(Photo: Flickr.com/mtaphotos)

Any self-respecting New Yorker can effortlessly call to mind a host of complaints about the subway system, that dingy portal between work and home that we grudgingly wade into day in and day out. While the train certainly gets you from points A to B faster and cheaper than a cab, rat-infested stations, painfully long wait times and people who decide to pee and then take a shower in the middle of the car can add up to a pretty unpleasant riding experience. Not to mention all those fare hikes.

Still, the MTA--an institution as beloved as ConEd or even Time Warner--is doing its best to make hurdling through that century-old series of tubes worth your $2.25. And for its next act, the MTA has begun to install "high-tech Help Point intercoms" in stations around the city.

According to the Daily News:

The high-tech intercoms known as Help Point that the authority has been testing on the Lexington Ave. line will be placed in 102 stations by the end of 2014.

For the first time, passengers waiting for trains will be able to get basic travel information or summon help in an emergency with the push of a button.

Despite the Help Point's ability to help make stations safer and spread information about delayed trains, New Yorkers are naturally skeptical about the system, which has been on the docket for seven years and won't roll out fully until 2014. (The first Help Points debuted in 2011.)

"They keep making it more expensive for riders, but the services aren’t worth it. The trains are always broken. They never take you where you need to go. What are we paying more for?” lamented one 55-year-old straphanger to the Daily News.

Poor guy--he must not be located on the Silicon Alley subway line.