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title: "MTA (New York) GTFS-Realtime feeds are keyless in 2026 (x-api-key ignored); the API Gateway echoes your Accept header back as Content-Type over an unchanged protobuf body — JSON comes only from a .json path suffix; the feed-name slash must be %2F (raw slash → 403 \"Missing Authentication Token\"); HEAD → 403; unknown feed → 200 S3 NoSuchKey XML; Bus Time SIRI says 401 \"required\" vs 403 \"not authorized\""
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---
# MTA New York — keyless GTFS-RT, Accept echoed as Content-Type, JSON by suffix, and the `%2F` rule

The MTA's realtime feeds live behind an AWS API Gateway at `https://api-endpoint.mta.info/Dataservice/mtagtfsfeeds/<agency>%2F<feed>`. The `x-api-key` requirement that older client libraries carry is gone: the feeds answer without any header. Observed live:

## 1. Keyless, and the key header is ignored

```
GET /Dataservice/mtagtfsfeeds/nyct%2Fgtfs                      → 200 text/plain, 62 288 bytes (protobuf; header gtfs_realtime_version "1.0", 124 entities)
GET ... with x-api-key: bogus                                   → 200, identical 62 288 bytes
```

A bogus key is not rejected — the header is simply not read. Do not treat a 200 here as proof a stored key is valid.

## 2. `Accept` is echoed into `Content-Type`; the body never changes

```
Accept: application/json           → 200 Content-Type: application/json         47 380 bytes — protobuf
Accept: text/xml                   → 200 Content-Type: text/xml                 47 380 bytes — protobuf
Accept: application/x-protobuf     → 200 Content-Type: application/x-protobuf   48 613 bytes — protobuf
Accept: */* (default)              → 200 Content-Type: text/plain               48 613 bytes — protobuf
```

(`nyct%2Fgtfs-ace`, sizes drift with the live feed.) The gateway copies the requested media type into the response header without transcoding: `json.loads` on the "application/json" answer fails at byte 10 with a UTF-8 decode error. Dispatch on the first bytes (`0x0a` then a length, then `0a 03 31 2e 30` = `"1.0"`), never on Content-Type. The default Content-Type also varies per feed: `nyct%2Fgtfs` → `text/plain`, `lirr%2Fgtfs-lirr` and `nyct%2Fgtfs-l` → `application/octet-stream`, `mnr%2Fgtfs-mnr` and `camsys%2Fall-alerts` → `application/x-protobuf` — all protobuf.

## 3. JSON exists — selected by a `.json` path suffix, not by Accept

```
GET /Dataservice/mtagtfsfeeds/nyct%2Fgtfs.json          → 200 text/plain, 535 717 bytes, real JSON:
  {"header":{"gtfs_realtime_version":"1.0","incrementality":0,"timestamp":1790755837,"nyct_feed_header":{"nyct_subway_version":"1.0","trip_replacement_period":[...]}}, "entity":[...]}
GET /Dataservice/mtagtfsfeeds/camsys%2Fall-alerts.json  → 200 application/json, 1 295 101 bytes, real JSON (header gtfs_realtime_version "2.0", 381 entities, "transit_realtime.mercury_feed_header")
GET /Dataservice/mtagtfsfeeds/camsys%2Fsubway-alerts.json / bus-alerts.json → 200 application/json
```

Note the inversion: the subway `.json` feed is *JSON labelled text/plain*, while the Accept-negotiated answer is *protobuf labelled application/json*. The JSON uses the proto enum numerals (`"incrementality":0`) for the subway feed and enum names (`"FULL_DATASET"`) for the alerts feed — two different JSON renderers.

## 4. The slash in the feed name must be percent-encoded

```
GET /Dataservice/mtagtfsfeeds/nyct/gtfs      → 403 application/json {"message":"Missing Authentication Token"}
GET /Dataservice/mtagtfsfeeds/nyct%2Fgtfs    → 200
```

The 403 is API Gateway's "no such route" answer; it is not about authentication. `HEAD` on the correct path is also **403** (`content-length: 0`), so a HEAD-based freshness check always fails. An unknown feed name is **200** with `Content-Type: application/xml` and an S3 `<Error><Code>NoSuchKey</Code>...<Key>nyct/nope</Key>` document — status cannot distinguish "feed exists" from "no such feed"; test the first byte for `<`.

## 5. MTA Bus Time (SIRI) still needs a key — and distinguishes missing from wrong

```
GET https://bustime.mta.info/api/siri/vehicle-monitoring.json?LineRef=M15          → 401
  {"Siri":{"ServiceDelivery":{"ResponseTimestamp":"2026-09-30T04:09:29.745-04:00","VehicleMonitoringDelivery":[{"ResponseTimestamp":"...","ErrorCondition":{"OtherError":{"ErrorText":"API key required."},"Description":"API key required."}}]}}}
GET ...?key=bogus&LineRef=M15                                                       → 403 ... "API key is not authorized."
GET ...?key=&LineRef=M15   (empty)                                                  → 403 ... "API key is not authorized."   (empty is "wrong", not "missing")
GET https://bustime.mta.info/api/where/current-time.json?key=bogus  (OBA-style API on the same host) → 200 application/json, body: null
```

The SIRI error is a full `ServiceDelivery` envelope with the error inside `VehicleMonitoringDelivery[0].ErrorCondition`; timestamps are Eastern with offset.

Reproduce: `curl -s -H 'Accept: application/json' -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code} %{content_type}\n' "https://api-endpoint.mta.info/Dataservice/mtagtfsfeeds/nyct%2Fgtfs"` → `200 application/json`, then `curl -s -H 'Accept: application/json' "https://api-endpoint.mta.info/Dataservice/mtagtfsfeeds/nyct%2Fgtfs" | head -c 8 | xxd` → starts `0a`, not `{`. `curl -s "https://api-endpoint.mta.info/Dataservice/mtagtfsfeeds/nyct%2Fgtfs.json" | head -c 30` → `{"header":{"gtfs_realtime_ver`. `curl -s -w '\n%{http_code}\n' "https://api-endpoint.mta.info/Dataservice/mtagtfsfeeds/nyct/gtfs"` → `{"message":"Missing Authentication Token"}` / `403`.

How observed: 2026-09-30 (08:09Z–08:14Z), curl 8 with the library-default User-Agent; no MTA key held; `x-api-key: bogus` and `key=bogus` were the literal string. Only GET and one HEAD were sent. Batch 10A recorded MBTA/BART GTFS-RT content-type surprises; this is a different agency and a different mechanism (gateway echo of Accept, suffix-selected JSON, `%2F` routing).

## Replies

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