It was a busy news day for the MTA!

The transit agency released its station-level ridership data for 2009. The busiest stations: Times Square – 42nd, Grand Central – 42nd, 34th – Herald Square. The emptiest: Aqueduct Racetrack, Beach 105th Street on the A and the Shuttle, and Broad Channel — also on the A and the Shuttle.

Dozens of laypeople have gotten their hands on the MTA’s universal keys to subway gates, the Daily News reports. The revelation comes after cops caught a 25-year-old man charging people a discounted rate to pass through the gates with his key.

Transit apps are on the rise, reports amNY. The new technology will give riders a wealth of data on the city’s transit system. Commuters said they would especially like a program that will tell them exactly when the next train will arrive. But unfortunately, there is no app for that, yet.

East side residents are taking aim at the Second Avenue subway project, again. They say the construction has created a rat problem, according to the Wall Street Journal. But a contractor hired by the MTA says a nearby abandoned building is to blame.

A transit worker died after slipping on wet tracks and falling onto the third rail, the Daily News reports.

The Wall Street Journal’s New York edition launched today with a step-by-step guide on proper MetroCard swipe technique.

Ipods, MP3 players, cellphones and other portable music devices allow straphangers to have their own personal soundtrack while riding on the subway. Do you ever wonder what your fellow commuter is listening to? The NYCTracks.com team caught up with a few commuters to see what they were listening to.

-Walter Smith-Randolph

Today on the MTA roundup – not only important  transit headlines – but also entertaining transportation news.

amNY brings us the latest promise from the subway’s new chief, cleaning up the subways. Literally.

The Violation Report presents a new endeavor to try and enforce subway etiquette. It started with warning signs, and now, Gothamist reports, you can print at home actual tickets to give to anyone whose not behaving properly underground.

The subway etiquette campaign, by artist Jason Shelowitz has been posted in subways across the city (risking a $25 fine) deals, among other things with eating, preaching and nail clipping underground.

There are very few sights and sounds in the city that will make New Yorkers pause. Very little things that will make us forget about our next destination.

Colin Huggins playing a consul piano underground is one of them.

“I was trying to make people stop. In a big city like New York, in order to do that you need to create some kind of a spectacle,” said Huggins, 32, who started playing two years ago.

“Having a real piano in the subway is one way to do that.”

I stopped even though I was rushing (on a deadline), bundled with tons of equipment, tired and hungry. I have no idea how long I lingered in Union Square that evening, but I know I wasn’t the only one.

Shortly after he started bringing his piano underground, he brought 4-5 tap dancers and a drummer. Now, he gets a lot of attention playing in many different subway stations.

Before he was the “Crazy Piano Guy” playing in the subway, he was accompanying the American Ballet Theater, playing in Avery Fisher Hall and at the Metropolitan Opera in Lincoln Center. Despite the challenges, pushing a 250-pound piano up and down the streets, down the elevator of the subway stations, he much rather perform in the subway over playing in the pit of the huge, monumental venues.

“I don’t like it, people are generally falling asleep. One of the best ways to look at a performance is look at the audience,” he said.

“[In Avery Fisher Hall] I don’t feel the same connection with the audience the way I feel when I’m playing in the subway or in the park. I feel like I have more direct control on how I move people, I look at the people in front of me, I look at the cloths they’re wearing and try to think of what music they want to hear.”

Classically trained, currently the music director of the Joffrey Ballet School, Huggins carries a piano across the streets, parks and subway terminals of New York City. He pushes one of the six pianos he owns and stores in three different storage units across the city in the snow, rain or shine. Actually, when it shines, you are more likely to see pushing his piano to the park.

“When you have that moment when you say, no, I can’t do this, this is too crazy,” he said as he was checking one of the piano’s wheels that recently broke.

“If you’re trying to create something that would really get peoples attention, your first reaction has to be: there’s no way I’m gonna do that.”

A slideshow of a few classical moments in Huggins’ day

And a video of the Union Square craziness

— Dana Rapoport

As part of the recently announced cuts to services, the MTA will be completely eliminating the last two local bus lines to connect the city’s most populous borough with its most popular one (at least for tourists). The B51 and B39 lines, which run over the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges, respectively, are scheduled to make their last runs on June 25, 2010.  Some 900 commuters a day will be affected just by the closure of the B51 alone, some more than others.  The buses on the lines provide transportation to a relatively large number of disabled and elderly passengers who can’t or won’t use the subway to move between boroughs.  Guest reporter Chika Moses talks to affected commuters and union officials.

