I've met Paul Fleuranges, Senior Director of Corporate and Internal Communications of MTA NYC Transit - - he is a nice person who has developed a lots of customer friendly initiatives. Mr. Fleuranges also said in an August 12, 2014 MTA News story that the MTA kept the neighborhood maps up-to-date. I disagreed with Mr. Fleuranges' statement because I posted how beyond outdated the MTA's neighborhood maps were on the MTA Weekender.
Recently, the MTA added a dedicated page on full length neighborhood maps - - for the first time, they are neatly organized by neighborhood and are .pdf files showing the entire maps. They also (finally) updated the additions of the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn and Gateway Mall plus Metro-North's Yankees-East 153rd Street station in the Bronx.
That's the good news - now the bad news - they failed to update a lot of stuff, hundreds of errors and many of them are over 25 years old with the same mistakes from the original 1985 maps and are "proudly" displayed on the MTA's weekender page. Let's take a look at some neighborhood maps. Unless otherwise noted, the closing or discontinuance of a particular location is noted by the year.
Long Island City - - Municipal Parking Garage at Queens Plaza E/M/R station (2008), Sunnyside Center movie Theater on Queens Blvd between 42 and 43 Streets (end of 2014), Goldwater Memorial Hospital on the south end of Roosevelt Island (2013)
Pelham Parkway - Allerton Theater on Allerton Ave (1993, now a CVS store), Westchester Bee Line Route 90 to Playland on Boston Road (mid 1990s), Bx55 is still listed while Bx41SBS+ is not (2010 and 2013, respectively). Parkway School on Gun Hill Road (unknown)
Grand Concourse and Yankee Stadium: Apple Bank located at Heritage Field, the new park across from Yankee Stadium, instead of the SE corner on East 161st Street, Bronx Terminal Market is missing, Staples is located south of East 149th Street instead of inside the Gateway Mall.
The Rockaways: Peninsula Hospital (2012)
Crown Heights: Caledonia Hospital (2003. now an apartment complex), Classon Ave exit from Franklin Ave/IND subway station, outbound side (1980's)
Midtown West: Virgin Megastore and Loews Theater (2009), Criterion Center multiplex (2003, now Toys-R-Us), Nokia Theater (now Best Buy Theater), Belgium Consulate (now office building across from Bryant Park)/ Missing from this map are the ESPN restaurant, Conde Nast and Bank Of America office towers. Oddly enough, many of the updated/corrected locations can be found in the Penn Station/Times Square map detail instead.
Ridgewood: A popular discussion board, Subchat, has been dissecting these maps - - one poster who goes by the name The Silence, posted a beautiful summary of mistakes and obsolete information on this map.
University Heights: NYPD 46th Precinct (on Ryer Ave) is missing and 44st Precinct at wrong location (not on Sedgwick Ave, supposed to be on River/Jerome near 169th Street) are missing. Also old subway entrances at 182/183 and Fordham Road on the B/D lines are still there.
Woodlawn: Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center (now Montefiore Medical Center)
These errors, plus missing locations where ADA elevators were installed in the past 5 years, as well as closed subway entrances I addressed in my original post - - are all still there on these maps. It goes to show that MTA continues to ignore these errors because they really don't care - - and they lie about it too because a lot of places need to be updated, contrary to what Paul Fleuranges said last year about these maps are constantly "updated".
You cannot trust the MTA to do something right anymore.
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