MTA.info



  • First, here's some fun. There was a water main break today at 23rd Street Station. Cool video.

    Okay, so, it would be nice to share information about this, and train reroutings. Here's how sharing information works.

    • Go to mta.info on a weekday (except Friday afternoon) and click on the NQR - Service Change status item. How about if I want to link someone to this page? Well, actually, clicking on the NQR was an HTTP POST to http://mta.info/status/serviceStatus.html with parameters lineName=NQR&mode=Subways. So if you reload the page or link someone to it, it'll give you information about the 1 train. Now, since I'm smart, I could just link them to the same page as an HTTP GET, but let's assume you're not a web developer.
    • Okay, so, you can't share the link. Now what? Well, we could copy and paste the service change message. Unfortunately, the pretty little subway line circles are images without ALT tags. So what you copy and paste this block @MTA original said:

      trains are running on the line in both directions between 36 St Station (Qns) and 47-50 Sts/Rockefeller Ctr, then run on the line in both directions between and 47-50 Sts/Rockefeller Station and DeKalb Av Station.

      you get something like @MTA copy-and-paste said:
      trains are running on the line in both directions between 36 St Station (Qns) and 47-50 Sts/Rockefeller Ctr, then run on the line in both directions between and 47-50 Sts/Rockefeller Station and DeKalb Av Station.
      Brillant!
    • Some time on Friday afternoon the mta.info site changes to take you to the Weekender instead, which will tell you all about the planned closures on Saturday and Sunday but nothing about the unplanned closures this evening. You'll have to click through to find that stuff.
    • Bonus points: If there are long-term service changes (e.g. South Ferry station is supposed to be out of service for over a year because of the hurricane) then they'll show up on MTA.info the same way as unexpected service changes like this. So if this had affected the (1)(2)(3) lines instead of the (N)(Q)(R), you wouldn't have noticed any change to the service-status page at all. Bravo.
    • Double-bonus points: The 'submit feedback' form results page (named msg.php) tells me that my case number is \'130201-000XXX\' (that is a literal backslash followed by a literal quote). I can only assume that they've messed up PHP Magic Quotes. What security vulnerabilities could possibly lurk on this site, I wonder?
    Good job, MTA web designers. *slowclap*


  • @fennec said:

    PHP

    That'll do it.

     

    Oh, and I can confirm that when they use crap like THESE "fancy" letter images with no alt-text...

    @MTA said:

    ...it results in something like your "MTA copy-and-paste". (in Lynx anyway)



  •  Did anyone else catch the accessibility links at the top?



  • @SamC said:

     Did anyone else catch the accessibility links at the top?


    This is the most brillant feature I've ever scene.



  • @ToiletDuck64 said:

    Filed under: ⑨


    No, no, they don't run the ⑨ anymore. It's been replaced entirely with the ①.



  • @ToiletDuck64 said:

    no alt-text



  • @Zemm said:

    Now I want to make a little web toy to generate subway-line sentences. Alas, not all letters are available, like U and K.



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