Photograph of people waiting for the 6 train by Union Square by Unlisted Sightings on Flickr For everyone who waited too long for a subway in April--NYC Transit revealed that train delays were up 44% in April, which is the latest month with available data. The Post lists the top reasons: 1. Track work (delaying 4,117 trains; in April 2007, there were about half the number of delays due to track work) 2. Riders......

Photograph by shveckle on Flickr The MTA announced the long-expected news that its economic situation is grim. In fact, MTA CEO and Executive Director Elliot Sander told reporters, “Should riders be concerned? Absolutely. Am I concerned? Absolutely.” The depressing highlights: "Tax revenues are $120 million below projections" and will be $280 million under projections by the end of the year. Rising fuel prices means the MTA is $60 million over budget. All told, the......

Stand clear of the breaking water, please. A husband and wife were riding the subway to Bellevue so she could give birth but never quite made it to the hospital, settling for delivery on the F train platform at East Broadway. Yep, a husband relied on the MTA to get his wife to the hospital, despite the fact that entire generations of New Yorkers have grown old and died while waiting for the F. But......

The subway ad mash-up artist has been hard at work underground. Here's some of the latest creations, including a shot of a poster he was still working on when someone snapped a picture.......

Ever wonder what that mysterious delay on your subway line was caused by? It could have been MTA worker Michael Martin sneaking away from his duties to write down the latest line in his screenplay (or for the latest screenplay he was hired to write, New Jack City 2). NY1 reports on Martin's rise from the underground to the mainstream.Martin was a subway conductor, and after totaling his car in an accident, entered a screen-writing......

Toronto street artist, Posterchild, sent us the above photo of a piece he recently installed with the help of Jason Eppink (he of the Pixelator). He'll be installing three more ("tonight or soon!"), which will say "Fast," "Sell" and "Out". (The pictured one may look like it says "Bold" but it actually says "Hold.") No word on whether or not they'll be in the vicinity of the 14th and 8th station. If you aren't......

Photo via gmpicket's flickr. In one of life's crueler ironies, it's usually either extreme heat or extreme rain that forces people to stand sweltering on a subway platform or out into the drenching elements. Today it's the former: subway service is still a disaster on several of the city's lines. Residual delays still exist on the F, G, and 7, but the MTA has sorted out the trouble on those lines with the help......

Photograph of a makeshift stop sign, since traffic lights were out, at Bergen St. and Flatbush Ave. by steuben on Flickr Yesterday afternoon, a few manhole fires caused a load of problems for Brooklyn residents in the middle of a sweltering weekend. One fire, at Smith and Dean Streets in Boerum Hill, seriously compromised subway service for the G, F, and 4 lines, not to mention affected the 2 and 3 lines. WNBC explained......

Photo, by ultraclay! at flickr Pity the poor tourist who comes upon this ad hoc weekend subway service advisory message scribbled on a series of dry erase boards at the Fulton St. station in Manhattan. Actually, pity any subway rider who pauses at great length to try to determine the meaning behind this advisory and then comprehends what it ultimately means for them to get to where they need to go. The above photo......

Streetfilms had five camera operators covering yesterday’s suspenseful rush hour race between a cyclist, driver and MTA commuter, and they’ve quickly edited together a video of the competition, which takes a bit of inspiration from Mike Figgis’s split-screen movie Time Code, sometimes showing the contestants battling it out simultaneously. And Streetsblog also points us to today’s New York Sun, which is reporting on a sudden bike shortage at shops around town. Some bike shop owners......

The 7th Annual “Great NYC Commuter Race” went down this morning, with three commuters racing to see who could get from Fort Greene to Union Square during rush hour in the least amount of time. Social worker Jamie Favaro traveled by bicycle; April Green, who works at an art foundation, took a foolish bus/subway combo; and photographer Emmanuel Fuentebella made irresponsible carbon footprints with his car. And like the story of John Henry, the......

A 55-year-old man fell onto the subway tracks at Delancey Street yesterday just as the F train was pulling into the station – and survived by lying down in the disgusting shallow trough between the rails. The unidentified man became suddenly ill and fell onto the tracks at 1:34 p.m, but this time there was no hero to jump in and pull him out. The motorman on the incoming train hit the emergency brakes when......

Jim O'Connor, the author of a book titled Cuss Control, visited New York last week in an effort to educate people on how they can curb their cursing. O'Connor is not a complete scold--his book states that its purpose is to simply reduce swearing to situations that actually call for it, like when you hit your thumb with a hammer. In NYC, perhaps that situation would be more like when you accidentally bump into a......

A man suspected of a series of subway platform purse snatchings was arrested and charged yesterday. Mark McIntosh was "led away handcuffed by police near Union Square" and he offered these words to the public--and his six victims, "I'm sorry for what I did. I apologize, deeply." According to police, MacIntoch was targeting women waiting for morning subways to feed his drug habit. He would grab their purses and then run into the subway tunnels......

Some subway riders and transit advocates are upset about NYC Transit closing subway bathrooms between midnight and 5 a.m. for cleaning. As AMNY puts it, "Subway toilets are the pit stop of last resort," but many New Yorkers, whether they are "leaving bars, clubs, or their work shift," rely on them. One ironworker said, "Where do I go now? Wet my pants?" Others suggest the closings will mean worse things--one station agent says, "If......

