City statistics show that the rate of homeless people sleeping on the subways rose by 13 percent this year - a steady increase underground that has unfortunately gone on for some time now. In 2005, the approximation was around 845; eight years later, that number is around 1,850. Above ground, the homeless population sleeping on the streets dropped by a mere 2 percent.

So the news of a major cash injection from Governor Cuomo couldn't come sooner.

Yesterday, the Albany chieftain announced that the MTA would be getting $40 million more than it requested in state funds. In total, this fiscal year is witnessing an increase in transit aid across the state by about $360 million; most of which has come from the toll hike that has taken effect.

With that money, the MTA is proposing to set up a fund to better serve customers with all this new cash. The coming changes will not be released until July, when the agency releases its official budget. But, until then, we can speculate just what exactly the MTA should be working on to make sure the lives of New Yorkers are a bit less frantic.

But there is hope on the horizon for disgruntled commuters.

Yesterday, at a City Council budget hearing, the New York City Office of Management and Budget announced that the MTA will be conducting a review of the F train this summer once work is finished on the Culver Viaduct. The inspection could result in good news for all--an express F in Brooklyn; something that hasn't happened since 1987.

Except the proposal might not be as great as it sounds. The F train has a limited amount of trains on its line--hence the delays--so if it does become express, the trains will be distributed to either local or express routes. Also, the stops that used to be on the express line aren't exactly the most used ones. Obviously, much has changed in South Brooklyn in the past 26 years.

Oh, and the MTA doesn't have that much money. But we already know that.

But the news comes right after we heard the G train is getting its full line review as well. So we're keeping our fingers crossed.

[jsurico15@gmail.com/@JSuricz]

New York City Department of Social Services

Today, ads in the same vein as the one seen on the right will pop up on subways everywhere. Their main theme: Fifty percent of teenagers do not understand the seriousness of pregnancy at such an early age. And, as you can see, they're bound to grab any viewer's immediate attention. We guess that's advertising at its core, right?

The campaign is the latest from the NYC Department of Social Services to address the issue of teen pregnancy. It will be followed with a YouTube video series later this month as well as an informational text message program for young adults. In both, the Health Department will attempt to reiterate that message.

The new ads rides off the recent controversy brewing over the city's CATCH program. This initiative (increasingly) places Plan B and birth control in the hands of public school health workers, naturally infuriating the parents of students subject to the in-school contraceptives.

But that story parallels the news that teen pregnancy has dropped more than 27 percent in New York City over the past decade. Although the numbers split drastically by borough and race, Health Commissioner Tom Farley pointed to two reasons for the overall decline: Teenagers are having less sex and using more protection.

And, now, there might be a third: that these ads will scare the living daylights of kids everywhere.

You can check out the whole collection here.

[jsurico15@gmail.com/@JSuricz]

At yesterday's emergency hearing on subway deaths called by city councilman James Vacca, the MTA unveiled a large-scale public education campaign to combat platform-edge related deaths at subway stations. The heinous December platform murders of Sunando Sen at a station in Sunnyside, Queens and Ki-Suk Han in Times Square brought increased awareness to an even larger issue.

The campaign is aimed at reducing the number of deaths, 54, which occurred last year as a result of riders being killed by trains.

Yesterday, City Councilman and Transportation Committee chair James Vacca called for an "emergency hearing" on a problem that cannot escape the headlines: the increasingly high tendency of straphangers to, either purposefully or by matter of coercion, come to their deaths on the subway tracks. The announcement came almost immediately after it was discovered that a man had committed suicide in front of the 2 train at Times Square earlier that day.

According to Vacca, the "emergency hearing" needs to be collaborative in order to find a solution: ""The MTA needs to bring all the stakeholders to the table and acknowledge that this is a serious problem that demands a coordination solution, and they must tell the public what their plan is... Even one life lost on our subway tracks is one life too many."

On average, subway trains in New York hit about 150 people a year, killing a third of them. So, yes, Vacca is definitely onto something. And maybe this "emergency hearing" can provide some solutions to a situation that seriously demands them.

Police have released surveillance footage of the woman suspected of pushing a man to his death last night in front of an approaching 7 train at a Queens subway station.

The video shows the suspect frantically fleeing the 40th Street/Lowery Street station in Sunnyside, Queens.

Several witnesses said they saw the woman, who appeared to suffer from some kind of mental illness, pacing back and forth across the subway platform while talking to herself prior to the incident. The suspect proceeded to take a seat on a platform bench before jumping up to push the still unidentified victim off the edge of the platform as the Flushing-bound train approached, police told the NY Daily News.

The victim's body was struck under the first and second cars of the train, and was so severely mangled that police have yet to uncover the man's identity. Witnesses told police that the victim didn't appear to notice the woman before the fatal push, the News reports.