Posted on 05/28/2012 3:12:23 PM PDT by Olog-hai
There's a time and a place for everything—even farebeating, in one City Councilman’s opinion.
Councilman Robert Jackson said he told his wife to duck under the turnstiles at the 181st Street station on the A line, which had a broken MetroCard machine, rather than walk to a staffed entrance at 184th Street.
“I told her to go under,” Jackson said. “I would have gone under. Whoever goes to buy a MetroCard should be entitled to a free ride if the machines aren’t working, if there’s no token booth clerk there,” he added. …
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
So people are expected to know that and then trudge back up the stairs/escalator and walk three blocks uptown just so they can pay their fare? I've been to Manhattan often enough to know that those blocks are l-o-n-g.
If the NYC subway system really wants to save money on fare collectors, just do what the toll roads are doing and issue passengers those E-Z passes in the form of proximity HID cards. Just slip one of those into your wallet and the turnstiles will let you through as soon as you come up to them.
Street blocks are not long in Manhattan. Avenue blocks are. And unless the MTA’s suddenly gone more incompetent than normal, there would be signs indicating where unstaffed and staffed entrances are.
So ... you expect an elderly woman to walk three city blocks just so that the MTA can get their buck? Yeah, I know the guy's a democrat and if you crossed one of his sacred cows he wouldn't show the slightest compassion to your situation - but we should be a little bit less petty then that.
So when I go to the bakery and the corner store and the guy is in the back while I’m waiting to make my purchase, I should be entitled to take my stuff and leave without paying if I don’t have exact change and I don’t have the time to wait for him to finish doing whatever’s so important while there’s a customer whose time is really, really valuable.
“So ... you expect an elderly woman to walk three city blocks just so that the MTA can get their buck?”
So is public transportation a right? Is she entitled to expect public transportation to always be available to her? I’ve never had that expectation and have always made sure I had alternate transportation plans, including taxi and rental car agency numbers in my purse.
. . . and the guy didn’t suggest that elderly folk break the law either. Besides, IINM, there would be signs at the top of the station entrance indicating whether it’s accessible for people with special needs, so the descent (or ascent, in the case of elevated railroads) to the trains wouldn’t begin there. It’s kinda like how there aren’t bus stops at every street corner (well, in some cities there used to be, e.g. Bayonne NJ, but they stopped that due to the average speed dropping to maybe ½-mph or so) . . .
I’m with you on this one Sam. I don’t see a big issue here.
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