The February edition of the MTA’s monthly television show, Transit Transit (Saturdays, 3:30 p.m., WNYE 25) , has a segment about Marvin Franklin, the NYC Transit Authority track inspector who was killed last year in an on the job accident in Brooklyn. The piece talks with some artists who knew Franklin and his co-workers and covers the opening of an exhibition of his work at the New York City Transit Museum in December. In case......

Whoa: A NYC Transit worker who was walking home in Harlem was attacked by a group of four men. One stabbed him, but 5 train conductor Maurice Parks managed to pull out his own knife and retaliate, stabbing one 28-year-old in the chest and a 22-year-old in the stomach. The four men, who approached the transit worker near 139th and St. Nicholas Avenue, were trying to rob him. The 22-year-old and a 15-year-old attempted......

The NYPD may have the anti-graffiti task force, but with many graffiti crimes perpetrated in the subway tunnels, the NYC Transit Authority has created its own anti-graffiti team. The Daily News tagged along with the Eagle Team, a "surveillance squad quietly formed three months ago." The Eagle Team members, which include many former NYPD detectives as well as an ex-U.S. marine, inspect and patrol subway tunnels and yards for potential taggers. Vandals engrossed in......

Riders were stranded on the platform and in subway cars when a Brooklyn-bound L train stalled under the East River just after 8PM. Reader tokyohanna, who took this photograph of people waiting, wrote at the time, "There is a train stalled between first and Bedford. They stopped trains in both directions. A sea of people is on the platform and we can barely walk." amNew York reports that the train had a mechanical failure close......

After a video of a man being harassed and beaten by a group of teens was publicized by The Smoking Gun, some wonder if the tape is real. The main reason why most people suspect it could be staged is because the teen who filmed the incident is an aspiring filmmaker. Seventeen-year-old Kadejra Holmes told The Smoking Gun she didn't have anything to do with the attack and then took the video off YouTube. Her......

The New York City Transit Authority, the MTA division that oversees the subways and buses, will be now split up the management of the subway lines and instead assign a manager to deal with a line or a number of lines. The NY Times spoke to NYC Transit president Howard Roberts Jr.:The goal, Mr. Roberts said, is to have 24 subway lines operating in many ways as 24 self-contained railroads. (The number may vary,......

Yesterday afternoon, an Access-A-Ride car crashed into a tree and light pole in Queens, killing an 80-year-old passenger and injuring the driver and two passengers. The car was on the Juniper Boulevard North near 62nd Avenue; the driver apparently swerved to avoid an oncoming car. One witness told WABC 7 the accident was "pretty bad," noting, "The whole top [of the car] is gone." The Access-A-Ride driver had a valid license and passed a Breathalyzer......

To the surprise of no one, New Yorkers are not in favor of the MTA's proposed fare-and-toll hikes. Residents, transit advocates and elected officials have been speaking at the MTA's public hearings all week, raising a number of questions about the MTA's service, the state's and city's contributions to the MTA, and effect it will have on riders. The Manhattan public hearing reminded of us Festivus, or at least its "public airing of grievances"......

Passengers on a PATH train from Newark to the World Trade Center station had a shaky ride this afternoon. The train started to shudder from side to side, causing a motorman to stop the train. WNBC reports that at least 30 people were injured, with "as many as 10 passengers...taken off the train on backboards." Hours earlier, a train on the M line derailed at Chambers Street. There were no passengers, just transit workers, and......

Kudos to The Real Deal for coaxing DUMBO-based designer Robert Scarano out of the shadows. One of the city's most reviled architects, Scarano has been scrutinized by Department of Buildings for his safety and zoning violations. Following a summer outcry, the agency issued stop-work orders on some Scarano sites. He's even being investigated by the NYS Department of Education, which oversees licensed architects, but there is currently no record of disciplinary action. Overseeing a whopping......

Ah, some details about the robbery that prompted the 4/5/6 subway lines to be essentially shut down during rush hour. Yesterday, we heard that an armed robbery suspected was in the tunnel between 116th And 125th Street along the Lexington Avenue sign, so NYC Transit shut down power to the line so the police could purse the thief. The Post reports that a "thug robbed a street-cart food vendor on 116th Street and Lexington Avenue......

Yesterday we visited the New York Transit Museum’s new exhibit “Show Me the Money: From the Turnstile to the Bank" which details the fare cycle, from buying the fare instrument to the sorting of the money. If you haven’t been to the museum, it is located in a disused 1930s vintage IND subway station in Brooklyn Heights. The new exhibit was perfectly placed in the museum, next to the display of vintage turnstiles and......

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn gave a speech at an Association for a Better New York event yesterday that seemed to be a preview into Quinn's 2009 mayoral campaign. According to CityRoom, the speech "seemed to be steered toward showing Ms. Quinn to be a responsible, knowledgeable fiscal heavyweight who would be an effective watchdog of New York City’s financial health." Quinn presented five ideas, including stronger oversight of independent agencies like the NYC Transit......

amNewYork's cover story, "Grand Funk Railroad," takes a look at the special scent of subway stations. Subway smells were vividly described as being "rancid excrement" or "rotting garbage and vomit." Smelly subway platforms - and trains - are nothing new, but the New York City Transit Authority is adding 350 more cleaners to help fight the grossness; amNY reports the cleaners will "be able to respond to specific stenches faster." Bill Henderson, head MTA's......

Holy Tornado, Brooklyn! Reader Jeanne just emailed us with this observation: I live in Kensington, Brooklyn and I think that a tornado just passed through. Have you heard any news about a tornado from anyone else? Around 6:30am there were heavy rains, thunder and lightning when all of a sudden the wind got really loud and we could hear stuff smashing into the house. It was all just 30 seconds or so but now......

