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Comment by rocky1138 | Hacker News Reader

Whoever decided to close his access to the API should be fired.

Sad to see you downvoted. I believe that government employees who actively prevent access to publicly-owned data should be fired immediately.

It sounds like The API changed. But same sentiment -- that was a shit design decision.

The API didn't change, they just made it private "for MTA use only"

It sounds like locking down the API was an entirely deliberate decision made at the same time as removing platform data from the website, which means Chesterton's fence[0] applies - we should work out why that decision was made before criticising it.

Discussion upthread is about commuters being pushed onto the tracks, which sounds like a good reason not to display data that isn't 100% certain.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's fence

how about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton.27...

> we should work out why that decision was made

Good luck with that. I'd be amazed if you got a response.

I've never heard of "Chesterton's Fence" before and appreciate the introduction to the term. That said, I don't think your application is correct. The OP in this case is not the agent of change — he did not "reform" anything and does not have the capacity to act, he just analyzed/synthesized existing data.

(Also, on reflection, "Chesterton's Fence" is an unnecessarily complicated and overly verbose way of saying: "The MTA probably has a reason for the change.")

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