London Underground blogger Annie Mole experiences the New York subway for the first time here -> 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
posted on Sep 30, 2008 - View this thread

The Boys and the Subway A father's artistic account of his sons' love of the NYC subway system.
posted on Jul 2, 2008 - View this thread

As Moscow changes, so does its population of stray dogs. During Soviet times, Moscow's stray dogs foraged for food and avoided humans, since there wasn't much to be gained from begging. As the city became increasingly affluent, the dogs' behavior changed radically. Some recent adaptations include passive subway begging, observing stoplights, and a food scam called the "come-from-behind ambush." The stray dogs, whose population is estimated at 26,000, have even ceased some of their interpack warfare. Observe the Moscow subway dog here.
posted on May 29, 2008 - View this thread

Massimo Vignelli’s 1972 NYC subway map is back Yours for the low, low price of 299 bucks for one copy of the limited edition of 500. (Previous MeFi comments on the famed design, which the New York MTA eventually shitcanned. [Via.])
posted on Apr 24, 2008 - View this thread

Joshua Allen Harris makes inflatable sculptures out of found trash bags: bear, creatures, monster. via wooster collective.
posted on Apr 22, 2008 - View this thread

Although its App Engine rollout is getting the bulk of the headlines today, Google rolled out another small product: an expansion of its Google Transit website.
posted on Apr 8, 2008 - View this thread

I know a man who once went to Sioux City, not one of the world’s leading destinations, precisely because he had never been there before. More than a decade later he still talks about the experience, from the Sergeant Floyd obelisk to the dog track of North Sioux and the meat packing plant converted to a shopping mall. The same impulse explains a non-specialist’s reading a history of Byzantine iconography or a survey of Australian wildlife. Both offer a break in daily life and an enlargement of our sense of wonder and possibility. That awareness can provide a sense of transcendence, and connection, or even the spark of divine discontent that leads people to change their lives.

Reading as Vacation, an essay by J. D. Smith and Subway Reader, pictures of people who read while using public transportation.
posted on Apr 6, 2008 - View this thread

People are sick of hearing Jared Fogle's rap about Subway and weight. (Warning: NSFW language) The guys in the video aren't the only ones sick of Jared: Jared Fogle Sucks. If you hate Jared too, join the Jared is Lame livejournal.
posted on Mar 4, 2008 - View this thread

Slow news day: One properly used semicolon inspires paroxysms of joy in the NYT.
posted on Feb 18, 2008 - View this thread

When is the 7th Annual No Pants! Subway Ride? This Saturday, January 12th, New York City. They seem to have done it in 2006 as well. Village Voice article on 2006's shenanigans.
posted on Jan 9, 2008 - View this thread

Russos takes photos of Moscow Metro construction. Also of a half-abandoned river port, a cool bridge being put together, and an old underground nuclear submarine base. But mostly of the Metro, behind the scenes. (Don't ask me how he gets access.)
posted on Dec 6, 2007 - View this thread

NYGirl of my dreams. Romance in the technological age. :)
posted on Nov 5, 2007 - View this thread

Halloween Subway Where? Korea, of course!
posted on Oct 26, 2007 - View this thread

Inscribed in the living tile: Type in the Toronto subway by Joe Clark
posted on Sep 16, 2007 - View this thread

Illicit Ohio has a wide range of photos and essays of abandoned places in Ohio, from the Cincinnati subway system (yes, there really is was one, and it's been discussed here before), to various and sundry prisons, government installations, hotels, hosiptals, houses and more. And don't miss the old vs. new galleries, either.
posted on Aug 29, 2007 - View this thread

Signs in Shinjuku station made with coloured sticky tape.
posted on Jul 30, 2007 - View this thread

The maps of the London Underground and the Washington Metro are iconic in their cities and a favorite of experts on information graphics. They share a similar philosophy: sacrifice geographical accuracy in order to clearly illustrate the system. What if the New York Subway map were drawn the same way? What about the Interstate system?
posted on Jul 24, 2007 - View this thread

A (rather beautiful) subway map of web trends. Similar, previously. Via Strangemaps.
posted on Jul 21, 2007 - View this thread

Getting around underground in NYC is no longer only for people who already know how to get around underground in NYC. Graphic Designer Eric Jabbour has been spending his free time obsessively redesigning MTA transit maps. And the results are striking. Non-New Yorkers will undoubtedly be able to figure out what's what. Cleaner lines and neighborhood boundaries are just a few features. Also, one can clearly see and understand transfer points and more street names.
posted on Apr 26, 2007 - View this thread

a Google Maps view of NYC, centered on Central Park Google Maps has started displaying subway stops (with the names of the lines that serve each each stop) in New York City. Clearly this is a work in progress (full building outlines are available only in some parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, and some subway stops currently list only one of the multiple trains that serve the stop). Still, this is excellent news not only for natives but also for tourists (whose only subway-map reference may be the significantly, sometimes radically "not to scale" version put out by the MTA).
posted on Feb 9, 2007 - View this thread

