As we’ve noted in these cyber-pages, there’s been some confusion about the new bus schedules following the MTA’s massive cost cutting in recent months–especially regarding the M-1 along Park Avenue South.

By the looks of this sign on the M-1 bus’s route, it appears the MTA has everything in order, and is doing an exemplary job communicating the new schedule to riders.

Lest the W train think it barely registered in our consciousness, a batch of hardy New Yorkers turned its last ride into a party last weekend, reports the NY Times. Running from Astoria to lower Manhattan and back, the Dubya was one of the casualties of the MTA’s budget cuts. It had only run since 2001, giving it a similar tenure to that of another famous W, our 43rd president, notes the Times. 

It sounds as though most of the “mourners” were more interested in a fun happening and the chance to drink booze on a train than actually celebrating the train’s last run.

Writes the Times: 

Dozens of mourners were on hand when the final southbound W eased out of the Astoria-Ditmars Boulevard station at 10:17 p.m. (Novelty and boredom were the most cited reasons for showing up.)

The train’s caboose quickly morphed into a party car, as the young crowd stood on benches, drank beer and cheered upon entering every station on the route. When an N or Q train arrived on the other side of the platform, the group booed loudly.

Quietly observing this bacchanal was Renee Alexander, who stood in the far corner of the car and assumed the studied stare of a subway rider who finds herself inches away from chaos. “I am feeling like my train was hijacked,” she said.

Rats will continue to rule the New York underground, reports the NY Times, as budget cuts, straphangers’ crumbs, and their indomitable fortitude keep them a step ahead of traps and poison.

Says the Times:

Rodents, it turns out, reside inside station walls, emerging occasionally from cracks in the tile to rummage for food. The legend of teeming rat cities tucked deep into subway tunnels is, in fact, a myth. The electrified tracks, scientists said, are far too dangerous.

Not every station has rats, although plenty do. Of 18 stations examined in Lower Manhattan, about half of the subway lines got a fair or poor rating for infestation, meaning they exhibited the telltale culprits — overflowing trash cans, too much track litter — that can lead to a rodent jamboree.

But befitting a creature that has evaded annihilation for centuries, officials found no obvious solutions: poison packets and traps have proved no match for an agile mammal known to be diabolically clever.

“They jump two feet from a running start; they can fall 40 feet onto a concrete slab and keep running,” said Solomon Peeples, 86, a former director of the city’s Bureau of Pest Control Services. “We’re no match for them, as far as I’m concerned. Man does not stand no chance.”

Thanks to the new work locale two blocks closer to Grand Central, I’ve been exiting the 6 train out the ass-end (perhaps there is a better way to rephrase that) at 28th, as opposed to the front end at 26th I used to use.

As a result I noticed the electronic scoreboards that tell you when your train is coming.

I’m sure these have been in place at 28th for some time, but I first encountered them–on both the uptown and downtown sides–pretty cool.

My first encounter with signs like this was, like many people, in London. I remember there was a stop called Seven Sisters, which struck me as just so English. Wikipedia says the Seven Sisters are located in Tottenham and represent seven clustered oak trees. So the Seven Sisters are not the women involved in Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, in case you were wondering.

I saw those signs in London about a decade ago.

Nice to see the MTA joining the Y2K era.

Nearly a quarter of the L.I.R.R. employees make six figures, reports the NY Times, including one hale fellow who took in $239,000 last year, thanks to lots and lots of overtime.

The MTA is under tremendous financial duress, as we all know, so news of the seemingly out of whack salaries come at a tricky time. And to be sure, most railroad employees’ wages are much more in line with what one might expect.

But overtime remains a lucrative prospect for the career railroaders. The $239,000 conductor, named Thomas J. Redmond, retired in April. He had a base pay of just under $68,000, got the same amount in overtime, and racked up almost $100,000 in unused sick days and vacation time.

Redmond outearned the railroad’s executive v.p. last year. Helena E. Williams, the president of the L.I.R.R., made $286,872.

Reports the Times:

Two car repairmen at the L.I.R.R. and 12 police officers assigned to the authority’s bridges and tunnels, some of whom earned more than double their base salaries, were among the 50 employees at the authority who collected $200,000 or more, the data show.

The second-highest paid employee at the agency’s bridge and tunnel division, after its president, was Walter Stock, a lieutenant who earned $226,383, more than twice his base pay of $90,000, according to the data.

At No. 17 was Dominick J. Masiello, an L.I.R.R. locomotive engineer, who earned about $75,000 in base salary and overtime payments of $52,000.

He also received $94,600 in “penalty payments,” which railroad officials said stemmed from a contractual rule that requires engineers who work in a storage yard to be paid extra if they are assigned to move a locomotive to a nearby maintenance facility or if they are asked to operate a train outside of the yard.

Similar to the cops and firefighters, railroad workers try to rack up major overtime and unused days in their final year, as I believe their pension payments are set based on their last few years’ earnings.

Metro-North is noodling the notion of selling seat licenses in order to help make up the MTA’s glaring budget deficit, according to a working draft of a press release provided by a tipster.

The program, not unlike what we see at modern ballparks here in Gotham, is titled Save-A-Seat and involves commuters paying between $350 and $750 a year for what’s essentially their own seat on the train. The seat will bear a RESERVED sign and the license-holder’s last name, until the holder assumes his seat. Conductors are being trained to keep the licensed seats available for the owner, and to politely help someone who may have sat in a reserved seat find another place to sit.

The variance in annual fees reflects the value of the seat. Aisle seats near the doors will command top dollar, while window seats near the rear of the train go for cheaper.

Metro-North will not make my beloved 1 3/4-seaters–the folding, entirely private seats across from the engineer booths–available, as the train personnel often use that space to look out the window when pulling into and out of a station.

