Hoka Hey organizers acknowledge that the directions were difficult to follow and reminded riders that they have always said they "would not just give the prize money away."

Officials have also tried to remind riders that over the last 20 years, more than $35 billion has been invested to rebuild the subway.

The $7 billion system combines features that may remind experienced riders of the subways in New York and Washington.

Conductors remind riders, and messages are broadcast on platforms.

Mass transit officials, realizing they might be facing a public relations debacle, struggled yesterday to explain what they were up against, patiently reminding riders that this was the worst storm to hit the region since 1947.

Gene Russianoff, the head of the Straphangers Campaign, part of the New York Public Interest Research Group, said that service disruptions remind riders of their relative powerlessness.

Conductors have been reminding riders of the change and tape-recorded messages have been broadcast regularly over platform loudspeakers.

The Cyclone, arguably the Boardwalk's greatest standing symbol, is scary for all the wrong reasons, creaking and groaning to remind riders of its age and wooden construction, the selling points that brought them aboard in the first place.

The vehicle makes a few more twists and turns, while more images of Imhotep and the mummy warriors are lit up as it continues backwards and Imhotep reminds riders "There's no place to hide!

Over the next few days, the group will post stark advertisements in nearly all the city's 6,000 subway cars reminding riders of two fatal subway accidents and suggesting that they are being taken "for a ride."