Subway fares might be going up, The MTA's capital plan might be funded by debt, and the city's mass transit lines might be overrun by rats but hey, commuting in New York might not be all bad.

Boingo and Transit Wireless will start hooking up wifi in the city's subway stations over the next five years, according to an announcement today.

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A lot of news this morning about our favorite thing to love, hate and love-hate: the subway system. So, what's new below ground? Oh, just your usual multitudes of people, crime and service issues. We'll rattle off some of the specifics. First up, MTA stats are showing that 2012 has been a boon for below-ground criminals. What NY1 calls "major subway felonies" have gone up 30 percent this January opposed to January 2011. As a point of comparison, 85 robberies occurred last month when only 64 did in same time frame last year. Why? NY1 has police saying it's because people are eying those shiny things on laps and in hands. That's right, people are looking to nab gadgets, so hold onto your iPhone tightly!

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Brace yourselves -- MTA plans at least 59 more nights of subway closures this year under its new FasTrack program. In total, that adds up to 413 hours of limited service on certain subway lines. Every month this year (except August and December) will see at least one major line shut down for repairs overnight during the work week.

Carmen Bianco, the MTA's senior vice president of subways, told the NY Daily News:

"We know it's an inconvenience to our customers and we apologize for the inconvenience. Hopefully, our customers will only have to walk a block, or two blocks at the most, to get alternate service."

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Usually when we post videos of things that happen on the subway, they show the underbelly of New York's underbelly. But sometimes lovely moments do happen on trains, like the one above via Gothamist. Last night, after news of Whitney Houston's death spread people on the 2 train responded with an impromptu "I Will Always Love You" sing-a-long.

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via Rat Free Subways

Let's face it -- as New Yorkers, we have certainly seen our fair share of ugly rats. They're in the parks, in the subway, and if you're particularly unlucky, in your apartment building.

But this rat -- this rat is the ugliest, at least according to the Transit Workers Union, which ran a photo contest to find the ugliest rat in the city. This particular rat, found at the Seventh Avenue station, won the race with a score of 4.8 out of 5 (somewhere between "ugly" and "beastly").

TWU started the contest as a way to bring more attention to the rat problem in city subway stations. As stated on the Rat Free Subways website (be warned -- probably not for the rodent-averse):

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Reggie Allen is no criminal mastermind.

Cops say that 34-year-old Allen brought two loaded firearms -- including a Tec-9 semi-automatic pistol and a .45 caliber semi-automatic handgun -- into a crowded Times Square subway station on New Year's Day.

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Today in "Thank you, Captain Obvious," a transit advocacy group has found that many subway platforms are unsightly, unsanitary, rat-infested blights. You don't say!

The Straphangers Campaign released the results of its first ever "State of the Station Platforms" survey today, and the news is (mostly) ugly.

In one bright spot, the Straphangers Campaign found that all of the 250 randomly-selected station platforms they checked had trash cans, which appeared to be emptied regularly so they weren't overflowing.

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from the MTA

The MTA has released a late-night version of the subway map so that now, on that rare occasion when you're trying to get home drunk on a Thursday night, you will know exactly which trains you should avoid waiting for!

Said MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota, "This companion night map will, for the first time, depict service for a particular portion of the day. This is the latest effort we've taken to improve the availability of information and detail we provide to our customers."

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We know from experience that two things make for strange and uncomfortable subway videos: food and rats. Now, in order to get rid of the latter, a New York State Senate bill aims at getting rid of the former. The New York Post reports that the proposed bill would institute a $250 fine for anyone caught snacking, and that money would go to a fund to help curb litter.

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One of the maps.

Today in subway porn we have a beautiful depiction of the ebb and flow and changing formats of the New York City subway map over the years. The only thing better than watching the map come of age to the inspirationally epic music in the video created by Gizmodo's Matt Toder back in December (Bowery Boogie reminded us of it today) would be actually holding one of those early 1900s parchments in our hands. Though, probably, we'd accidentally tear it or spill coffee on it and then get sued, so this is really better, anyway.

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