  (Yes, I know the MTA runs services in the burbs such as buses, etc.  But I’m concentrating in the bulk of the issues which are here in the city.)

So there really isn’t enough outrage on behalf of the citizens of New York.  For example, people living in Utica, NY could give a crap if the subway runs on time, or if the W and Z lines continue to be around.  So they aren’t going to say anything.  Actually, they’re probably against financial support of the MTA because it has nothing do do with them really.

Mark my words, major sh*t is about to go down.

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Peace Out W and Z Lines

Your readers have already read all about MTA’s budget meltdown and the possibility of drastic fare hikes accompanied by severe cuts to bus and train service.  But have they heard what they can do about it?

On November 19th, the Campaign for New York’s Future is organizing Keep New York Moving Day. We’ll have volunteers at subway stations throughout the city, asking commuters to sign giant postcards to local leaders, telling them that now’s the time to invest in transit.

We need your help getting everyone’s attention, so our decision makers take action and save New York from our transportation crisis. Unless our leaders take immediate action, the MTA’s severe budget shortfall could soon lead to fewer trains, cuts to bus service, and double-digit fare hikes.

You and your readers can click here to find out what they can do to help Keep New York Moving and send a message urging our leaders to take action at www.keepnewyorkmoving.org. We’ll deliver the signatures on November 20th, when the MTA is holding a decisive meeting about the transit system’s desperate financial crisis.

Please feel free to also write with any questions or concerns,

Matt Derby,

On behalf of The Campaign for New York’s Future

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Demand Action on MTA Budget Failures

There were some pretty significant delays on the 1 train last night because of signal problems at 96th Street.  The trains were running excessively slow.  At one point, it took 10 minutes just to get to the next stop.  We were rolling the whole time, but at a pace that I could have matched on foot without breaking a sweat.

So this morning, I don’t know if they were still recovering or what.  There were huge gaps between trains.  The trains themselves ran quickly when they finally arrived.

Then there was the largest single travel group I’ve ever seen trying to board the train.  On the Upper West Side, there are a lot of less expensive boutique hotels, so groups of foreign travelers (and students) often stay there.  So you see the groups of them all the time.  Sometimes they can get large, but nothing like this.

There had to be over 150 of them.  Mostly they seemed to be around 18 years old.  I couldn’t make out where they were from.  They sounded sort of Dutch?  I don’t know.  What I do know is there was a ton of them.

Any other day when there are delays like this, the train arrives at the station packed to the gills.  Only 2 or 3 people are able to get on at each doorway, even though there are lots of people waiting at the platform.  So then, throw in this mass of tourists, and you’ve got complete insanity.

They’re still probably standing there waiting to get on.  There’s absolutely no way they were getting more than 10 of their people on a train at a time.  Of course, none of them wanted to do that.  They looked like they were just going to keep waiting until a virtually empty train came along.  Good luck with aaaallll that.

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Obnoxiously Long Commute this Morning

I heard the noise of it trying to spit the card out, but nothing happened.  Then all of a sudden it asked if I wanted a receipt.  I usually say no, but this time I was sure to get one.  Ball game over.

So I was standing there like an idiot with a line of people behind me thinking, “Now what?”

I could see like 1/8th of the card sticking out of the slot.  Not enough was sticking out for me to grab a hold of it.  It I had some pliers or something, I could have probably yanked it out.

So I stepped back and let the next person try.  Of course, I said it just jammed up for mine, but they were willing to try anyway.  Same thing happened.  I was hoping it would spit out two cards (mine then that guy’s).

I gave up and went to a different machine and bought another.  $164 later, I got one monthly card.

Luckily, I got that receipt.  But now it’s like a freaking nightmare to get reimbursed for the one that didn’t come out.  One woman on the phone was trying to give me a hard time about how she couldn’t deactivate it until it had been used at least once.

I said I don’t care what you do, just give me my $82 back, or send me another card and I’ll just hold on to it until next month.

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Where’s My MetroCard Damn It?!

I saw it with my own eyes.  My jaw dropped to the ground.

I’m sure you’ve seen a homeless person with a stack of used MetroCards standing at a turnstile swiping away in hopes to find a card with a ride still left on it.  I do applaud them for trying to be legal about getting in the subway.  Have to hand it to them there.

