metropolitan transportation authority

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

That’s what the MTA is saying these days when they look at the capital improvement budget. There’s a gaping $3 billion hole smack in the middle of the budget responsible for general repairs and maintenance of the transit system.

Yep. $3 Billion. Oops.

“The [CAPITAL] program has some shortfalls in it,” Metropolitan Transportation Authority CEO Elliot Sander said at an agency board meeting. [AMNY]

Uhhh yeah, “shortfall” is an understatement.

While mega-projects like the Second Avenue subway are not affected, the “nitty-gritty” work of station repairs and upgrades, signal replacements, or purchase of new cars could suffer, said MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin. {AMNY]

You know, just the minor things like repairs, and track signals. And really, how badly do we really need working brakes?

SUBWAYblogger

Tag: metropolitan transportation authority

Metrocard Problems Part Deux

MTA: “Fellas…where’d that $3 billion go?”