Category: This just in

The Electronic Signs Work! More or less.

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Electronic Sign

(ok, so this isn’t one of the platform signs, but it is still really funny.)

So the New York Times went underground to do some of the hard-hitting investigative reporting that they are known for.  They sent a reporter, armed with a stop watch, into the subway system to ride the L trains and test the monitors.

Turns out, they were accurate!  The times reflected on the boards actually synched up with when the train arrived.  What a concept!

On this day, however, the signs worked like a charm. A stopwatch revealed that the trains came and went as predicted. It was almost unnerving.

Agreed.

However, since it is an MTA operation, there had to be a slight flaw.  To accompany the electronic boards, the system incorporates a prerecorded voice that announces the arrival times.  On this occasion, the announcements sounded like the techno remixed version. 

“The next train will arrive, will arrive, will arrive.”  But hey, at least something about them is working.  That’s more than can be said for the boards in the past.

Ummm…city condom ads are creepy. No?

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condomad.jpg

Am I the only one that’s a little creeped out by the NYC Condom ads?  You have to give them credit, because they are pretty bold and edgy for a government organization.  But they are still strange. 

They give off that perverted Uncle Bob vibe.  Like some old guy is trying to push condoms on you.  For some unknown reason, this conjures a mental image of Mayor Bloomberg saying “Here, have a rubber.  Get some!”

No. 7 Subway Line to be Shut Down for Weekend Work

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From the AP/MTA: 

A city councilman doesn’t like the shut-down of the Number Seven subway that will affect parts of Queens and Manhattan for the next five weekends. The Seven train will be out of service this holiday weekend between the 74th Street-Roosevelt Avenue stop in Queens and the Times Square stop in Manhattan. The shut-down will last from just after midnight Saturday until 5 a-m Tuesday. The shut-down will be repeated Saturdays through early Mondays for the following four weekends.

Passengers can take other subway lines or shuttle buses.

Councilman Eric Gioia says the shut-downs are hard on Queens residents who depend on the Seven line to get to work on weekends.

An M-T-A spokesman says the agency recognizes the inconvenience, but needs to do the work to keep the subway system reliable.

Nothing Says Sexy Like a Free Subway Condom

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[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/U--D_-PqLpA" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the NYC Subway condom has hit the streets.

The video here is really funny. Look around midway through for the old man with the cane that get’s handed the condom. He doesn’t know what to do with it so he hands it back!! hahah

In midtown today, you might have been offered one as you exited the subway. As you can see in the video above, people don’t really pay attention to what they are being offered. SUBWAYblogger knew right way what it was, and jumped all over it.

Interestingly, the city may have skirted the violation of the MTA’s circle logo trademarks. The MTA was upset that they were going to use the subway line logos (little colored circles) on the condom’s wrapper to make it look “city like.”

On the one SUBWAYblogger received this morning, there were subway looking circles that spell “NYC CONDOM.” However, the actual letters in the circles are not real subway lines. For example, the “C” in Condom is in a yellow circle, but the C subway line is actually blue. So maybe that’s how they got around that issue.

The New “T” Line (aka 2nd Ave Line)

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t.jpgOk East Siders, don’t get your panties in a twist. There isn’t really a subway running under 2nd Ave that you didn’t know about.

However, we guess this is the proposed line map. We have no idea if it is real or bogus. SubChat posted it earlier. It looks pretty legtit, but who knows.

By the looks of things, it will make getting to those dark, hole in the wall bars on the Lower East Side a little easier to get to! If only they extended it to connect with the 2/3 above Central Park North. Then you could make a whole loop.

Personally, SUBWAYblogger wishes there were a couple more cross town options. A shuttle like train under Central Park would be nice. Then maybe one a little more down town. That would be a great improvement.

Anyway, click the map to see the full size version, but don’t get your hopes up. The “T” isn’t expected until 2020.

Ride the Subway for Free?

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Stop the presses!  There’s actual talk of making the subway FREE to ride.  I know, it makes me a little nauseous too. 

Theodore Kheel donated $100,000 to the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility to fund a study about making the subway free to ride.  Kheel believes that it can be done. 

Hold on to your seats because here comes the scary logic:

If New Yorkers don’t pay a fee to use the police and fire departments, they should not have to pay to use the city’s mass transit system.

Ok, that makes sense.  SUBWAYblogger can get behind that.  It just really freaks us out to think of all the people getting on the train for free, that’s all.  People overload.  All of a sudden, our subway will look like the Tokyo subway.  We’ll have to hire the little men with white gloves to stuff people into the trains!

