I could have sworn I just saw that the Metrocard machines were down again. As I walked into my station, I pass a whole wall of Metrocard machines. All of them said “CASH ONLY” across the top.
There were a lot of confused looking people too.
Did anyone have any problems on the way home tonight?
Who knew all we needed was some MIT kids to help us get around any future fare hikes.
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.
Further proof that the MTA is an embarrassing bureaucracy.
The MTA released the results of a comprehensive study that found the subway is dirty. Folks, I wish it was a joke. The MTA’s advocacy group’s 61 page [gasp] report said the stations are dirty aaaaaand many of them are literally falling apart.
Honestly, why do we need to study this stuff? Can we just take a weekend, ride around to all the stops, and identify the ones that need the most work? Oh wait, that’s all of them.
In other news, the new MTA Headquarters fire emergency plan was released:
(STEP 1) Deny the existence of the fire as long as possible.
(STEP 2) Ignore the first 100 emergency phone calls (min) related to this “alleged” blaze.
(STEP 3) Mount a task force headed by an MTA Board member. Call it the “Matchstick Committee.”
(STEP 4) Hold a press release to announce the results fire existence study.
(STEP 5) Hold emergency budget meeting to discuss fire extinguisher purchases. Turns out, the ones in the building from 1932 are filled with seltzer water.
(STEP 6) Increase fares. New fire extinguishers won’t pay for themselves.
(STEP 7) Perish in blaze. Luckily, no MTA board members were actually in the office. They were off hiding their government issued EZ Passes.
Sort of. Also, it turns out you can’t blog about it on your Blackberry while you are in the process of screaming at a scrawny bum.
Anyway, this morning it was raining pretty hard as we all know. On my train, there was an open window that obviously had water leak down it and formed a puddle in one of the seats.
Unfortunately, I found myself standing directly in front of that seat. I didn’t want the seat, but saw the open space. So I spent much of the ride trying to explain to old ladies that they couldn’t sit there because of the puddle, as they pushed me out of the way.
About half way to my stop, a skinny a-hole homeless guy got on the train screaming . F-this and F-that. Screaming at random people to get the f out of his way. What are they looking at. Then telling women he could see down their tops. A real specimen.
Little eagle-eye spotted the open seat and squirmed his way though the packed train car where I (and others around me) said the seat’s wet. Note: I’m standing almost close enough for my shins to touch the front edge of the seat, that’s how packed the train is. I’m at mid car, near the middle doors. The wet seat is one spot in from the end of the bench.
So he comes in from my left and reaches down to the seat and brushes the puddle of water off the seat onto the front of my pants! Like a big, fast wiping action to flick the water off. He only got about half of the water off the seat when he started to spin around to sit down.
At first I was in shock, but then I said, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
I will leave the rest to your imagination. I don’t want to go into any details, but he was not on board the train when we left the next station.
I have a fairly high tollerance for these guys because clearly they have mental problems. However, when you are saying things like he said and splashing water on me, it really gets to the point where action needs to be taken.
According to the MTA, most subway cars are well air conditioned.
Well, ok then. Thanks for letting me know…I guess?
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?
Just when you thought congestion pricing was dead, a weak heartbeat is heard. In light of the abolutely astonishing deficit facing the MTA next year, the state is starting to get desperate in it’s search for funds. Let’s back up and review.
The current state of the subway: sh*thole.
Oh, and that’s the official “term” now being used. New York City Transit President, Howard Robers Jr. told the New York Post that the subway system is extreme bad, and it isn’t going to get better any time soon. By “extremely bad,” he means falling apart.
Enter more proposed fare hikes. Well, you’d think that the fare hikes were proposed to generate money to refurb the system. Nope.
Any of the proposed fare hikes would only maintain the current status quo. So take around at the current state of dilapidation. That’s what your extra cash would maintain, not fix.Read More »
WARNING: This is a poo related story, using some poo humor. It is a true story, but thought you should be warned.
http://www.viddler.com/player/dc724747/
Ok, this has absolutely nothing to do with the subway, but it was so unreal, I had to share it.
So I took a little trip to Shake Shack in Madison Square Park this afternoon. Had a couple brewskies before getting there, and had to make a tinkle.
Luckily, they have that fancy new electronic pay toilet there. I was so pumped. I had seen it on TV, but never had the pleasure of partaking in the experience.
So there was a line. Only two people in front of me.
An older man went in and took his time. Not obnoxiously long, but long. Maybe he couldn’t find the button to get out of there. Who knows.
Anyway, there was a woman in front of me with her boyfriend. She was doing the pee pee dance which was funny because I’ve never seen a 30 year old do that. Anyway, there was a clear look of desperation in her eye.
Well, the door opened, and the man emerged, but no relief for the woman. Why? The rinse cycle. The entire bathroom gets a spraydown between each use. The door closes.
Well, she inches over to the control panel where you insert your 25 cents. Still dancing.
Then.
Plop.
I look back over to see that she is literally crapping her shorts. Right before my eyes. A grown, normal looking woman has poo falling from her shorts onto the sidewalk. Read More »
Holy crap! Was the MTA listening to us?
Remember back in June when we were talking about how cool it would be to have train cars without seats (aka standing room only)? Yeah, guess what?
They’re doing it! (Read Here)
In about 6 months, retrofitted cars will hit the rails as part of a pilot program. Among the trains involved in the pilot program, 4 out of 10 cars will be the standing room only cars.
These cars will have all flip-up seats. Back in June, one of SUBWAYblogger’s commenters suggested that the seats lock in the upright position during rush hour. Then, at other times, they could unlock, and people can sit down. Well, that’s exactly what they are going to do!
Apparently, the Straphangers Campaign thinks that the public will oppose the seatless cars, but I couldn’t disagree more.
The seatless cars allow 18% more riders during rush hour. There will be less jockeying for position as well because certain people (you know who you are) won’t be battling for seats.
Can’t wait to find out what lines are involved.
Is the NYPD really flaunting the new starting salary for recruits? It’s $32,881. Where in Manhattan can you live for $32k a year? Hell, it hard to make ends meet with twice that.
Well, the NYPD is making sure you know about it with half takeover ads on the subway. If you haven’t seen them already, they’ve released a big campaign to promote the new increased salary.
No wonder other states are recruiting our officers out. On the one hand, the NYPD is probably one of the most elite police forces in the world, but they are also grossly underpaid. Read More »
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