And others called on fellow straphangers to react — and act.
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Even so, some straphangers reported smooth, on-time service, confounding expectations.
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In August, a straphangers' handle was available on its website for $211.
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GENE RUSSIANOFF, BROOKLYN The writer is staff attorney for the Nypirg Straphangers Campaign.
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Boîte Merchants' Gate invites straphangers to forget that they are inside the subway system.
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JAQI COHEN, NEW YORK The writer is campaign coordinator for the Nypirg Straphangers Campaign.
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"Straphangers Go Berserk After Woman Tosses Bugs in Subway Car," The New York Post reported.
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Gene Russianoff, the longtime leader of the Straphangers Campaign, has criticized the authority's rising debt.
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Why do straphangers have to tolerate stalemate and dysfunction while drivers pay no congestion fees?
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That aside, the recent news hit has a few kernels of good news for impacted straphangers.
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Less tries to listen, among the straphangers, for Italian; he must find the flight to Turin.
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Tension was particularly high in Manhattan as straphangers were making the workday trek back to Brooklyn.
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"Here, the definition is very unclear," said Gene Russianoff, the staff lawyer for the Straphangers Campaign.
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Starting today, NYC straphangers can use Google Assistant to find out the ETA of the next train.
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But the Metropolitan Transportation Authority encourages straphangers to check its website for updates about delays or changes.
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And in early June, straphangers on an F train were stalled underground without AC for about 45 minutes.
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The economic toll of increasing mass transit disruptions is difficult to calculate but clearly huge, as are straphangers' frustrations.
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"Greta," the movie about what happens to Frankie (as she's called), can stand as a cautionary tale for straphangers.
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Yet, many of the passing commuters and late-night straphangers likely never noticed such a scuffle of that small scale.
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The intensive track and signal overhaul is the cause of the original "Summer of Hell," the moniker reappropriated by straphangers.
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The artist created two designs emblazoned with her trademark white-on-red text, posing difficult questions to New York's straphangers.
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The Straphangers Campaign, a consumer advocacy organization that lobbies the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for improvements, is a particular source of ire.
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"The subway system's strength is also its weakness," said Gene Russianoff, staff attorney for the Straphangers Campaign, a rider advocacy group.
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He is accused of firing six shots at close range into a rival gang member's head in front of horrified straphangers.
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Instead, the authors say traces of bed bug DNA may have come into the subway stations on straphangers' shoes or other belongings.
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Straphangers concerned about their commutes will have the opportunity to meet with M.T.A. and transportation officials who can assist with route planning.
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Dr. Salzinger's death was a tragic end to the everyday jostle of straphangers who often move about the city elbow to elbow.
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That can make them frustrating for disabled subway riders who depend on them and an unappealing option for straphangers who do not.
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Unfortunately, they probably won't do anything to eliminate the unique sights and smells straphangers have grown accustomed to on their daily rides.
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The MTA has kept its repair plans under wraps for months, leaving straphangers serviced by the L train anxious about their future commutes.
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Oddly, the argumentative subway rider is also filming the incident on her own cell phone while she yells expletives at her fellow straphangers.
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While some straphangers embrace passengers of all species, others bristle at having to share a car with those of the four-legged variety.
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Gene Russianoff, the longtime leader of the Straphangers Campaign, a rider advocacy group, said he did not think a ban would be enforceable.
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"He should do more because it's his city," said Gene Russianoff, a longtime leader of one of the advocacy groups, the Straphangers Campaign.
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In 2012, Superstorm Sandy flooded the 92-year-old Canarsie tunnel, which takes straphangers under the East River, with 7 million gallons of seawater.
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"Transit advocates are from Mars, and those who are obsessed with transit are from Venus," Gene Russianoff, the staff attorney for the Straphangers, said.
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Hundreds of straphangers were recently stranded on a steamy F train in Manhattan that left them struggling to pry open the doors to escape.
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Sweet Jane's, a bar near the M line, is offering a number of "F the M train" cocktails to help ease the pain for straphangers.
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Straphangers who want to experience the rolling nightmare that is New York City's subway system from the comfort of their own home are in luck.
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Gene Russianoff, the longtime leader of the Straphangers Campaign, an advocacy group, lives in Park Slope, where kvetching about the F train's decline is common.
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Straphangers scowl, armpits loom too close to heads, and what is that fellow in the back doing with his finger so close to his nose?
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Gene Russianoff, the longtime leader of the Straphangers Campaign, a riders advocacy group, has witnessed many of the false starts and delays over the years.