At this point, it is just a study.  Kheel believes that the whole thing could be funded by charging drivers to drive on the busiest streets of the city.  All that revenue would offset the subway costs.

It certainly would have a lot of revenue to generate.  What few people don’t realize is that the hundreds of millions in subway fares collected each year hardly gets put back into the system.  Much of the revenue generated today goes to fund other city projects.  That’s part of the reason the city suffered the TWU strike.  The money that could have paid for wages and benefits was essentially already tied up in funding other city projects.

The fact is that the transit system is quite the nest egg for the city.  Getting rid of that gold paved money road would cause quite the uproar.  So the city street car tolls will have to really make up the missing cash.

Ok, my head hurts. 

The First Real Snow of the Season On the Horizon

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The first real snow of the season might be just around the corner.  Will the subway hold up?  NYC Transit Spokesman Paul Fleuranges says YES.  But haven’t we heard that before?

You might not think that snow could do anything to the subway, but you would be wrong.  The subway is exposed to surface level weather at many points.  So, anywhere the trains run above ground can be overrun with snow!  We all know that once there is a bottleneck in one area, the entire line suffers. 

Believe it or not though, the MTA has snowblower trains and anti-ice trains to clear the tracks.  Who knew?  They even run trains empty to keep the rails from freezing.

“Underground service isn’t affected, and elevated service is for the most part ok due to constant running of trains keeps rails free of ice etc,” says Fleuranges. 

But that wasn’t really the case during the blizzard last year.  There were lots of service disruptions.  So I guess the bottom line is you should play it safe and leave extra commute time on Wednesday morning.  6-10 inches of snow, wind, freezing rain, ice…mmm it’s gonna be fun.

PATH train riders get email alerts. Subway riders get…to work late?

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New Jersey Transit has just started a new email alert program for the PATH train that alerts subscribers to service disruptions.  It’s a free service, and so far they have signed up over 2,700 users.

When was the last time the subway got something cool like this?  Try never.  The last cool thing we got was the MetroCard instead of tokens.  Yeah, it’s been that long.  This would be especially cool for people that carry BlackBerries and other PDA’s.  We could get the alerts right on our phone. 

Even regular cell phone users could get them. Did you know that you can email text alerts to yourself?  If you have Verizon wireless service, you can just email yourself at vtext.com.  For example, just send an email to 2125551234@vtext.com.  That message will get sent to your phone!  Just insert your number before the @ symbol.

Anyway, because of that, these email alerts would be great.  It would definitely have helped during yesterday’s debacle.  Sure, wireless service is limited underground.  However, if you got the alert ahead of time, you could make alternate arrangements before you reached the subway.

We think it is time the MTA got in the game!

Just gonna go out on a limb and say that this is really weird

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Bravo TV, the new home of “Top” everything, has joined up with the MTA to promote its latest reality program, Top Design.  Designer Jonathan Adler is one of the show’s judges.  In a strange promotional move, the show has set up three fully designed rooms on the shuttle subway platform (aka the “S” train platform) at the Grand Central end of the line. 

Smack in the middle of the long concourse, there you will find living rooms complete with carpets, furniture, and accessories now through February 7th.

The MTA even did a TransitTrax podcast on the new show. 

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NYC Transit is Getting the Shaft

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Dirty Subway

Transit within New York City is (and has) been getting shafted for years.  The LIRR and MetroNorth have been receiving a disproportionate amount of funding from the MTA.  WTF?

City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. issued a report on the MTA’s “State of Good Repair.”  Turns out, much of the systems in place for the subway and busses are anything but “good repair.”

Vital repairs to the city’s subway system are routinely postponed as suburban projects hog the MTA gravy train, the city comptroller charged yesterday.   —Says the Post.

Here’s the facts:

  • NYC Riders = 94% of the passenger load but only get 75% of the MTA’s budget.
  • 76 of the subways’ 201 fan banks, which are supposed to clear tunnels of deadly smoke in case of a fire, are not in good working condition and should be quickly replaced with newer, more powerful devices.
  • Many tunnels are poorly lit with 1930s-era incandescent lighting.
  • More than 40% of the lettered subway lines have 70-year-old signal equipment. Faulty signals are the second leading cause of delays.

So my fellow subway riders, that throbbing sensation you feel in your rear is the MTA bending us over and having their way with us.