We've had a few questions about our attempt to obtain information from the MTA about restrooms and riding records. For those who are interested in the workings of an awesome bureaucracy, here is what happened.
We first sent an email to the MTA asking for two pieces of information: 1) did they have any record of anyone since 1998 besting Mike and Sal's time of 25:11 and 2) could they send us a list of the location and hours of all restrooms in the subway?
The next day they sent us a response, saying:
This is in response to your recent e-mail message to MTA New York City Transit requesting information on the subway riding record and a listing of public restrooms in our subway system.
We truly appreciate your interest in New York City Transit. In response to your inquiry, the information you seek must be obtained through our Department of Law. If this statistical information is available under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), your request will be processed as soon as possible. As such, please write to Ms. Denise Fraser at MTA NYCT-F.O.I.L., 130 Livingston Street, Room #1214, Brooklyn, NY 11201.
They also included a little blurb about the state of the restrooms and about their list of restrooms, but did not provide any information from that list:
New York City Transit is unable to maintain public restrooms in all subway stations because of security and maintenance concerns. However, every effort is made to have restrooms available for customers at terminal stations, transfer points and our more heavily used stations. While these restrooms are regularly inspected, they may sometimes be temporarily closed because of vandalism or for structural repairs. In these instances, maintenance personnel take necessary corrective action to return the restroom to service in a timely manner. Supervision in our Department of Subways will continue to regularly inspect restrooms to ensure that they are clean and in proper working order. While the list that the Customer Correspondence and E-Maill [sic] Unit currently has is dated 2004, most locations should still be operable, except for as mentioned, temporary closure for repairs.
So we wrote a letter and mailed it to the Department of Law. A week or two later, we heard back from them. Here is the text of their letter (the bold formatting near the end is theirs, not ours):
MTA New York City Transit
June 23, 2006
Re: Freedom of Information Law
Request No. 12010
Dear Mr. Green:
This is to acknowledge receipt of your Freedom of Information Law request, wherein you request to know if anyone beat the record of 15 [sic] hours, 11 minutes to ride the entire subway system without exiting and a list of the bathrooms in service in the subway system and what hours they are open.
Your request has been forwarded to the appropriate department(s) for research.
Please be advised that the NYCT FOIL Unit receives a high volume of requests ranging from a simple request for one document that can be readily located to complex requests for multiple documents, such as records relating to a construction project. Typically, the FOIL Unit requests documents from other departments, which then must locate the documents and forward them for review by the FOIL Unit to determine if they are disclosable under the law. As a result, the time and effort required to complete a response can vary significantly. NYCT endeavors to complete each request in a time period that is reasonable under the circumstances. A few examples of the types of requests and estimated times for responses are:
A.) Requests for accident reports, Payment and/or Performance Bonds for a particular contract, Board Minutes or other records that can be identified and located by going to one source - one to three months.
B.) Requests requiring research to determine the type of records that may be responsive - six to eight months.
C.) Multiple or voluminous requests seeking to obtain records pertaining to contracts - six months to one year.
We believe that your request falls into the category that usually takes 6 Months to complete. We would expect that our response should be completed by 12/21/2006.
We will notify you if we cannot provide you with responsive records within the aforementioned time.
If you are able to narrow or further specify the records you seek, it may permit the FOIL Unit to complete the process in a shorter time period. Please use the above number when corresponding to advise us of this more narrow request.
The fee for this service is $.25 per page of material provided. NYCT will advise you of the cost as soon as responsive documents are made available to us. Upon receipt of a check or money order to cover the costs of the documents, we will forward those records that are disclosable.
Should it become necessary to inquire further regarding this request, please refer to the above Freedom of Information request number in your correspondence.
Sincerely,
Gail Rogers
Deputy Foil Officer
So there you have it. If anyone here likes filling out forms in triplicate, stamping said forms multiple times, then filing them away in a vast warehouse out on Staten Island, I would recommend a job with the MTA's Department of Law. Also you would get a sick sense of satisfaction in ensuring that all those people who make your job possible by requesting information never get the information they are looking for. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.