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Yesterday, the MTA burned down all the token booths and set their agents loose in the wild to fend for themselves, with only wits and smart red jackets about them. They were ostensibly on hand to help use MetroCard machines, give directions, dispense folksy wisdom, and distribute copies of Radar to riders. The ever-watchful New York press put their best reporters on the case, ensuring that all the "customer assistance agents" spent the majority of their first days answering fake questions from journalists. The Post and the Times have more or less the same story, but some interesting discrepancies become apparent upon close inspection. Here's the Post on looking for help in Herald Square:

A disaster. No customer-service assistants as confused tourists gathered around a map to try to decipher it, bunched up on turnstile line, and besieged a Post reporter with questions about how to get around the city.

Grade: F

And the Times:

Thomas A. Simmons, who was filling in as a supervisor at Herald Square, expertly helped customers operate the touch-screen vending machines, which he noted were particularly confusing for some tourists and elderly riders.

What was going on at Herald Square? Was the Timesman wasting the agent's time with cute questions about Dr. Zizmor, leaving the poor Post reporter lost in a sea of Ground Zero-seeking tourists? I suspect both reporters were just quizzing each other. Fisticuffs surely ensued. -AP

Fare Enough? [NYP]
MetroCards? Certainly. But DeKalb Avenue? Don't Ask. [NYT]