The NYC Transit Authority issued a report about separate incidents that led to two track worker fatalities in April. According to the NY Times, much of the blame is placed on an "organizational culture" where "critical safety rules were not practiced in day-to-day operations." On April 24, Daniel Boggs was hit by a southbound 3 train at the Columbus Circle station when he was in the down express tracks of the 1/2/3 line. The 3......

More updates below, but here's a summary so far (8:20PM): A steam explosion occurred on East 41st and Lexington Avenue (41st between Lex and Third) just before 6PM - right during the evening rush hour. The NYPD does not think it was a terrorist attack. It appears that there is a hole about 25' in diameter with a red tow truck in the center. One person has died (possibly from cardiac arrest) and there......

In non-report card 7 train news, the MTA is now offering express 7 service after Mets games during weeknight games. And the service will start after tomorrow's Mets-Cincinnati Reds game. Post-game express service will last an hour, with trains leaving Willets Point-Shea Stadium every six minutes. Trips to Queensboro Plaza will now take 13 minutes (from 19 when taking the local) and trips to Times Square will now take 25 minutes (from 31). MTA Executive......

Yesterday, the NYC Transit Authority gave 7 train riders the chance to tell them what they think about the 7 line and service with the first ever subway/bus report cards. NYCTA president Howard Roberts Jr. hopes that eventually all subway and bus riders will be able to grade their lines so the agency can work with customers' suggestions. The Post got these thoughts from riders: NYC Transit spokesman - and 7 train rider -......

The NYC Transit Authority may not be able to figure out which subway stations to paint after more than seven months, but it's taken only two months to launch the report card initiative! Back in May, NYCTA president Howard Roberts Jr. said that he wanted to know what subway and bus riders thought of their respective lines and announced that the 7 line's straphangers would get first crack at filling out report cards. The Post......

The most hilarious thing we read today was that the NYC Transit Authority has "loading guidelines" for passengers. In a story about how subways are extremely packed, the NY Times offered this gem: Crowding is so bad that on the 4, 5, 6 and L lines, trains during the morning rush exceed the transit agency’s loading guidelines, which posit that every rider should have at least a three-square-foot space to stand in (that translates......

With subway ridership at a new high in decades and many more riders on the way if the city's forecasts are true, the MTA has been thinking of ways to increase subway capacity. And Howard Roberts, president of the NYC Transit Authority which operates the subways and buses, says that one solution could be to extend subway platform and add two more train cars to the existing ten. Roberts told NY1's Bobby Cuza that trying......

Yesterday we visited the New York City Transit Authority’s Corona Maintenance Shop in Queens as part of a New York City Transit Museum tour. The Corona Maintenance Shop serves the 7 train and its fleet of 409 passenger cars along with 10 work cars. The shop runs twenty four hours a day, seven days a week and has 163 MTA employees who get 32 trains ready every day for straphangers. The new facility, put......

New NYC Transit Authority president Howard H. Roberts, who replaced Lawrence Reuter just a few weeks ago, is apparently a man who doesn't mind being raked over the coals. And by that, we mean he appreciates the public's opinion so much that he wants straphangers to grade the subways and buses. Eliciting complaints from New Yorkers might seem like an invitation to an avalanche of abuse, but in a NY Times article today, Roberts doesn't......

Reader Steve said he heard a rumor that the NYC Transit Authority was "testing some type of new device that detects trains and warns workers via a clip on unit." And it turns out the rumor was true. The Post reports that the MTA started testing the ProTracker. This is how the ProTran1, which makes it, describes the device:The ProTran1 ProTracker Train Transceiver is designed to be mounted in the cab of a train and......

The Brooklyn DA's office arrested four NYC Transit Authority workers for trying to bilk the Workers' Compensation system of thousands of dollars for "injuries they either never sustained or grossly exaggerated." For instance, there's Valerie Scroggins, a bus driver who said that she suffered a shoulder injury last September. Between September and January of this year, she received $13,348.98 in checks for her injury. But in November, she took a fateful trip to Europe. MTA......

The NYC Transit Authority, a division of the MTA, resumed all subway track and tunnel work starting today. All non-essential work was stopped after the second transit worker death in five days occurred on Sunday. NYC TA president Howard Roberts and Transit Workers Union president Roger Toussaint have been working together to improve safety. Among the safety improvements is that supervisors will now have radios (it still boggles the mind that they didn't have them......

After two transit-worker deaths in five days, NYC Transit Authority President Howard Roberts wrote what the NY Times called an "emotional letter" to the thousands of transit workers. Referring to his 20-year career in the United States Army, the transit president, Howard H. Roberts Jr., recalled the time he served as a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division, where staying alive was a matter of following safety rules. “The only difference between being a paratrooper......

The NYC Transit Authority continued its investigation of Sunday's fatal accident involving a track worker and an oncoming G train. "Non-essential" track work has been suspended as the agency looks at its safety protocol. NYC Transit Authority president Howard Roberts suggested work should have been suspended earlier, given that another transit worker was killed last week, "If I had any idea we would be here this afternoon on this subject, clearly we would have......

A subway transit worker was killed and another was seriously injured when a G train hit them at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn Station yesterday afternoon. It seems that Marvin Franklin, a 22-year-veteran, was fatally hit when he and 37-year-old Jeffrey Hill went to pick up a dolly on another track. The G train's operator did see the men, but could not brake in time; Franklin was dragged by the train, while Hill was hit but is......