However, today I saw an MTA cop just let a guy in because he was tired of seeing the guy swipe (not the guy pictured above). 

It wasn’t even that busy.  The cop said, “You know what, just stop.  Come through.”  

With that, he opened the emergency door and let the guy through.

An act of kindness, perhaps.  However, if anyone else did that, he’d take pleasure in writing them a summons.  

The bottom line was he was just tired of hearing that high pitch ring of the cards being denied.

PHOTO CREDIT

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

MTA Police Officer Let’s Bum Skip Fare

It’s all for the “NFL Kickoff” celebration tomorrow featuring performances by Usher, Keith Urban, and Natasha Bedingfield.

There’s an enormous stage taking up the width of Central Park South.  The stage is set up on Columbus Circle facing down CPS toward 5th Avenue.

However, all of the Circle will be closed to traffic and much of it to foot traffic tomorrow.  Streets all the way up to the 60’s on Broadway and Central Park West. And all of Central Park South from Columbus Circle to 5th Avenue.  Insane!

It’s going to make subway traffic in that area interesting.

The Columbus Circle subway is a complete disaster as it is right now from the never ending construction.  So I don’t know how they plan to handle all of the afternoon commute traffic.  The concert starts at about 3PM and ends by 6:45p.  So the rush should be fun.

Getting in and out of the half open stairways, half width platforms, etc is going to be epic.

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

NFL Kickoff Sh*tshow in Columbus Circle

They’re telling us to get off and go uptown to canal.  All downtown traffic on the Broadway line is going over the bridge.

Side note, apparently NJT and LIRR are having some major issues tonight as well.

Reported by Todd from BNR

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Track Fire at Rector Street

It was only “down” for a few moments.  However, when it came back online, the system was unable to find many of the trains in the system.

The system that crashed only controls the numbered lines.  While the system went down and recovered, many trains were forced remain in stations or mid-tunnels while dispatchers manually radioed individual trains to determine their location.  Yikes.

Perhaps some of the MTA employees that read SUBWAYblogger could enlighten us on why the computer can’t locate trains after a reboot.  I assume the trains have to pass some sort of sensor on the track.  So if the trains weren’t moving, they hadn’t passed over a sensor since the reboot.

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Well, that’s comforting

MTA Website Showing Delays

Apparently there is a strange odor at the 53rd and 7th station that has caused it to be evacuated.

B, D, and E trains are bypassing the station at this time, and last we heard, passengers are not being allowed to enter the station.  However, the MTA says the V train is running with residual delays.  So I guess it’s at least partially open?

The strange odor is allegedly coming from a faulty elevator motor.  Of course, that is no shock.

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

BREAKING: Station at 53rd Street & 7th Ave Evacuated

There were a lot of confused looking people too.

Did anyone have any problems on the way home tonight?

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Were the Metrocard Machines Down Again?

Apparently, some students at MIT made it a class project to hack the Boston subway system (aka the T).  As a matter of fact, the title of the project is: “The Anatomy of a Subway Hack: Breaking Crypto RFIDs & Magstripes of Ticketing Systems.”

Now, the students are computer security majors, so you can see the fit.

They planned to give their 80+ slide presentation at Defcon, a very large security conference.

However, the MTBA sued to have the presentation stopped.  A judge ordered a temporary restraining order keeping the presentation quiet.

The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) got involved to fight the order.

Anyway, the kids had successfully shown how to generate and reverse engineer CharlieCards and CharlieTickets, the Boston version of Metrocards.

They basically did in a semester what any professional hackers could do, but planed to use it as an educational tool.  Sure, stealing rides is illegal, but the bigger issue is that some students were able to beat a system pretty easily.

Makes me wonder what kind of havoc they could wreak with the Metrocard system.

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

MIT Kids: Please come hack us!

Well, ok then.  Thanks for letting me know…I guess?

A hot mess. (sardinetea via flickr)

Wait, wait.  Did they just guess at that?  Of course not.  They commissioned a full scale study.  Transit officials inspected 2,666 train cars throughout the system.  Of them, 73 cars failed.

