Take a ride on the NYC subway today and you see a (relatively) clean system – no graffiti on the cars (except the new advertising wrapped cars), good quality announcements, air conditioning that works, and overall good service.

Go back 30 years to the 1980s and the NYC subway was completely different. I was a young kid during the 80s but I remember riding how different the subway was back then. The dirt, the endless amounts of graffiti, the crime, the lack of maintenance on the cars, I could go on… But it’s also important to remember the city itself was different back then.

24Flinching has put together a collection of photos from a variety of artists that take you back to the NYC subways of the ’80s.

Here’s one sample – check out the post for the rest of the artwork.

Tags: map, MTA, New York, New York City Blog, NYC, photos, transit

Back in March we took a look at snakes on a bus. Now thanks to our main street reporter Mark, you can see below a bus eat a lady. Mark noted that the woman appeared unaware as she entered the bus that it was about to eat her.

We were able to grab a few minutes with the lady inside of the bus after being eaten. She said that she will be using her car from now on and appeared very upset and frazzled. I guess I can understand her mood after the bus ate her!

Tags: bus, germany, images, photos, pictures

The National Post newspaper in Toronto, Canada has put together an etiquette group they call the TTCC or the Toronto Transit Civility Commission. The idea is to post etiquette posters all around the Toronto subways to help people remember to:

1. take only the number of seats a human needs
2. to not stink
3. and to not do personal grooming on the subway

I would add one about putting your trash in the trash bin. Here in NYC I think there are more trash bins than there are people yet pigs throw their garbage on the tracks and on the ground.

The posters (one seen below) are also available in large sizes perfect for printing.

Tags: ads, advertisements, images, photos, Toronto, transit

This morning while attending a conference in Austin, I snapped a few photos of the downtown station (the terminal) for the new light rail that will begin service next week. I just missed a train by about 1 minute! The train had two cars and a coupler in the middle.

Tags: Austin, light rail, photos, transit

OK, tell me…when you look at the photo below, do you see one bus or two? Look closely…

It’s one bus with a full bus wrap – the old bus is actually wrapped into the new bus! This is the coolest bus wrap I have ever seen and would probably freak out drivers who are driving on the side of this new bus.

Tags: bus, germany, photos, pictures, transit

Many of you have heard of snakes on a plane,  but have you heard of snakes on a bus? Our man on the street in Berlin, Mark, sent in the photos below of a bus that has a wrap promoting the zoo. We’ve seen tons of transit ad wraps here at InsideTransit – for both buses and trains – and this is the best looking wrap I’ve ever seen.

I don’t know about you but I would be a bit nervous if that bus showed up at my stop in the morning.

Tags: bus, germany, images, photos, pictures

We’ve written about odd buses before including the Fucker Bus. Here in NYC there is a bus called the Duck which can float around in the water and then become an open-top bus. The Duck bus is for tourists coming to NYC.

Today our reporter in Berlin, Mark, has found us a new type of bus. It’s a bus that can transform into a boat and head into the water.

Check out the full story on Spiegel Online. The boat part of the bus is powered by two massive engines and the bus can carry 45 passengers across the river.

All I can say is that I want this water bus. You could easily live inside this bus and slap an Internet connection on the roof and go anywhere! I wonder how long a trip on this boat-bus would take from NYC to London. Place your bets in the comments.

Tags: bus, germany, images, photos, transit

This story was sent in by Mark, our German transit reporter. Apparently the passengers on the bus seen below didn’t want to wait in the ATM line to get their cash and make their deposits. Instead the bus driver decided to go above and beyond and just drive the bus directly into the bank. That’s what I call “door to door service”!

More photos are available on Der Tagesspiegel.

Tags: bus, germany, photos, Transit News

This might be the cutest thing you will see today – scratch that – this year! NewYorkSh*tty has a set of photos of a hamster on the number 4 subway. There are several very interesting points about these photos:

• the train is empty – I’ve never seen an empty 4 train
• the destination sign is blank – I guess this train just goes on forever!
• the hamster appears to be posing for some of the pics – he probably thinks the photos will be placed on Facebook

NewYorkSh*tty has an interview with the person behind the photoshoot and notes that the models come from usage in courts when cases involve trains or buses. The models look pretty damn awesome – I want!

Tags: images, New York, New York City Blog, NYC, photos

Earlier this week, bricks and tiles fell from the ceiling of the 181th street subway station in NYC. Work has been ongoing 24 hours a day to get the line open again and I am hearing that the line should be open on Monday.  The MTA has been posting photos from the work site at 181st – I’ve posted a few of them below.

This is a perfect example of why the MTA should have a blog – to humanize the conversation of events like this ceiling collapse. Posting images on Twitter is meaningless for the majority of transit riders who would be interested in viewing the work progress. Give me a call MTA – let’s talk. Instead of a blog, we get silly television commercials telling us how Bloomberg wants to fix the MTA – how come now he wants to do it – why not any of the other years? Oh yea, it’s an election year

Here a work crane is on the tracks on the right and a meeting is being held on the right platform:

Here is a photo showing bricks from the ceiling being removed – probably to be saved:

Tags: MTA, New York, New York City Blog, NYC, photos, transit, Transit News