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Metropolitan Diary The air conditioning on the arriving downtown No. 6 train was working just enough that a smattering of straphangers was visible through the window.
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With straphangers living through an especially bad stretch in MTA service over the past couple of years, for instance, the Voice's subway coverage has been especially vital.
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If the MTA agrees to this project, it would be the first time New York City straphangers could use their smartphones to pay for a subway ride.
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While some have criticized the line as puny, Gene Russianoff, the longtime leader of the Straphangers Campaign, a riders' advocacy group, said it was an important start.
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A few subways riders in New York City were treated to an unexpected Thanksgiving treat when fellow straphangers busted out a full-course meal on Sunday night.
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New York's public transportation can be a complete and utter shitshow, with subway straphangers having to brave fitness-crazed rats, Biblical flooding, and honest-to-god ceiling collapses.
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To highlight just how bad bus service in the city can be, the Straphangers Campaign, an advocacy group, handed out its annual "pokey" and "schleppie" awards on Tuesday.
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At least one member of the advisory board, Gene Russianoff, the longtime leader of the Straphangers Campaign, was skeptical of the proposal to remove seats from subway cars.
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"There is nothing in it for the riders until these two leaders come to a deal," said Gene Russianoff, the chief spokesman for the Straphangers Campaign, an advocacy group.
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The MTA stressed the lengths it went to engage with riders who would be effected by the shutdown, including "four large-scale, interactive community meetings" attended by "hundreds" of straphangers.
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Gene Russianoff, the longtime leader of the Straphangers Campaign, a rider advocacy group, complained that the process took too long and that the governor's funding plan was not concrete enough.
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But perhaps his best known mark on New York is the 1972 "diagram" of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority subway system, which earned praise from aesthetes and bemusement from some straphangers.
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It's not clear whether it was Cyrus' voice or the pair's lackluster disguises that gave them away – but straphangers quickly gathered around the performers with their phones recording all the action.
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The patience and ingenuity of straphangers are constants in this city; the hipsters and Hasidim of Williamsburg and Brooklynites down the line to Canarsie will be no different in devising workarounds.
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"Although many straphangers face long commutes, those who work in the city's health care sector experience unique challenges," wrote Jonathan Bowles, the executive director of the Center for an Urban Future.
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The subway-line rankings, based on such categories as cleanliness, crowding, and frequency of service, come from the Straphangers Campaign, a project underwritten by the New York Public Interest Research Group.
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As the voice of the Straphangers Campaign, Mr. Russianoff, who holds no elected office, has become well known to New Yorkers as the city's premier advocate for and champion of riders.
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See: Subway's Slide in Performance Leaves Straphangers Fuming Two main culprits are often the source of delays: overcrowding that keeps trains stuck in stations, and aging infrastructure that is failing more frequently.
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But for thousands of straphangers and drivers who live near the water and who have become inured to the indignities, delays and crowding of land-based commuting, ferries will be a blessing.
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At least, that's the takeaway from the New York Transit Museum's new exhibition on subway etiquette, which displays a collection of posters and videos from around the world prodding straphangers to behave better.
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In the trailer the streaming service dropped on Friday, we get to see Williams venturing out on Tinder dates, telling straphangers to stop manspreading, and dancing in various places one typically doesn't dance in.
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"People aren't that civil right now, but six months or a year ago they didn't give you their seat either," said Gene Russianoff, the staff lawyer for the Straphangers Campaign, a rider advocacy group.
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"The medical examiner and NYPD are committed to reducing our response times even further to ensure both the humane treatment of the deceased and the health of subway workers and straphangers," Tarek said in a statement.
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But it's doubtful it's return will be greeted with anything more than a shrug from the city's cynical straphangers, many of whom are growing tired of waiting for their delayed and congested commutes to magically improve.
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Starting Friday, straphangers sporting a Fitbit Charge 3 Special Edition, Versa Special Edition or Fitbit Ionic will be able to use their device to tap and pay for a ride at select subway stations and buses.
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As part of the MTA's $20 million plan to repair the nearly century-old transit system, it's now installing a solution so simple, it's amazing how this eluded us clueless straphangers this whole time: directional floor mats.
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That means straphangers will be able to use contactless bank cards, smart cards (like in Washington, DC's Metro system), or their own smartphones to pay for a subway or bus ride in as little as three years.
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When it seemed the end may have been near, the heavens opened yet again on Friday morning, dropping more water on the New York City region just in time for umbrella-less straphangers to be caught unawares.