It appears that the pass/fail mark was 78 degrees.  Personally, I think that is a little toasty, but manageable.  That’s certainly better than some trains over 88 degrees!

The E train had the worst score, which is not a surprise at all because they are the oldest trains.

So I’m left wondering why a study was needed.  I mean, sure it probably gives you an official looking number when you’re done, but it doesn’t really fix anything.

The MTA should be studying what would improve the a) reporting and b) repairing of overheating cars.

I guess you can just see which cars have no AC because they are usually empty!  However, I doubt if riders report overheated train cars.  Air conditioning, along with other general repair needs should be easily reportable, but they aren’t.  I mean you could call 411 I guess, but who has time for that?

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

NYCT Reports Most Subway Cars Well Air Conditioned

Wow. Even Metrocards can be sexy.

Well, the Metrocard drama seems to have continued today, and still no explanations.

Paul J. Fleuranges, the chief spokesman for New York City Transit, the arm of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that runs the subways and buses, declined to speculate on the cause of the breakdown, but said “it was a systemwide outage affecting all or close to every” of the 2,245 machines. He characterized the problem as unprecedented in its magnitude. [NY Times]

Unprecedented.  Wow.  That’s greeeeat to hear.

It’s apparently a breakdown in network communication between the MTA’s system and the company that actually does the credit card processing.

Rumor has it that some people were actually charged for a Metrocard even though the machine said it was unable to process the transaction, and no card was dispensed.  So check your statements people!

Photo edstern

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Metrocard Problems Part Deux

A Metrocard mechanic cleaning some parts of the machine.

Did you try to buy a new Metrocard this morning between 8:30AM and 10:30AM?  Hope you didn’t try to pay with a credit card, because the machines weren’t taking them.

For unknown reasons, dozens if not hundreds of Metrocard machines stopped taking electronic payments.  Not a big deal if you were going for a $2.00 ride.

However, if you were in the market for a new $82 unlimted card, chances are you didnt have that dough burning a hole in your pocket.

The issue seemed to have replicated itself again around the afternoon rush.  I did see an especially long line at the machines this afternoon.

I guess this is what happens when you are still using Windows NT in your systems.

Around 6 p.m., at one entrance to the Times Square station, signs on the vending machines indicated that they were not accepting credit or debit cards, and a station agent opened the exit gate and ushered passengers through without making them pay.  [City Room]

Can you just imagine all the sea of confused tourists flocking to the token booth?

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Metrocard Machines Take the Morning Off

You’ve gotta be f***ing kidding me.

They haven’t said what the details of the proposed hike are yet, but there are some initial reports.  Those reports say there could be an 8% increase next July, and another 5% hike in 2011.

The need for the increase in fare has been attributed to higher fuel costs and lower real estate revenue.

The city needs to do better negotiating for it’s gas reserves then.  And the state should remove the tax on that gas (maybe they do already…who knows).

So if that is the case, then just the bus fares should go up, sorry grandma.  You’re going to need to carry more quarters in your purse.

For these adventures and more, visit SUBWAYblogger.com.

Another MTA Fare Hike

However, it seems that they may still get a free ride if on official MTA business.  However, that seems to be a bit much in my mind.  They should have to pay out of pocket for that too.  If I am on official company business, I don’t get to ride for free.  I can expense the ticket and get reimbursed from my company.  However, the company is a private entity spending it’s own money.  The MTA is a publicly funded organization using our tax dollars.

And they should have to feel every penny of the decisions that they make.  So if they want to increase fares and tolls, they should feel the financial burden just like the rest of us.

Meanwhile, Former MTA board member Warren Dolny has assumed the roll of uber a-hole.

“There’s only 34 of us. That’s all there are. How many years is that gonna go? How many total dollars is it according to the budget? You heard the amount of moneys that are being spent. You know what the budget of the MTA is. What does this amount to? One tenth of one tenth of one tenth of one percent? It’s like a postage stamp on a football field,” said Dolny.  [WCBS TV]

I think he completely misses the point from high atop his pedestal.  It isn’t about the cash savings.  It’s the principle that in times where New Yorkers are being asked to pay more for public transportation, the very same organization should not be giving free perks to their multimillionaire board members.

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No More Free Ride (or Drive) for MTA Board Members