MTA Targets Swiping Scofflaws With Extended MetroCard Blackouts
The MTA is really working to stop MetroCard swipe sellers. As the News' Pete Donohue reports today, the Authority has gone so far as to begin a "secret pilot program" designed to make life harder for the swiping scofflaws. There are downsides to progress though. [ more › ]
MTA Targets Swiping Scofflaws With Extended MetroCard Blackouts
Garth Johnston
Mon, 07 May 2012 22:30:00 GMT
David Paterson On Going The MTA's Way
ICYMI, here's ex-Gov. David Paterson on Fox's "Good Day New York" this morning, speaking on -- as you first heard from our own Ken Lovett -- his new role on the board of the MTA. ON WHETHER HE MISSES BEING GOVERNOR: “Sometimes. Well, I mean it was a tremendous opportunity. It was ...
David Paterson On Going The MTA's Way
Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:33:44 GMT
MTA Introduces Buses With Three Doors
Because New York bus riders are apparently unwilling or incapable of going in the front door and out the back, the MTA has ordered 328 buses equipped with three doors. Some of the long, accordion buses with the third door in the midsection have already been commissioned on some crosstown routes including the 79th Street in Manhattan. But the extra door has received mixed reviews so far. “The middle is the least popular one,” Dr. Elyse Goldstein told the Times. “Most people prefer the privacy of the back or the access of the front.” So what will become of this new door? A bonus emergency exit? A podium for a stop and chat?
Read more posts by Brett Smiley
Filed Under: transportation ,buses ,MTA
MTA Introduces Buses With Three Doors
Brett Smiley
Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:33:00 GMT
MTA Employee Allegedly Punched 6 Train Passenger
The 6 train can be stressful. It makes stops no one wants to get off at (33rd Street and 28th Street?) and it is crowded with people wearing ties. Today, that anxiety seems to have gotten the better of one MTA employee who allegedly punched a passenger at the 138th Street 6 train station.
The yet-unnamed female MTA employee got into an argument with a passenger who was rummaging around in her purse for exact change for her Metrocard swipe. At this point, the victim's husband says, the MTA worker picked up the passenger by the neck and punched her several times in the eye. Oof! The MTA employee was arrested and the passenger was taken Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx to be examined.
Read more posts by Eliza Shapiro
Filed Under: crime and punishment ,the subway ,local news
MTA Employee Allegedly Punched 6 Train Passenger
Eliza Shapiro
Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:30:00 GMT
In 1955, a 42-year-old seamstress named Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and since then, every bus in the nation has been a bastion of total respect and equality in every way. Except one bus in Brooklyn, where women of any race have to sit in the back, as a New York World investigation recently discovered:
On the morning of October 12, Melissa Franchy boarded the B110 bus in Brooklyn and sat down near the front. For a few minutes she was left in silence, although the other passengers gave her a noticeably wide berth. But as the bus began to fill up, the men told her that she had to get up. Move to the back, they insisted.
On any other bus, such a request might have resulted in an uproar, an angry confrontation, and an entertaining YouTube video. But the B110 is no ordinary bus. It's a Jewish bus.
They were Orthodox Jews with full beards, sidecurls and long black coats, who told her that she was riding a “private bus” and a “Jewish bus.” When she asked why she had to move, a man scolded her.
“If God makes a rule, you don’t ask ‘Why make the rule?’” he told Franchy, who rode the bus at the invitation of a New York World reporter. She then moved to the back where the other women were sitting. The driver did not intervene in the incident.
The Department of Transportation is now investigating whether the bus's gender segregation policy represents a violation of the city's anti-discrimination laws. It appears that it probably does. As the World explains, the B110 "operates as a franchise, in which a private company, Private Transportation Corporation, pays the city for the right to provide a public service." While the B110 exists for the benefit of Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish community, it's still obligated to serve the broader public and "comply with all applicable laws," a DOT spokesman says.
This creates a bit of a pickle. On the one hand, a public bus service can't be allowed to discriminate against women. On the other hand, this is a bus that is used almost exclusively by the Orthodox Jewish community, which enjoys gender discrimination very much. Clearly the solution here is for the B110 to pretend that it won't discriminate against women, and then do it anyway. Since meddling reporters are pretty much the only non-Orthodox who ride it, who's going to know? It's like that old falling tree question, except with Jewish women, and buses.
Women ride in back on sex-segregated Brooklyn bus line [New York World]
Read more posts by Dan Amira
Orthodox Jews Caught Acting Like Orthodox Jews on Semi-Public Bus
Dan Amira
Wed, 19 Oct 2011 16:08:00 GMT
MetroCards are reportedly going the way of the subway token within a few years.
MTA May Replace MetroCards With Sensor-Card System
Sun, 08 May 2011 14:16:47 GMT
By Carla Zanoni
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
INWOOD — A Metropolitan Transportation Authority initiative to curb homeless people from loitering at the last stop on the A train in Upper Manhattan has area straphangers up in arms.
MTA workers unscrewed several wooden benches from the 207th Street A train station last week, leaving the stop bereft of seating.
The benches were removed "as a means of addressing a homeless issue at the station," according to CharlesSeaton, a spokesman for the transit authority.
However, several homeless people who regularly spend time at the station said they were told the benches were removed because they were rotting.
Didi and Yacahuda Harrison, a couple who spends a lot of time at the station but does not identify themselves as homeless, believe the removal of the benches is unjust.
Yacahudah, who goes by the nickname "YA," and was one of the men who received a summons for playing chess in Emerson Playground in Inwood Hill Park last fall, said he and his wife have been a positive force at the station over the past five years. The refer to themselves as missionaries.
"We keep the area cleaner and safer than it would be without us here," said Harrison, who used to sit on a bench at the station flanked by cardboard signs that showcase religious messages.
According to the Coalition for the Homeless, the removal of benches in public areas is not a new tactic for clearing out homeless people.
"They've been making it uncomfortable for people to sit or recline on benches for years," said Patrick Markee, a spokesman for the homeless advocacy group, adding that he was unaware of any legal claims to address this sort of issue.
Some straphangers said they understood that the MTA needs to keep its stations free of loitering, but thought the removal of the benches took the issue too far. They voiced concern that elderly people, pregnant women and people with mobility issues would have no place to rest while waiting for trains.
"Yeah you see people camped out with suitcases and all of their stuff, but isn't there another way to help them without getting rid of our benches?" asked Adam Strauch, a 28-year-old Inwood resident.
MTA officials said they did not think the elimination of benches should not have an affect on riders and have no plan to bring them back.
"The removal of the benches is not really an inconvenience to customers as there is usually an A train in the station, waiting to pull out for its next trip," Seaton said.
Most straphangers who regularly take the train at the station disagreed.
"During the morning trains are usually waiting in the station, but at night or on the weekends, you could be waiting here for 20 minutes or longer," said Martha Grainger, a 43-year-old Inwood resident.
For now the station remains devoid of seating, but officials from State Sen. Adriano Espaillat's office are looking into the matter.
"We're fallowing up with the MTA to find out why the seats were removed," said Elizabeth Lorris Ritter, community liaison for Espaillat. "We have not heard back yet, but would like to ensure that the agency provides appropriate amenities for all straphangers."
By Carla Zanoni, DNAinfo.com
Follow Carla on Twitter @carlazanoni
