An Uncanny Penchant for Citrus

It's no secret that New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority sucks on a level that is usually reserved for Fow News personalities and band that feature the "musical stylings" of Mike Patton. The last two years, the entire NYC subway system has been held in a death grip of schedule changes, service suspensions, fare hikes and outright line cancellations under the dubious guise of a rebuilding project. Basically what this has boiled down to is NYC citizens shelling out more money for less train while the MTA helps itself to a pay raise, spirals wildly into debt and awards contracts to companies with mob ties. Fun for everyone. New Yorkers are a tough breed though and when life hands us lemons we throw them shits back and say, "I ordered GRAPEFRUIT, motherfucker!" Thus we have a whole galaxy of transit based blogs and websites to help us vent away our frustrations with a system that may actually drive us all completely insane one day. When perusing straphanger sites, it's important to remember that there are several different styles to choose from.
The largest category is that of the Traditional Subway Grouser. These are fairly straightforward in their mission to deliver provide a soapbox for people who have "just had it up to here" with the fares/delays/changes/yadda yadda yadda. Sites like these usually range in tone from information provision to active bitching. I rarely check these sites if for no other reason than the only thing I find more depressing than riding the subway are people whose lives revolve around how depressing it is to ride the subway.

Time to get a little more sunlight, hey grumpy?

In the same vein but much more light hearted, are the blogs of the Transit Sociologist. Subwaydouchery.com used to be a prime example of this, but has recently succumbed to putting LOLcats style captions on all their photos. These are usually dedicated to chronicling the many ridiculous ways humans will act when crammed together in a rickety metal tube and hurled blindly towards their destination. I myself have witnessed behavior in the subway both quizzical and obscene but after the hundredth time, you kind of get to this point where King Aurthur could ride a horse through the car demanding tribute from the peasants and I would only be mildly nonplussed and then turn up the volume on my iPod.

You really think I'd make something like that up?

Not all subway blogs focus on the negative aspects. My current favorite is the Subway Art Blog which is doing an outstanding job of archiving the guerrilla art that is curated daily beneath our feet. Amidst the photos of tags and the burgeoning field of poster modification, you will notice evidence of New Yorkers actively hurling their lemons:

The newest entries to the online transit world come from Twitter. While I bear an aversion to Twitter that verges on religious conviction, Fake MTA has been a consistently funny way to waste ten second intervals of my time.
And that's it for the week. I would like to thank everyone for making this the lowest traffic week my blog has ever had. The lack of support is so thick I can taste it. And yet? I live to write another day. Gimme back my lemons.