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Mr. Russianoff and the Straphangers are members of a coalition, the Access-A-Ride Reform Group, that is lobbying the M.T.A. to embrace alternatives that could cost less and work better — "a winning combination," Mr. Russianoff notes.
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Not only do straphangers have to worry about bags of dead crabs, near-biblical swarms of crickets, or bloody newspapers joining their morning commute, but at this point they'd be lucky to catch a train running on time.
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However, with the way the subways have been running lately—stalling straphangers underground in sweaty cars for 45 minutes and suffering multiple derailments—it's not clear if companies would even want to attach their names to individual stations.
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The walk to the J stations could tack on significant time to many L train riders' commutes, and, in recent years, the line has slipped in performance according to report cards by the New York City Straphangers Campaign.
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The goal of the session, in the age of seemingly endless subway woes (and more subway woes, and more subway woes, and more subway woes), is to increase transparency and create a conversation between transit leadership and straphangers.
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But despite having a gratifyingly recognizable underground set by Donyale Werle (with costumes by Clint Ramos that include a showstopping dress fashioned from MetroCards), the production seldom makes the most of the familiar elements of the straphangers' world.
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As New York prepares to demolish the current Penn Station — one of the world's most-despised transit hubs — the artist's murals will remind straphangers of a bygone America that once engineered its infrastructure for ease, aesthetics, and scale.
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"We've gotten to the point where it's far more common for riders to experience subway delays each day than to not," said Jaqi Cohen, a campaign coordinator for the Straphangers' Campaign, a longstanding transit advocacy group, in a statement.
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"If Chairman Lhota needs money to fund his plan, he should ask the state to return those funds, not pull from the wallets of straphangers who already pay their fair share," said Austin Finan, a spokesman for the mayor.
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Mr. Cuomo has said he wants the next person to lead the authority to have development experience, but Gene Russianoff, the longtime leader of the Straphangers Campaign, an advocacy group, said that experience running train systems was more important.
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The New York subway system may seem like a nightmarish hellscape for straphangers forced to deal with derailments, delays, and plagues of dead crabs during their daily commutes, but apparently things are even worse for the subway employees behind the scenes.
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On July 17, an A train track fire during the morning rush sent shock waves to Upper West Side commuters; they took to social media to show the crowded conditions on nearby train lines as straphangers took alternative routes downtown.
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TfL has been on the vanguard of contactless fare payment, starting with the Oyster smart card in 2003 and then moving on to mobile ticketing, allowing straphangers to use Apple Pay and other services on their smartphones to pay for trips.
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What straphangers were told in the campaign was that in The Times's classified pages, jobs could be found for consultants, editors, engineers, gallerists, hospital recreation workers, motivation research psychologists, receptionists, sales representatives, secretaries, teachers, textile designers, truck drivers and vaudevillians.
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"The Train NYC 1984" is a collection of grainy, gritty and sometimes blurry photos of straphangers (when subway cars had strap handles to hold onto) dozing underneath vodka advertisements, interspersed with verses by poets like Allen Ginsberg and Gwendolyn Brooks.
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Sandler drew a pretty sizable crowd for being dressed in multiple jackets and wearing sunglasses underground, but a few stoic straphangers breezed right by him, perhaps failing to realize that the strange, hooded man singing about dicks was a major celebrity.
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Whether it's car-pooling office workers stuck for hours entering the Lincoln Tunnel, Lexington Avenue line straphangers faced with trains that are too crowded to enter, or M66 bus riders confronted with ever-slower crosstown travel times, the common thread is frustration.
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The Chasellas ski lift — an eight-minute glide above the mountainside — deposits straphangers at the Suvretta Hotel's Trutz Chalet, a lunchtime oasis of old-fashioned stone and timber at 2545,200 feet above sea level, with views over the whole of the Upper Engadine.
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There was no point, his aide said, in going to the scene, but the political possibilities seem quite clear to us: Show solidarity and empathy to straphangers who are his base, while tacitly reminding the world that this is somebody else's fault.
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Every summer, the New York City subway devolves into a complete and utter hellscape, a place where boiling hot trains stall for 45 minutes, loose crabs take over entire compartments, delays run rampant, cars derail, and straphangers are subjected to all kinds of unspeakable horrors.
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"It's as if the system is having a nervous breakdown, putting at risk all our city's great advantages: our economy, our environment and our mobility," said Gene Russianoff, the staff attorney for the Straphangers Campaign and the city's leading transit advocate for four decades.
