The story of the "$250,000 subway typo" may have been a tad exaggerated, an MTA spokesman told The Huffington Post.
On Sunday, the New York Post reported that the MTA had thrown out about $250,000 worth of subway maps because of a fare-related typographical error. By Monday morning, the story had gone viral.
According to the tabloid, a March 2013 commuter map printed by the MTA had to be scrapped after an outdated fare was discovered. A photograph of the misprinted map shows that the map wrongly listed the minimum price for a pay-per-ride card as $4.50. It is now $5.
Last week, the MTA raised its prices for the third time in three years, upping the cost of a single ride from $2.25 to $2.50.
On Monday afternoon, MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz told The Huffington Post that the article in the Post was "grossly inaccurate" and had failed to point out "important caveats."
Ortiz confirmed that the unfortunate map error had indeed happened but stressed that the cost incurred had not been a quarter of a million dollars. It was, instead, "close to $75,000," he said.
He added that the MTA has a fixed budget for maps every year and that there will be "no additional incurred cost."
"This was a small run. It's negligible," he said. "The MTA prints about 6 million maps a year... [The recall] will have minimal or no impact on the number of maps available."
Ortiz says that the MTA prints new maps about four to six times a year, depending on demand.
"[Errors like this] do not happen often," he said, adding that unused and scrapped maps are typically recycled, with some of them repurposed to make subway-themed handbags (like this one).
Ortiz also pointed out that due to the recent announcement of the April reopening of South Ferry station, new maps would have had to be printed soon anyway.
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