My mornings have become a succession of hellish train rides. Sat on the 4 train this morning in the tunnel just before Grand Central for TWENTY FIVE MINUTES. Not moving. Shoved in like a sardine. Teetering on the brink of tears and madness. God did not bless me with patience. It is one thing I am severely lacking. I know this is not good. I know I need to learn to take a deep breath and relax. BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW. When I am a half hour late for work because of the inefficiency of nyc transit and in the meantime I have no choice but to be pressed up against some creepy, smelly stranger.
And all a person can do is stand there and fume and boil inside about the fact that the MTA raised our fare to 2 bucks per train ride and that this is the type of service that the public gets for their hard earned dollars. It really ticks me off. Especially since the MTA has been seriously criticized for misrepresenting their financial records which just increases the sense that one is being royally ripped off. The worst part is that there is nothing we can do. A lot of people have no choice except to ride public transportation and in nyc, that number of people is huge. We are forced to depend on them and we are forced to pay their outrageous fares even when they're cooking their books. It is so wrong and so unfair. Even though the MTA has been ordered to roll the fare back to $1.50, there is a possibility that will never happen if the appeals court rules otherwise, and of course, even if it does get rolled back, all of us who have paid the outrageous increase in the meantime will definitely not get any of that money back. The whole thing is such a fiasco. It just makes me sick that publicly funded organizations can just rip people off and get away with it. Ah. One more thing to be furious about... it's what I love most about the world today.
Posted by Maria at June 5, 2003 01:44 PM