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City Hall offered a muted reply to the budget on Saturday, with Eric Phillips, the mayor's press secretary, saying that the budget "appears to respond to the mayor's demands on behalf of the city's straphangers," in reference to plans that would protect subway funds and provide long-term revenue.
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Instead, for straphangers taking a bumpy ride on one of the old cars, they are like time machines transporting them back to an industrial past when the future of urban transit seemed full of possibility and potential — and a reminder of how long ago those days now seem.
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Less than three weeks ago — March 5 — de Blasio took a subway ride to show his confidence in the safety of the city's transportation system and his administration told the city's 4.3 million straphangers that they were safe riding in jam-packed subway cars as long as no one coughed or sneezed directly on them.
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Behold, the man, the myth, the lounger—couch guy: Sure, you could argue that barricading two subway doors with a massive leather couch and taking up enough space for at least ten straphangers isn't the most considerate move—but then again, I could argue that you're just jealous that's not you luxuriating on the 4 train.
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As it's now June, it was only a matter of time before the first nightmare of the season darkened the MTA's closing doors—and, voila, here it is, a cop who somehow thought this would be a good idea: According to Gothamist, the NYPD officer boarded the A train with his obnoxiously large scooter at the height of rush hour Thursday morning, taking up what looks to be about three straphangers' worth of space with the thing.
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The Straphangers Campaign is a New York City-based transit interest group that advocates on behalf of riders of public transport. The organization is part of the NYPIRG (New York Public Interest Research Group). The Straphangers Campaign's main spokesperson and staff attorney is Gene Russianoff. "For three decades, Gene Russianoff, the staff lawyer for the New York Public Interest Research Group’s Straphangers Campaign, has championed the rights of subway riders," according to a 2010 profile in The New York Times.
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The Pokey Awards, a product of the Straphangers Campaign, tells the public which bus is the slowest in the city. They have been announced annually since 2002. The Straphangers Campaign also conducts annual surveys checking the performance of all subway lines. Key factors include timeliness, reliability (service breakdowns), seating availability, clarity of announcements, and cleanliness (dirtiness is colloquially called "schmutz").
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Russianoff is a graduate of Brooklyn College and Harvard Law School, and has worked for New York Public Interest Research Group (Straphangers Campaign's parent organization) since his graduation from Harvard Law in 1978. In 1983, he was a Revson Fellow at Columbia University.
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Gene Russianoff is staff attorney and chief spokesman for the Straphangers Campaign, a New York City-based public transport advocacy group that focuses primarily on subway and bus services run by New York City Transit. At the same time, Russianoff has also served as a government reform advocate for NYPIRG. M42.
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They also formed the Committee to Save the Franklin Avenue Shuttle. The coalition included the Straphangers Campaign, a local church, local community boards and the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. They argued that subway station repair work occurred elsewhere, when no attention was paid to the Franklin Avenue Shuttle.
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In accordance with MTR press release, these new set of trains will be featured with improved lighting system, new dynamic route maps, double branched handrails and soft material for the straphangers. All train doors and coupler systems will be provided by Faiveley Transport. Coupler systems are automatic and semi-permanent couplers.
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A separate survey checks the performance of public pay telephones in subway stations. In 2006 the bus "Schleppie Awards" were given to the bus lines that rated worst in "bunching," with major gaps in service (essentially, amount of deviation from posted timetables). The bus in Manhattan "won", with 27.6% unreliability. The Straphangers Campaign also rates the subway each year in a report called State of the Subways Report Card, ranking each service from best to worst based on their performances in six categories.
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A Berkeley Daily Gazette review wrote of the film by saying "sheer brilliance rarely has been equalled" and praised the story, direction, and acting. The Morning Telegraphs review said that Subway Sadie would "delight the majority of straphangers" and that "it is what the boys call excellent box-office". The New York American review was similarly positive, describing it as "a light but charming comedy". In the New York World, the review described the film as "a consistently decent affair" which featured good direction by Santell.
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Many Manhattan and West Side residents did not want the inconvenience, traffic congestion and resource drain that they believed the Olympics would bring to the already overcrowded city. The New York Daily News reported that 59% of New Yorkers were not in favor of holding the Olympics in New York at all. In December 2004, the commuter advocacy groups Straphangers Campaign and Tri-State Transportation Campaign filed a lawsuit that challenged the city's estimate that 70% of stadium patrons would use mass transit or arrive on foot instead of driving. Many Jets fans wanted the stadium built, no matter what the cost.
