The Interboro College ads on the subway are starting to bug the shit out of me.

Become a paralegal. Become an Accountant. Become a Medical Office Assistant.

How about Become a Better College.

Any college advertisment that has the phrase, “No HS Diploma or GED? No problem…” is a pretty bullshit place if you ask me. Earn your HS equivalency while you study at Interboro Institute? I had no idea that you could go to High School and College at the same time. Like an idiot, I did them one after the other.

Live from the subway, back to you in studio…

Underground foot traffic already seems lower this week. I think it is because there aren’t as many school trips in the city this week.

Last week, schools all over the Tri-State and New England were off for Easter. So a lot of schools and youth groups plan trips to NYC. Everywhere you turned last week, there were groups of 30 or 50 high school kids.

SUBWAYblogger isn’t really “against” the school trips. Hell, that’s how we were first exposed to this grand city back in our youth. But, the extra bodies can really screw up your commute.

50 kids all trying to get in the same subway car at 8:30am can mess things up. Pure dread comes over you when you are walking down the stairs to your platform, and you see a group of them standing in “your waiting area.”

They also tend to move like a herd. So if you get stuck behind them while making a dash for a connection, good luck!

Anyway, I think this week should be a little less crowded with school trips. We should be in good shape until May/June when it becomes “Senior Class Trip” season. Yikes.

Live from the subway, back to you in studio…

It always amazes me how many free “train” newspapers there are. Ok, so they aren’t all free. There’s Wall Street Journals, New York Times, Daily News, etc sprinkled in there too.

But there’s so many “others.” There’s a handful of newspapers for just about every language spoken in New York City.

There’s a gentleman across from me right now reading a Chinese newspaper. (At least I assume it is Chinese. It has a lot of red on the cover and Asian character type, so I just assume…)

There’s a ton of Spanish papers, and I’ve seen a few Italian papers around too.

Anyway, the part that amazes me is that none of them would exist if they weren’t viable businesses. If the papers were unable to make money, they simply would not be around. That means there’s enough of a market for foreign language papers in the city. That says a lot for the mix of cultures we have.

Live from the subway, back to you in studio…

Well, one thing is for damn sure…there won’t be any planned service changes in or out of the Bronx in the near future. With Yankees baseball season starting up today, you don’t have to worry.

The A will be running to at least 125th Street, where you can catch the D train over to Yankee Stadium. Not that the A wasn’t running there anyway. A train service still ran this weekend, however it ran local.

There’s always the 4 train too.

Is subway ridership to the Yankees games in danger? SUBWAYblogger thinks so. Ticket prices to Yankees games are going to go up 30% every year for the next 3 years (at minimum). That’s compounded each of those 3 years. So, in just a few short years, it may get to the point where only people that can afford limos can afford to attend a game!

Live from the subway, back to you in studio…

The lines are all over the place this morning.

Was that just a 5 train I saw running on the 7th Avenue line?? Yup. Sweet.

And how ’bout this 1 train that seems to be spending 15 minutes at every stop.

They keep saying that there is (was) some sort of emergency at 42nd Street / Times Square. This is what I keep saying abou the system’s lack of flexibility. Any time something goes wrong, half the trains in the city get thrown off schedule.

In building the 2nd Avenue subway, the would be smart if they built in extra systems to allow for stalled trains, emergencies, ect. An “emergency only” track might be a bit to costly, but surely there’s an alternative.

Live from the subway, back to you in studio…

It would figure that during the most interesting subway day in forever, SUBWAYblogger was tied up in other business. What did we miss?

The 4, 5, 6 around East Harlem was a “no go” for much of the midday due to a building collapse. The two had little to do with eachother other that officials feared vibrations from the trains might cause further collapse.

Then, it was announced that the MTA is “investigating” the installation of cameras on all the city’s trains. But doesn’t that cost money?

Last, but not least, America’s hero, Wesley Autry, is suing his a lawyer. Why? He claims that he fraudulently had him sign some paper that gave him the rights to Autrey’s story,fame, yadda yadda. She was hired to help him out because at the time, everyone wanted to give Autry money. More on that later. Note:  Ok, most of this was rumor at the time.  There is a lawsuit, but read the next post for details.

At the moment, it appears to be a normal day. Can’t beat the weather. Everyone here on this train seems to be going about their normal daily routine. Of course, that could all go down the crapper in the blink of an eye. More soon…

Live from the subway, back to you in studio…

Shocker. The MTA did a horrible job recovering from their weekend construction. This weekend, they did the double switch. The express trains ran on the local line, and the local trains ran express.

Ask me, it sound like the most retarded plan ever.

Anyway, this morning’s recovery from that plan was all F-ed up. I just stood and watched 6 local trains go by on the uptown track. Meanwhile, the 2,000 people on the downtown platform have no trains for the last 25 minutes.

Finally, I got on this train. Had to let the first one to come by go ahead without me because it was already full before it got to our stop.

Instead of 5am or 6am, they need to resume normal service around 3am. Maybe then the service will have balanced out a little.

Live from the subway, back to you in studio…

Have you seen these signs? “Mind the achievement gap.”. They are all over the subway as part of a NYC Teaching Fellows program.

It’s funny though. Look around you next time you see one of those signs. Does anyone on the train scream “achievement” to you?

We are all just dreaming of the day we can afford a driver to take us to and from work. In the mean time, we’re all just looking miserable as we ride the train.

Here’s another one. “There are a million kids in NYC who could use your tallents. Think outside the cubicle.”

Yes, think outside your cubicle. Think about how you could be in a Bronx High School making far less money. At least there’s snow days.

Live from the subway, back to you in studio…