Transportation Alternatives take note: this is just another reason to get in your car and drive. Want people out of their cars? Fix the MTA. Until then, we drive.

anon - If riders want to see service improvements, then somebody needs to step up funding for the MTA. The City has been reducing their funding of the MTA for years, and the City could get off their butt and increase that. Still this is minor compared to the money required. Start by working to bring permanent, stable funding to the MTA in the form a bridge tolls/congestion pricing. Also, work on the reformation of state authorities to make the MTA more transparent. You might also want to question why federal subsidies are going towards expanding Brooklyn Bridge approaches, widening the Kosciuszko, etc., instead of going to operating and capital budgets of the MTA. All wasted money on infrastructure that only encourages driving.

So what are you doing?

Me, my wife and my children were headed to radio city music hall to see the christmas show Sunday November 15th at 10am. When i called 311 (in which is a big joke) they connected me to the mta, in which they advised me to take the "F" train (in which i had to walk more than 10 blocks from my house.They said this was the the train that goes directly to radio city. They did not mention that it had to stop to church avenue hop to a shuttle bus, in which it made several stops, before i had to take the train to jay st. borough hall and re-take the "F" train from there to the west 47-50th st. stop where radio city is.From the moment i left my house at 8:15am, i got to radio city at exactly 10:am in which the show start.Totaling, 1 hour and 40 minutes! The MTA never told me about the work the "F" train was having, and for me to take the shuttle bus. Indeed the MTA is a bunch of knuckeheads.

The MTA needs to be re-evaluated, and more closely managed under the auspices of State government -- so as there's heads that roll, every time the trains do not.

Someone has to 'step up and fund the system'? really, Joe from Park Slope?... The system is OVERfunded, now. And mismanaged to the point of being beyond humorous -- actually, when are we due another $100 million bill for the PA system upgrade that's promised/misspent 2x a decade (and it never accomplished).

The fares just keep rising. The MTA is also greatly funded by higher tolls on bridges, excess taxi fares, our phone bills and local sales tax (plenty of MTA surcharges in bills), then there's a portion of real estate transactions, there's a brand new small business tax (Oct.) that had NYC-wide mom/pops writing $70-170 annual new cost/checks to the MTA, there's 2 local pols (here) absurdly proposing that residents that own cars pay for what they're calling 'free parking' for the MTA's coffers (as if they're not already USING THE SUBWAYS at that?).. then, there's TA lobbyists that push for East River tolls and congestion pricing.

We're supposed to blame the union for trash, few waste bins, poor lighting, grime, less and less station agents and humanity present in our system... and the disparity between Manhattan/eastside and Brooklyn's subways?

The cuts should come through waste in spending, and salaries/bloat. The gravy train of $250k salaries for bureaucrats that hardly know/ride the system should end. Do we need a head of buses that never takes one? Board members that couldn't name 3-4 stops along Brooklyn's F, D, 3 train or the G train.

At some point, very capable people who know & care & live in NYC have to run the system. But none of this will happen, unless the 'authority' designation is removed by our gov. and state pols. (It's well passed time.)

Joe, the MTA has cut controllable costs by 5% for the past four years, and are on target to cut them by an additional 6% in the next five. Yet you think the MTA is "overfunded," and you have the nerve to criticize the state of the system. So, how do you propose they pay for the most necessary improvements when the state won't seek out an equitable funding method?

And yes, you SHOULD blame the unions for the state of the system. The TWU has the nerve to ask for an 11% raise over the next three years, so where do you think that money is coming from? Cuts have to be made in other places. The system gets dirtier while the union fights for raises unheard of in the private sector. That's the kind of bloat that the MTA can't control. The costs that they can control have been reigned in successfully.

Terrible headline BP, totally class-less.

I'm pretty certain this weekend's diversions were due to emergency work near Church Ave. after a switch failed in late October. Considering Transit revealed this mid-afternoon Sunday, it shouldn't be too tough for a reporter to confirm.