Like old cheese and vomit, mixed with dog food ... Halitosis and aged cabbage ... Rank Swiss cheese ... Sour milk ... Pee in the air every day ... Like an open corpse ... Like a musty homeless person decomposing in musky homeless person urine ... Caramel with a slight undertone of mildly rank underarm ... Rodenticide. It's Gawker's New York City Subway Smell Map.
posted on Sep 26, 2006 - View this thread

Agency.com — best known for their work on... well not much really — recently had the opportunity to bid on the interactive account for Subway Restaurants. Their idea was to create a pitch video (embedded youtube) showing them brainstorming for ideas for the pitch video. They posted it online hoping to make it go viral, but the only viral thing about it really was that it used the word viral in it as many times as possible and tried to show how hip, edgy and cool they are.

Coudal Partners — best known for sponsoring matches of Photoshop Tennis... although the archives of past matches are currently down... they spawned legions of copycats, — decided to post their own Unsolicited Response video (embedded quicktime) which in turn is much funnier than the original.

So what makes a lame attempt at viral video actually GO viral? With so much discussion on advertising forums saying it isn't, all the attention it has been getting is ensuring that it is.
posted on Aug 3, 2006 - View this thread

Joe Nishizawa's new photojournalism book, Deep Inside, is a visual exploration of the amazing, highly mechanized world under Japan's urban areas. This brief interview with the author is accompanied by several interesting photos.
posted on Jul 24, 2006 - View this thread

@149st is a comprehensive study of classic NYC subway graffiti. It features profiles of many legendary artists, including an interview with Rammellzee who has some strange theories. The site for the definitive '82 PBS documentary Style Wars has some great galleries and video clips as well.
posted on Jan 21, 2006 - View this thread

Yet another Google Maps hack for the NYC subway system. This one helps you plan your trip from point A to point B, and gives you an estimated travel time. Most locals will quickly find that the routes it suggests usually aren't the optimum, however this may be useful for visitors, at least until Friday morning. In the event of a strike, this is your best bet for some form of direction.
posted on Dec 14, 2005 - View this thread

Parasitic Subway Projector: High concept German art students cram a Mac mini and a projector into a suitcase and mount it to the side of a subway car with suction cups. The resulting images, projected onto the tunnel walls, make for a fascinating work of public art. [QuickTime] Link via: The Unofficial Mac Weblog
posted on Nov 5, 2005 - View this thread

"L" Train Won't Run on Weekends. Although the true hardcore won't be bothered -- because they never leave Brooklyn on the weekends -- this might cramp the style of the rest.
posted on Nov 1, 2005 - View this thread

NYC Subway Warning The New York Police Department is investigating what it deems a credible tip that 19 operatives have been deployed to the city to place bombs in the subway, and security in the subways will be increased, sources told ABC News. Also here.
posted on Oct 6, 2005 - View this thread

Ipod Subway Maps
posted on Aug 14, 2005 - View this thread

The NYPD is searching passengers' bags, supposedly at random and with no racial profiling involved. Setting aside the very real question of how this makes us safer, is this legal? [more inside]
posted on Jul 25, 2005 - View this thread

Ever wonder what the London Underground Map [105 KiB PDF] would look like if it were geographically accurate [255 KiB GIF]? If you could morph [13.7 KiB Flash] between those two versions and Harry Beck's 1933 map [112 KiB JPG]? What it will look like in 2016 [218 KiB PDF]? What if you replaced all the stations, even ones that are no longer used, with well-known personalities [46 KiB JPG inset]? If you knew exactly which carriage to get on so you'd already be at the Way Out (never "exit" [23 MiB PDF]) when your train stops (or doesn't stop)? If you had a similar schematic for buses [245 KiB PDF] or river boats [50 KiB PDF]?

Pass your Oyster card over the reader and go on a tour of interesting, imaginative, and subversive maps and diagrams of London public transport. And as you leave, remember to Mind the Gap, Stand on the Right [671 KiB JPG], and Always Touch Out.
posted on Mar 7, 2005 - View this thread

Fabulous images of the Moscow Metro underground, also known as "the people's palaces". Click "M"s on the entry map to view gorgeous (often architecturally surreal) panoramic images, and visit the picture gallery for sweet details. Via Jorgen at Viewropa.
posted on Jan 14, 2005 - View this thread

Photobloggers discuss subway photography ban to the villiage voice. The proposed ban on photography in NYC subways was previously discussed on metafilter here In response to the ban, photobloggers plan a protest Sunday, June 6 starting at a kiosk for an MTA-sponsored exhibit of photographs celebrating the centennial of the subway, many of which ironically were taken during the previous ban.
posted on Jun 5, 2004 - View this thread

subway systems of the world presented on a scale of 1 mile = 2 pixels.
Just one of the cool things found at fake is the new real
:: via the always excellent Satan's Laundromat ::
posted on Mar 4, 2004 - View this thread

