Two men stabbed to death, and a third man badly injured on the 2 train at 5 am Monday, according to NY1.

Police say Darnell Morel, 24, and Ricardo Williams, 24, were killed following an altercation with another group.

One of the men had a bag of trash and tossed it out the door as the train stopped at 14th Street. The trash struck one of four men boarding the train at that stop — and he pulled a knife, according to an eyewitness. Police stopped the train at the Houston Street station.

No weapon was recovered.

This week, service cuts were announced, but months before the MTA implements widespread transit cuts, the  agency has been already cutting on staff with fewer back-up drivers to save money, according to union officials and bus drivers, Gothamist said.

Today, Transit Blogger reported that the MTA officially announced the hiring of Robert E. Foran as the new Chief Financial Officer. Foran will replace Gary Dellaverson who retired in December. We wish him the best of luck, with handling the gigantic task on his desk.

To read and see more about who was on Madison Avenue this Wednesday, see our live coverage, round-up and slideshow.

Hundreds gathered in midtown on Wednesday, and waited for the MTA board to vote on the long discussed cuts.

Here are some more images from the event we covered live

The approved service cuts are dominating MTA news today.  We covered the event live, but if you want to see what the Queens Courier, the New York Post and the Daily News are saying, go right ahead.

The Post calls it the worst cuts in 35 years.

Speaking of history, Heater Haddon wrote a great amNY article about straps disappearing from the New York Transit system now that the Roosevelt Island Tramway  — the last place in the NYC transit system where one could find a real-life strap — is being renovated.  The term Straphanger, however, will not go so easily.

Also, our colleague at SecondAvenueSagas.com wrote a great post on the 110 year anniversary of the groundbreaking for the for the original IRT 1 line.  Ironic that that day — March 24th — coincides with the votes for service reduction.

At the MTA headquarters in Midtown earlier today, the public was given a final chance to persuade the transit agency’s board not to make real the proposed cuts to subway and bus service throughout the city.

After weeks of public hearings, hundreds of individual testimonies and hours of discussion, the MTA board finally voted 11-2 to pass the cuts this afternoon.

Although the two rooms in the MTA headquarters on Madison Ave were packed with reporters and hopeful straphangers, the vote ultimately passed in an anti-climatic calling for “yea”s and “nay”s. The meeting quickly dissolved after the cuts were announced.

MTA Chairman Jay Walder, who sat through hours of hearings in each of the five boroughs and was the target for much of the public’s criticism, gave a short press conference where he talked about more challenges for the MTA in the near future. Asked about whether or not state legislators should–and would–come to the MTA’s rescue, Walder sounded leery.

“I think the state always has the ability to provide resources to the MTA. Obviously you have to look at the state’s ability to do that in the context of the $9 billion shortfall that they have at the state level,” Walder told reporters. “I think many people spoke today about the fact that they were not optimistic about that. I think it’s appropriate that the MTA has taken the actions that it has taken.”

For  more, see our live coverage

— Dana Rapoport and Colby Hamilton

We brought you the breaking news last night about the elimination of the V train. The M train will be picking up the slack but some Lower Manhattan stops will eliminated from the M route as well as part time service to South Brooklyn. The City Room at The New York Times has more.

Some homes near 94th Street along the Second Avenue subway route had been deemed unsafe–residents will soon have to move while construction continues. 1010 WINS spoke to some of the 28 residents who will have to move.

According to The New York Post, the MTA has cut back on new signage due to its budget woes.

Customers heading east from Queens might be losing a Long Island Rail Road route come this fall. 27east has more on service cuts in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

On Wednesday, the MTA will be voting on service cuts. The NYCtracks.com team will be live blogging from the board meeting tomorrow. The meeting starts at 9:30 a.m., stay tuned for up to the minute information.

The 7 train is making its way to the West Side of Manhattan—slowly but surely.

In February, Mayor Michael Bloomberg toured the future site of the 34^th Street & 11^th Avenue station. Tunnel boring machines are currently making their way to 42^nd Street where they will meet a currently unused subway tunnel.

Tunnel boring machines at the north and south tubes

The 7-line currently ends at 42^nd Street-Times Square. However, there has recently been much attention brought to what has been called the “West Side Extension.”

The project was given the green light in 2007 with an expected completion date of 2013. According to the NY Post, an independent engineer’s report finds that the project could be delayed until 2014.

Some are saying that the west side extension of the 7 train is barely an extension. Original plans called for a station at 41^st Street and 11^th Avenue but that station was scrapped shortly before the project began.

The Keyplan for the 7 train extensions

The new station at 34^th Street and 11^th Avenue will serve the Jacob K. Javits Center. It has been reported that an extra station would have cost the city $450 million. The price tag for the extension and single station was $1.14 billion in 2007, according to City Room. The current price tag is $2.1 billion. The new station will include platform doors which will cut down on track garbage and act as a safety feature.

–Walter Smith-Randolph

The MTA’s finance committee has passed a truckload of bus and train cuts meant to reduce the transit agency’s $800 million budget shortfall, NY1 is reporting. The savings package now goes to the full MTA board for final approval. That vote is expected Wednesday morning.

The proposal got a thumbs up from the financial committee with just one member voting no.

The revised plan approved last night is a slightly smaller version of the mega-cuts that the MTA had been considering. Some cuts were taken off the table. And the MTA decided to delay its vote on the controversial proposal to drop free and reduced-fare student MetroCards.

The MTA hast started pulling back on the massive cuts at the center of its plan to reduce an $800 million deficit this year. Among the changes: service cuts to the M22 and the S60 (a tiny, but important route, that we covered last month) will be less severe.

The revised plan will be on the table at the board meeting on Wednesday, when the budget cut plan is scheduled for vote. What won’t be on the table – the controversial plan to cut free and reduced-fare MetroCards for students. As we told you last week, Chairman Walder agreed to delay the action on that proposal.

Check back with NYCTracks.com on Wednesday for live information on the long-awaited MTA budget-cut vote.

But one cut wasn’t spared. It looks like the V-train’s D-Day is still approaching.

Also in the news:

They’re fun, urban décor. But they’re also illegal. NYC The Blog reports that a longtime shopkeeper was busted Friday for selling subway signs.

At least one public hearing has resulted in change at the MTA. The transit agency has agreed to investigate the African burial ground beneath the 126th Street bus depot, according to DNAinfo.