— Christopher F. Schuetze

A woman 32 weeks pregnant was fined $75 for moving between cars on a No. 1 train stopped at a Times Square station earlier this month. She told the New York Post that she was looking for a seat on a jam-packed train during her afternoon commute. Her story begged the question: why is a pregnant woman looking for a seat?

NYCTracks.com braved the crowds of the Times Square evening commute to find out who subway riders will and won’t stand up for. Do young children get precedence overly elderly train riders? What about pregnant women? Do they get the seat instead of the guy carrying two fists full of shopping bags? And should a young man give his seat up to a woman in heels at the end of the work day?

Almost everyone we talked to said they regularly stood up for fellow subway riders in need. But those needy travelers tell a different story. When they board the train, suddenly everyone is sleeping. Hmmmm….

– Simone Sebastian

Defunct toll booths on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge started coming down Monday after more than two decades of uselessness, reports silive.com. Borough President James P. Molinaro commemorates the event by evoking President Reagan’s call to tear down the Berlin Wall.

Underground cell phone snatchings are on the rise in subway systems in Boston and Washington D.C. The New York Times says public transit officials are concerned that improved cell service on the trains exacerbates the problem.

NY1 reports the latest tally on bus stop cuts – 611. The means replacing 8600 route maps, the news outlet notes.

Turns out, if you beat up your supervisor, you’ll lose your job. The New York Post explains how an MTA bus driver learned that lesson this week.

There’s a lot of action on 42nd street and 6 Ave. No matter what season, day or fashion week it is.
But there’s something happening under Bryant Park as well, and unlike many mainstream exhibition spaces, to be able to see this work, you must move.

“Only by moving you see something happening. Not just shake your head left and right, but actually move about, change perspective to see the animation video,” says artist Eyal Ohana, one of the creators of Bryant Park in Motion.

In a city when everyone is in constant motion, Joshua Spodek, together with Ohana and three more NYU Tich students created the video installation in a busy public space; The 42nd St. Bryant Park subway station.
An LCD screen with 54 frames, compressed one next to the other in a way the viewer can’t really see them.

“Once you move, the light breaks and the images expand so you can actually see the movie,” Ohana tried to break the complicated mechanism down.

Yes, among other things Joshua Spodek is a physicist, and his company Submedia creates animated displays for transit systems. After producing successful ads that flicker through train tunnels and platform from Tokyo to Grand-Central, Spodek wanted to create a non-for profit project for New Yorkers.

Spodek came to the NYU Tisch School of the Arts Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) with the idea and the technology to recruit students that will provide the content.

“You can see simultaneously in one frame what’s happening underground and above the surface in Bryant Park,” said Ohana. “Above there are ice-skating, people, fashion shows, buildings, and an imaginary world underneath, with animals and mold.”

The active viewer

In a way, the young artist is presenting his installation in one of the city’s largest galleries, where thousands of people walk in and out of every day.

“The most interesting thing about this kind of work, is watching people’s reactions. You see people moving in different ways,” Ohana said.

Continue Reading

If you’re planing on going out tonight and drinking, taking the train while intoxicated might cost you up to $100.

amNY’s Heather Haddon warns commuters from breaking a law that they probably violated or seen someone violating a few time before on the train.

And don’t forget to check out NYCTracks Radio show with Haddon and Second Ave. Sagas’ Ben Kabak for more MTA news.

Believe it or not, the big thing in subway news today is the discovery of an emergency exit camouflaged as a Brooklyn Brownstone.  The exit in question – which has existed in its current incarnation since at least 1991 – was described by the Brooklyn Eagle before the blogosphere provided its address and pictures.

The whole idea of a secret passageway that leads from your average residential street to the awesome network of the MTA is pretty appealing, and apparently MPIX thinks it is real news too.  Check out their coverage.

There is also news of the first real-time bus locator system that will be tested through August on the M16 and M34 bus lines.  Soon your dinner-date will be able to follow your bus on Google map in real time, and gone will be another excuse for tardiness.