Ping Pong Pang Pong ... (MIDI file). Archives of public transport departure chimes and announcements. From Japan, MIDI files [+] [+] (via Boingboing) and live recordings [+] [+] of various elaborate tunes (no I don't speak Japanese, just keep clicking the blue links until you hit an MP3!). European recordings [+]. The very excellent Shonen Knife used a sample of the Osaka subway chimes in their rockin' cover version of the Carpenter's 'Top of the World.' (WFMU archive here, click "Hear the show", song starts with Osaka chimes at approximately 15:23)
posted on Mar 3, 2004 - View this thread

Create-a-meal [note: flash] ... comes in mcdonalds, subway, barbeque, and pizza hut flavors.
posted on Nov 22, 2003 - View this thread

Building the Washington Metro.
posted on Aug 28, 2003 - View this thread

A Disgusting Practice Vanishes With the Token "Officially, the crime is classified as theft of Transit Authority property. But among transit police officers it is more accurately and less delicately known as token sucking. Unfortunately for everyone involved, it is exactly what it sounds like." (Originally from NYT. More here.)
posted on Apr 28, 2003 - View this thread

Style Wars the 1983 graffiti, breakdancing and hip hop culture proto-documentary 20 years later comes out from obscure, grainy, 5th hand bootlegs and into the 21st Century. This funky white boy is excited. (Be sure you check out some of the other links from the NPR site!)
posted on Apr 25, 2003 - View this thread

The Pyongyang Metro.[more]
posted on Mar 7, 2003 - View this thread

More senseless killing, boys and girls: an Arson in a South Korean subway. "With 135 people injured, many seriously, and at least 90 people listed as missing, officials say they expect the death toll to rise much higher." This will, no doubt, help in stabilizing the region.
posted on Feb 18, 2003 - View this thread

Is Something afoot at the DC Metro's Crystal City station? First its the mysterious derailment on Tuesday, still unexplained. Now a strange man is spotted with vials of a unknown liquid in the station before the system is even open! What's up at Crystal City? [more inside]
posted on Jan 24, 2003 - View this thread

Disused Stations on the London Underground - they're there, but we don't see them. This site gives a list of places to spot glimpses of these mysterious stations, as well as details of stations that were almost built. Fascinating for a Londoner, and perhaps something to look out for if you plan on visiting the city.
posted on Dec 9, 2002 - View this thread

Get on the love train and ride the singles car: "Thousands of New Yorkers are now forwarding an anonymous e-mail to each other informing them that from now on, every first subway car has been declared 'the singles car.'" Any New York Mefites want to claim responsibility for this?
posted on Sep 5, 2002 - View this thread

Subway Passengers: Underground Portraits From Ten Cities António Jorge Gonçalves rides the subway and sketches whoever happens to sit in front of him, from New York to Lisbon to Tokyo. I find his drawings interesting because there's nothing studied or selective about them. You feel you've already seen these people. Mathowie recently linked to another Portuguese artist's drawings - Jorge Colombo, who designed O Independente with me, the newspaper I founded and edited in 1987. It's a small consolation for a small country like mine that urban sketches by fellow citizens are, as of now, practically a staple here on MetaFilter...[Flash required; download may be slow for dial-ups at busy times and, whatever you do, don't hit your browser's Back button - use only the one provided.]
posted on Apr 11, 2002 - View this thread

Move over, Jared... there's going to be a hot new way to lose weight. Scientists have "found the chemical pathways that muscle cells use to build strength and endurance," making it possible to have a fitness pill.
posted on Apr 11, 2002 - View this thread

Police officers and FBI agents find cyanide in a Chicago subway. A Wisconsin computer worker who dubbed himself Dr. Chaos was charged Monday with possessing a chemical weapon. The suspect was wanted on several warrants from Wisconsin for allegedly staging attacks on a television station transmitter, electric power substations and natural gas pipelines. When police shut down the subway tunnels for three hours Saturday night, they publicly said they were searching for the possessions of a homeless man who had been living in the tunnel.
posted on Mar 12, 2002 - View this thread

Subway Navigator lets you plan your route all over the world.
posted on Nov 16, 2001 - View this thread

How do they do it? The Guardian sent their reporters to the four corners of the world to review...underground railways. The findings prove predictably that anything is better than The London Underground. In Prague for example: "Not long ago, a man paid for adverts to be put up in all 940 trains, pleading with his girlfriend to take him back. Czechs understand the romantic potential of the metro and it has found its way into a fair amount of the nation's modern literature. "
posted on Aug 22, 2001 - View this thread

Bring back the classic cut!
An online petition to bring back the old "V-shaped canyon" style.
posted on Aug 21, 2001 - View this thread