This is a hilarious update to our MTA Schedule Data FOIL Request Story. I have just arrived back from Berlin and am reading through all the letters my attorney sent me from the various MTA agencies and came across a great one from Long Island Railroad. We requested their schedule data for the entire system in a electronic table format - e.g. a database dump, or excel table or any form of the data in an electronic table.

LIRR's Senior Paralegal Mark Weinberg wrote us:
"I am writing to advise you that there are no documents responsive to your request."

Oops, Except We Have It On Our Website

HERE you can query the WHOLE database of LIRR Schedules. Even this is technically an electronic table of one of their schedules. Maybe they have someone quickly typing responses to requests on their trip planner!

UPDATE:

This Is What It Means To Be Cooperative

Metro North didn't need months and months to find their data, didn't need any special instruction, didn't pretend they don't have anything of the sort, and didn't send it to us as jibberish. I just checked a CD we got from Metro North. They got our request, and responded in a perfectly professional and timely way! Here is a snapshot of one of the four Excel files they sent us (click to see it large):



Thank You Metro North!