In Union Square this morning. The MTA is making millions off that extra buck you pay for a new metrocard. We've got reaction

— kristen shaughnessy (@kshaughnessy2) May 13, 2013

Each Metrocard costs the MTA about six cents to make. Since March, they've charged you a dollar for each one, because it's not "green." Because… that's your fault. That they make Metrocards. Yeah.

So the other 94¢ the MTA makes on each card goes to planting a baby tree in Queens. Because that'd be GREEEEEN. Just kidding, it's all profit. The idea of this having to do with the environment is as fake as the scammy carbon [...]

Thirty years ago—at the height of New York City's "War on Graffiti," and in an act of faith utterly incommensurate with the city's public demonization of graffiti writers—a group of teenagers named SHY 147, DAZE, MIN and DURO met with MTA official Richard Ravitch, and proposed a deal. Give the writers of New York City one train line to adorn with their vibrant aerosol murals, and they would leave the rest alone. Let them paint for six months, then let the public vote on the merits of their contribution.

Ravitch suggested that if the writers wanted to contribute, he would give them all brooms, and hostilities resumed. The subway's [...]

After working around the clock for days and testing systems all night, the first G trains for passengers started rolling at 8:55 am.

— MTA (@MTAInsider) November 7, 2012

Welcome back to New York City, isolated communities of Greenpoint and Fort Greene and Clinton Hill and near-Bed Stuy and South Williamsburg!

Here are just 17 seconds of the worst non-dentistry-related three minutes of my life. Did you enjoy broing down with rockstar chefs and hacky sacks at the Great GoogaMooga Festival in Prospect Park yesterday? Did you enjoy standing in endless lines? Did you enjoy it all so much that you became… whatever these dudes are? I considered derailing the train with my mind to save Manhattan as we left York St. on the F but instead I just changed cars at East Broadway like an adult.

Ugh, the 4 train, of course.

As the poet said: how many trains must pass a man by until they call him a cab?

Here is an article about the woman who created the thing that you stare at on the train to prevent yourself from making eye contact with your fellow human beings.

25. C

24. S (Franklin Avenue Shuttle)

23. R

22. G

21. A

20. 7

19. 1

18. J

Gene Russianoff, staff attorney of the Straphangers Campaign, noted that in a recent survey riders reported seeing rats on about 1 in 10 subway platforms. He compared seeing rats in the subway to seeing “an abandoned lot” or a broken window. “It doesn’t give you a sense of confidence that people in charge of the system are really in charge of it,” Mr. Russianoff said.

Really? We're going all broken windows on rats in the subway? That is some total baloney! As much as I'm not a fan of people eating kung pao chicken on the subway, banning subway eating has almost nothing to do with [...]

What are you doing at 10:17 p.m. on Friday night? There's a PARTY TRAIN with your name on it! "On Friday Night, June 25, 2010, the W Train-the bastard stepchild of the BMT-Astoria Line-will make its final run from Ditmars Boulevard to Whitehall Street, a victim of the MTA's 2010 Budget Cuts. On the final night of the W, and on its last fateful ride, come celebrate with us as we commemorate the short, complicated and often pathetic life of our beloved W."

"The Municipal Transportation Agency—and residents' love-hate relationship with the notoriously late and overcrowded public transit system—has been the bane of many mayors, with current Chronicle columnist and former Mayor Willie Brown once famously saying he would fix Muni in 100 days. That was in 1995." —Even though San Francisco has the only real public-transit system of the Western United States, it's still kind of a mess. It's also what New Yorkers talk about during the three months they spend shivering in the frozen dark of winter: "Oh but that Muni system, that's why I could never live in a beautiful coastal city where it never gets cold but ladies can [...]