The police believe the same man who has robbed four female subway commuters last week stole the purse of another woman yesterday morning. A 24-year-old woman had been waiting on the Rector Street subway platform when, according to WABC 7, "the suspect grabbed her purse just before 10 a.m." She was knocked down and the suspect ran into the subway tracks, threw the purse on the ground after taking the cash, and ran into......

A violent scene unfolded on the platform of the 23rd Street and 6th Avenue F train yesterday afternoon when a person was stabbed by a homeless man. Clarence Carter Cochran had a steak knife plunged into his chest when he tried to stop the homeless man from bothering a pregnant friend. According to the Post, Cochran and his friend were talking when Herron Wilson, "who was screaming wildly, lunged at the woman and spit on......

The police are searching for a man who robs subway passengers during their morning commutes. He targets his victims on the subway platform, grabs their purses and then runs into the subway tunnels. The suspect has committed four robberies in the past five days, all during the morning rush hour, all with female victims. Here's a list of the robberies, via WNBC:The man first struck at approximately 8:30 a.m. Sunday on the L subway at......

Photograph of the crowd waiting for a 1, 2 or 3 train at Times Square by ianqui on Flickr New data supports what everyone's been thinking: Ridership for the subway--and almost every other mass transit option--is up versus last year. So far, subway ridership is up almost 5% for the first three months of 2008 versus same period last year, and bus ridership is up 1.1%. Metro-North and LIRR both have seen ridership increases......

This morning, New York Water Taxi introduced their new commuter ferry route for residents of the Rockaways in Queens. While it's not a straight shot--it stops once at the Brooklyn Army Terminal--it will move up to 400 commuters from Riis Landing to Wall St.'s Pier 11. The ferry service can almost guarantee a commute time of 60 minutes--there's not a lot of traffic on the water that can't be avoided. The return trips depart Manhattan......

Photograph by Sacha Lecca, which Gothamist published in 2006. Today it’s on the cover of amNY. Flooding. Crowding. Filth. These are just a few of the “ten plagues” being visited daily upon New York commuters, according to transit activists at the Straphangers Campaign. Unlike the ten plagues that cursed the commute of ancient Egyptians, New Yorkers have – so far – been spared swarms of locusts on the L; though bed bugs have been......

Photograph of subway bench by Triborough on Flickr; additional bedbug plushes added (plushes by Giant Microbes) Warning: You may feel itchy after reading this. A city bedbug expert has seen bedbugs on the subway benches at the Union Square subway station and the Fordham Road station, according to the NY Post. The Post also adds that Edward Brownbear also saw a bedbug, "in one case, catching a ride on an unsuspecting straphanger's caboose at......

The long-neglected F train station at 4th Avenue and 9th Street in Brooklyn will be refurbished starting in the fall, according to amNY. Built in 1933, the Art Deco station is on the National Register of Historic places, and the north end of the platform offers an impressive view of the Statue of Liberty. But the station has been falling further into disrepair for years; plywood hides the most neglected attribute, an arched bank of......

The presence of oil in parts of Greenpoint is well documented, but it looks like someone wants the oil to be cleaned up. This morning there was artwork in the Queens-bound Nassau Avenue G stop asking for a stop to the oil spills. The artwork shows drops of oil on the walls of the station, pools of oil collected on the floors, and paper towels for straphangers to clean up the spill. Reader Shannan tells......

First NBC announces it's starting a 24-hour local NYC news channel yesterday--a possible competitor to NY1-- and now Matt Lauer is invading the turf of NYC TV's Kelly Choi by heading to the "secret subway station" under the Waldorf-Astoria! In the Today's show "Access Granted"series, the Today show personalities are getting behind-the-scenes looks at private places (Meredith Vieira visited the Vice-President's mansion yesterday and Al Roker visited the Malstrom Air Force base on Tuesday).......

At least one subway car on the N line derailed near 57th Street and 7th Avenue around 5 p.m. this afternoon. WABC 7 is reporting the incident involved one car while WCBS 2 says two cars derailed and WNBC 4 notes at least three cars were affected. The train was traveling southbound and no passengers seemed injured--just a little shaken up. The hundreds of passengers were evacuated by a rescue train which took them......

The MTA's Poetry in Motion program, which features bits of poetry on the "Subtalk" posters in subway cars, has expanded its offerings to include quotes from history, philosophy, literature, and science. The Train of Thought first selections are quotes from Galileo, explaining the role of math in science and E.B. White, from his wonderful book Here is New York. Columbia University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is in charge of choosing the extracts,......

Today, more than 50 musicians and musical acts gathered on the northeast balcony of Grand Central Terminal to audition for spots in NYC Transit's Music Under New York program. MUNY grants buskers spots in subway stations to entertain commuters and make a little cash in the process. There were about 25 judges--almost as many members of the media on hand to capture the event--who will select 20 performers to be a part of Music Under......

One positive addition to Coney Island recently took place, as Councilman Domenic M. Recchia Jr. dedicated the corner of Stillwell and Mermaid Avenues to Granville T. Woods Way. Woods not only invented some of the technology that keeps the subways running, but he also helped bring us the roller coaster -- an invention he debuted at Coney Island in the summer of 1909. A little bit more about the man:In 1887, he patented the Synchronous......

Design geeks and subway enthusiasts, time to swoon: Massimo Vignelli, whose beloved and controversial 1972 subway map is in Museum of Modern Art, has updated his map for 2008 for Men's Vogue. Men's Vogue revisited the 1972 map's path:The plan was as visually utopian as it was elegant — paths running on 45- and 90-degree angles, an understated gray square marking Central Park, and type set in clear Helvetica. It was hailed as an......