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In 2008, Bedford Avenue was used by more than 6 million people, making it the 53rd most-used subway station in New York City and one of the busiest in Brooklyn. In 2017, approximately 9.6 million riders used this station. Growing passenger numbers along the L, partly influenced by Bedford Avenue station, have made the L train one of the most overcrowded in the system, a fact that has adverse effects on riders.‘L’ is for Likeable, Say Straphangers Brooklyn Eagle Retrieved August 7, 2009 In 2010, Bedford Avenue surpassed seven million entries for the first time in its history, receiving press for its particularly high weekend passenger volume.
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Gene Russianoff, of the New York Straphangers Campaign, says that the money was spent wisely – "Even normally grudging New Yorkers say he did a good job," says Russianoff. The clean-up campaign involving arresting fare dodgers and cleaning up graffiti is now regarded as a prelude to the citywide policy of "zero tolerance" enforced by Rudy Giuliani during his time as Mayor in the 1990s. In 1991 Kiley moved to a new role as President of the New York construction company Fischbach Corporation. He briefly held the role of chairman too before moving again to become President and CEO of the New York City Partnership in 1995.
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TSTC was launched in the early 1990s by a dozen New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut environmental and planning organizations that were alarmed by the mobility, economic, quality of life and environmental implications of worsening auto and truck dependence in the metropolitan area, and believed that the 1991 ISTEA federal transportation legislation created new opportunities to advocate for sustainable state transportation policy. Some of these founding organizations include Connecticut Fund for the Environment, Environmental Defense Fund, New Jersey Public Interest Research Group, Regional Plan Association, Scenic Hudson, and the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign. The Campaign acquired its own staff in 1993 and incorporated as an independent non-profit corporation in 1994. Tri-State has offices in New York City, Albany, NY and Camden, NJ.
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William Colton (born 1946) is an American politician who represents District 47 in the New York State Assembly, which comprises Bath Beach, Bensonhurst, Gravesend, Dyker Heights and Midwood. First elected to the Assembly in 1996, Colton currently serves as Vice-Chair of the Majority Conference and has previously served as Chair of the Legislative Commission on Solid Waste Management. Prior to entering the Assembly Colton worked as a teacher within the New York City public school system, serving as a UFT Chapter Chairperson for six of his eleven years in that occupation, and as a licensed attorney since 1979. Colton is the co-founder and organizer of the Bensonhurst Tenants Council, founder of the Bensonhurst Straphangers Committee, and served as an attorney in the lawsuit that successfully prevented the re-opening of the Southwest Brooklyn Incinerator.
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A Chelsea Piers-bound M23 SBS bus at Park Avenue in November 2017, shortly after Select Bus Service was implemented The M23 route has been traditionally crowded, with 4,862,343 riders in 2010 and 4,075,850 riders in 2018, or 15,000 riders a day. It is also among the city's slowest bus routes, running at an average of in 2000, and by 2015. In 2003, the Straphangers Campaign gave the M23 the "Pokey Award" because it ran slower than any other bus route in all of New York City, at an average speed of ; it also received that distinction in 2007 when it also ran at an average of , slightly faster than the average walking speed of . Rush hour bus headways on the M23 are supposed to be 4.5 to 5.5 minutes. A 2015 report found that half of the average M23 bus's time is spent either at a bus stop or stopped in traffic; that 28% of the duration of the average M23 trip is spent waiting at bus stops due to passengers boarding; and that the M23 only moves at over for an average of 10% of each trip.
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Conversely, eight of the eleven routes with average speeds of more than were located on Staten Island. On average, buses generally spend a little more than half of the trip (54%) in motion, while 22% of the trip is spent at bus stops and 21% is spent idling at red lights. The Straphangers Campaign, another riders' advocacy group, gives out "Pokey Awards" to the slowest bus routes of each year. The slowest bus routes are typically crosstown bus routes in Manhattan, with 14 of the slowest bus routes in 2017 being crosstown bus routes. In 2017, the slowest bus route was the M42 crosstown bus on 42nd Street, which had an average speed of , approximately a walking pace. This was followed by the M31/M57, M50, and M66 crosstown buses on 57th, 49th/50th, and 65th/66th Streets respectively, all of which averaged less than . Other "winners" of the Pokey Award include the M79 on 79th Street and the M23 on 23rd Street, both of which have now been converted to Select Bus Service routes. However, Select Bus Service routes only serve 12% of all bus riders , and the average bus route is 10% percent slower than it was in the mid-1990s.
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