profit industry non profit & activism founded 1979 headquarters new york city united states key people gene russianoff website straphangers campaign the straphangers campaign is a new york city based transit interest group that advocates on behalf of riders of public transport . the organization is part of the nypirg new york public interest research group . the straphangers campaign s main spokesperson and staff attorney is gene russianoff . for three decades gene russianoff the staff lawyer for the new york public interest research group s straphangers campaign has championed the rights of subway riders according to a 2010 profile in the new york times . 1 2 the group s name is derived from the colloquial term straphanger for transit riders who gripped the hanging leather straps to keep their balance while the vehicle was in motion . reports and surveys edit the pokey awards a product of the straphangers campaign tells the public which bus is the slowest in the city . they have been announced annually since 2002 . the straphangers campaign also conducts annual surveys checking the performance of all subway lines . key factors include timeliness reliability service breakdowns seating availability clarity of announcements and cleanliness dirtiness is colloquially called schmutz . a separate survey checks the performance of public pay telephones in subway stations . 3 in 2006 the bus schleppie awards were given to the bus lines that rated worst in bunching with major gaps in service essentially amount of deviation from posted timetables . the m1 bus in manhattan won with 27.6 % unreliability . the straphangers campaign also rates the subway each year in a report called state of the subways report card ranking each service from best to worst based on their performances in six categories . the 7 was ranked best the most winning seven times including the first report card in 1997 . the c has been rated the lowest the most losing six times last in 2012 . references edit googman 2010 chan sewell 03 13 2009 mta warns of dire fiscal picture new york times city room blog . haughney 2011 external links edit gootman elissa 22 october 2010 a day without a train the new york times sunday routine the subway issue regional retrieved 8 december 2012 haughney christine 5 may 2011 r line is schmutziest survey says the new york times city room retrieved 7 december 2012 straphangers campaign official website nypirg straphangers campaign records 1962 2007 manuscripts and archives new york public library . v t e public interest research group people phil radford ralph nader donald k. ross gene karpinski ted halstead arshad hasan joyce elaine roop gene russianoff jim jontz pamela gilbert anthony pollina celeste thorson james love tom hucker joanna guy related organizations fund for the public interest environmental action environment america green corps illinois pirg mopirg minnesota public interest research group ohio pirg pirgim massachusetts public interest research group new york public interest research group maryland public interest research group retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title straphangers campaign & oldid 741218083 categories organizations based in new yorktransportation in new york citynew york public interest research group inc.organizations established in 1979hidden categories pages using infobox company with unsupported parameters navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 26 september 2016 at 03 33 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view