"WTF? NYC TRANSIT...AGAIN"

Today's WTF?" (c) stevenn beck

It's alway's NYC transit...

I haven't traveled much really....certainly not as much as I wanted to and needed to..but I have experienced mass transit in other cities. Usually trains come on time. Usually they are less congested. Usually people are more considerate of one another. And usually the temperature in the subway car (or bus) is appropriate to conditions that day ie. heat in the winter, AC in the summer....but no extremes that make people uncomfortable. (Notice I said "usually" - there are always exceptions of course.)

Visiting my daughter up in Boston on a warm day in early fall, I EVEN noticed large portable fans circulating air throughout the subway stations. Air in the subway..what a concept!

And in DC-Boston-Chicago, I rarely - if ever - noticed overt examples of anti-social behavior and flagrant disobedience of laws and regulations.

And friends I know who have traveled outside the US report that mass transit in other countries is almost always on time, reasonable clean and a relatively enjoyable experience.

At least...compared to our experience with the NYC transit system. Some recent examples:

- Several unusually chilly days over the past week did not stop the MTA from blasting the AC on some subways cars and buses. In one car there WAS heat...which would have been fine except that the car was so warm people were removing their multiple levels of outergarments in an attempt to cool off and be comfortable...one elderly gentleman (no - NOT ME) looks as if he would pass out from the heat any moment...

- Waiting for the F train the other evening, the train took an extraordinarily long time to arrive. The platform was jammed - dangerously jammed - with people waiting. No announcement over the speaker system about delays, possible alternatives etc. Oh wait....there was one announcement...reminding people to stay away from the yellow lines and not get too close to the end of the platform...this announcement coming as more and more riders continued to spill into the patform, creating the very situation that the MTA had been kind enough to warn us about...

- Yesterday on an E train there was an announcement warning people that it was illegal to pan-handle on the subway....and not to encourage this behavior by giving anyone a contribution. Immediately thereafter four kids stood up, turned their music up to an unbearable volume (also against the rules BTW) and put on a "show" by dancing loudly up and down the subway car and swinging from the poles (one guy almost took the head off of a woman who was evidently standing too close to a pole.) And after the show - predictably - several riders offered the participants money. As the train pulled into the Roosevelt Avenue stop, these kids departed for another car...but two more guys entered with Spanish guitars and proceeded to serenade us all the way to Lexington Avenue. (They didn't sing much better than I do....it was a longggg ride....) Anyway....no transit policemen - or other MTA authority figures - in sight to stop these people from "entertaining" the rest of us.

- Nor did anyone show up to stop the young gentleman on the L train from eating a meatball hero...marinara sauce dripping from his sandwich, bits of meat and sauce spraying ever which way...and a funky smell emanating from his vicinity (as if the sandwich had been sitting in his packpack for a few hours).

I hear rumors that another MTA fare hike is imminent.

Really?

WTF?

Bye for now! Be safe...