Frankly, I think this idea is completely off the wall and will never work. Can a conductor honestly tell a ticket-holding rider to give up a seat because some Chappaqua a**hole (uh, sorry to pick on Chappaqua…I know most of you are not a**holes) owns the freakin’ seat license to it? Prediction: There will be riots over the ridiculous, entirely elitist Save-A-Seat program.

The MTA is shooting for a fourth quarter 2010 start for it, and anticipates the seat-license initiative to pull in in excess of $1.5 million for 2011. If the Q4 test goes smoothly, the railroad hopes to roll it out on Long Island Railroad too.

“Save-A-Seat is thinking out of the box, and that’s precisely how we need to be thinking in the face of our budget shortfall,” said MTA Director of Business Development George Finch in the not-yet-final press release. “Daily commuters have always made a habit of sitting in ‘their seat’ on the train, and Save-a-Seat guarantees them their favorite seat at a reasonable price. It’s a win-win for commuters and for the MTA.”

I say it’s nuts.

A reality show about the New York subway and its workers has, like so many N trains, been delayed.

Reports the NY Times:

The series, commissioned by the A&E network, would follow an ensemble cast of train conductors, station agents and other subway workers as they handle track fires, angry customers and the grind of running the country’s biggest mass transit system.

But as with many of the authority’s major projects, the show is now facing a delay. Citing hard financial times, transit officials said they were halting work on the show, even though shooting had started last month for a 15-minute sample episode — the first step toward a pilot and potentially a full season.

The MTA thought such a show would help with public relations, as viewers would see the people behind the system and presumably be more tolerant of the MTA’s ills.

The concept for the show came from Ross Breitenbach, a veteran producer of reality television who supervised “The Simple Life 2” with Paris Hilton and “Sober House,” a VH1 series about celebrities in rehab.

Inspired by his children’s Thomas the Tank Engine toys, Mr. Breitenbach approached the transportation authority last year about an animated children’s show focused on the subway. But the conversation quickly shifted to something more vérité.

“The plan is to follow these guys wherever they go,” Mr. Breitenbach said. “The M.T.A. has been interested in letting us tell real stories, not a sanitized commercial.”

The idea of a documentary series also appealed to the authority’s marketing department, which had struggled to showcase the human side of an often-demonized system. Tight budgets have prevented in-house television projects in the past.

A&E set about casting for the untitled program by interviewing transit workers in Grand Central earlier this year.

A&E has tapped transit for reality programs in the past. Parking Wars looks at ticket agents in Philly, and Airline filmed Southwest Airlines employees.

“Thousands” of students were expected to show up at the Governor’s Executive Chambers in midtown yesterday to tell Governor Paterson not to cut their free or discounted bus and train rides to school, according to a press release issued prior to the event.

Well, the event turned out to be more of a non-event. Organizer Tony Herbert said all of two students (and their parents!) made it out to Paterson’s office. “It really didn’t happen,” he concedes. “It didn’t have the same amount of steam as previous student protests.”

It having been Martin Luther King Day and all–ya know, he of the public transit boycott in Alabama back in ‘55 and all–one might’ve hoped for a little more fighting spirit from the kids of New York.  

Herbert says the unseasonably warm temps might have prompted some students to find more enjoyable uses for their day off.

Herbert says the governor did not mention the student MetroCard issue during his budget outline today.

Unbowed, Herbert says he’ll continue to mobilize students to fight for their freebie transit passes, and is considered a “stay-out” in case the state signs off on the MTA’s proposed budget, which includes nixing the free rides. “We might keep kids home from school a couple days,” he says.  

The MTA has revamped its website, reports the NY Times, with the new site debuting tomorrow. Maps, fares and directions are just a click or two away, not buried in the nether regions of the site.

Service alerts also get a much more prominent spot on the site. Reports the Times:

Real-time updates on delays and service changes might prevent that trip to Brooklyn from becoming an all-night odyssey.

“We’re not cutting-edge; let’s not kid ourselves. But we’re getting closer,” said Jay H. Walder, the new chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, who said he ordered a revamp last fall on his first day on the job.

A quick glance at the home page suggests a site designed for users, not for transit bureaucrats.

I first saw the stack of suitcases just before Christmas.

It was a Starbucks on my walk to Grand Central, Park Ave South and, oh, 39th, or so. Two large ’70s style suitcases and a smaller valise, stacked outside Starbucks, next to the door.

My first thought was, thanks to the heavy promotion of the MTA’s If You See Something, Say Something campaign, to call the cops. My second–and prevailing–thought was, let’s make that 5:46.

I saw the suitcase mountain again when I worked a lone day last week, and again earlier this week.

I also saw the owner of the cases: a homeless man–40, black, grimy–sitting at a table inside the Starbucks.

I saw the man there on multiple occasions. Maybe he helped open the door for people. Surely he appreciated staying out of the 20 degree cold.

Yesterday, he–and his luggage–were gone.

Say what you want about Starbucks–overpriced coffee, annoyingly P.C. philosophy (enough of the “Fair-Trade” talk, OK?), even more annoying customers. And, lest we forget, that annoying memoir about how Starbucks can change you from a pampered white guy to a pampered white guy who actually works alongside minorities.

But I’d counter with this: This particular Starbucks let a homeless guy–and, frankly, a dirty one–hang out in the store and keep his luggage parked out front–for at least a few weeks. They let him occupy a table in a Starbucks where tables are as scarce as rent-stabilized apartments on East 5th Street.

Maybe they eventually kicked him out, or he left on his own. I don’t know. But how many businesses would’ve let the guy stay for a few weeks?