There is a commonly held belief that Helvetica is the signage typeface of the New York City subway system, a belief reinforced by “Helvetica,” Gary Hustwit’s popular 2007 documentary about the typeface. But it is not true–or rather, it is only somewhat true. Helvetica is the official typeface of the MTA today, but it was not the typeface specified by Unimark International when it created a new signage system at the end of the 1960s. Why was Helvetica not chosen originally? What was chosen in its place? Why is Helvetica used now, and when did the changeover occur?

Read the rest of this post

A member of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s board seized a report by three MIT students about flaws with the Boston subway’s fare collection system and delivered a scathing indictment of the subway system and its general manager, calling the system “a mess” and saying she had “lost all confidence” in the system’s general manager, Daniel A. Grabauskas.

The students, who were set to deliver a presentation last Sunday at the DefCon hacker conference about security vulnerabilities in the MBTA’s CharlieTicket and CharlieCard payment cards, were barred from speaking about the vulnerabilities at a hacker conference after the MBTA obtained a temporary restraining order last Saturday, gagging them for 10 days.

Read the rest of this post