New York’s Transit Agency Quits Sharing Updates on Twitter

Last month, Twitter introduced new pricing tiers for access to its A.P.I. For the M.T.A., the costs associated with the A.P.I. are about $50,000 per month, the agency said, adding that it does not pay tech platforms to publish service information. Ms. Rieara said the same information could be found through the MYmta and TrainTime apps, the M.T.A.’s website, email alerts and text messages.
“Service alerts are also available on thousands of screens in stations, on trains and in buses,” she said.
On Twitter, the M.T.A. responded to dozens of concerned customers, some of whom questioned the decision. Still, the agency doubled down. “We’ve loved getting to know you On Here, but we don’t love not knowing if we can to communicate with you each day,” the agency said in a pinned tweet on its feed.
Ridership on the M.T.A., which oversees a complicated network of subways, buses and commuter rail lines that stitch the city together, is improving from the early days of the pandemic. In February, there were more than 84 million subway trips and more than 33 million bus trips, which were about two-thirds of the ridership rates in February 2019, according to the city’s comptroller’s office.