Access to MTA Maps Blocked by LinkNYC

Last week I came as close as ever to having legitimate reason to use a LinkNYC kiosk. It’s a bit of a stretch, but I needed to consult a subway map and, while I have an app for that on my phone, it was raining, I did not have an umbrella, and I did not want to expose my phone to the elements. Like I said, a bit of a stretch, since I could obviously find cover somewhere. Still, as good a reason as any for me to put a kiosk to another real-world test, albeit a bit contrived in its premise.

The result made me laugh, and left me asking, once again, if anybody did any kind of quality control testing on these stupid machines. Watch what happens when you try to get to a subway map in this short video:

I don’t know why CityBridge would block access to subway and bus maps, intentionally or not. It might have something to do with how they, seemingly deliberately, blocked access to certain parts of the old MTA.info, even though that version of the site had, last time I could access it from LinkNYC, more functional and working features than the new MTA.info.

There is some access to the old MTA website via deeplinks from the new site. But CityBridge blocked access to the home page and an unknown quantity of internal pages at the old site. Maybe these maps were among them.

Even more irritating was when I made a second attempt from another machine. The touchscreen was unresponsive but functioned eventually, costing me a minute and 45 seconds of my life failing to access a subway map.

By the way is it proper English to say “Near By Transit”? Should it not be “Nearby Transit”? Not going to worry about it…

Also, should I have been touching this filthy, corona stained germ platter?

This is one of those Smart City things that seems harder to get wrong than to get right.