AMNY Subway Tracker

(via the MTA)

Straphangers who ride the No. 7 line will be the first to grade Transit on how well the line is run. Transit staffers will pass out report cards, asking for grades. It's on a school grade scale, A for excellent through F for unsatisfactory. The Rider Report Card will ask riders to grade the No. 7 line in 21 areas, including car and station cleanliness, safety, security, quality of announcements and courtesy and helpfulness of customer service staff. Riders can also rank the top three improvements they want made to the line. Riders will have to mail in (for free) the report card. Starting Tuesday, riders can also complete the survey on-line in their choice of 13 languages. Results from the report card will be posted on-line once Transit compiles them.

The first report cards will be doled out from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. on:
July 10 at stations between Main Street/Flushing and 90th Street/Elmhurst Avenue.
July 11 at stations between 82nd Street/Jackson Heights and 33rd Street/Rawson Street.
July 12 at stations between Queensboro Plaza to Times Square/42nd Street.

Other lines and busses also will eventually have a report card. For now, riders can grade the cleanliness of their subway stations on another blog.

--Marlene Naanes

In case you missed it, Gawker's interactive map of heinous subway smells is up and running. They used the terrific map created by Will James of onNYTurf, which if you haven't discovered, you should. The smell map really nails some of the worst offenders. In our commute, few things are more pugnacious than the odor at the ACE station at 34th Street and Eighth Avenue ... the nauseating smell wafts up through the sidewalk grate. Contribute at subwaystink@gmail.com.

-- Rolando Pujol

The month-old mystery sewage leak haunting the G line is baffling the best of the Department of Environmental Protection. Even after a worker twice climbed through the 54 inch pipe of raw sewage the orgin of the leak remains unknown.

“We need to repeat the dye test and probably TV the line again,” DEP spokeswoman Natalie Millner tells The Tracker. By TV, she means another robotic camera goes into the line.

Meanwhile, riders and workers alike have to deal with a funky stank on the G from Flushing Avenue to Broadway.

Yes, that is a picture of the raw sewage above. Provided by the MTA. Believe me, they want DEP to fix the problem as fast as it can.

-- Chuck Bennett amNY.com

Daily News did a “man on the platform” story and finds riders don’t care for more ads in the subway. Says one, “We have a lot of advertising down here already. It's overkill for sure.”

These “zoetrope” ads, though, aren’t such a cash cow. According to the Port Authority they generate about $100,000 a year.

Here are couple of the tunnel ads by Submedia that have appeared on the PATH and other transit lines. PATH has been running them since 2001, so the MTA is really behind  everyone else on this.

Download Dasani.mpg and Download Corvettecellphonelowresmov.wmv

Also, see record subway ridership in the papers today.

And more on the “Access to the Region’s Core” NJ to 34th Street tunnel — a $6 billion project.

Later today is the Straphangers Campaign "Shmutz" report on subway cars.

-- Chuck Bennett