An Open Letter to Metro-North Commuters
8 January 2014

I really wonder what is wrong with all of you people bitching about the latest fare-hike on Metro-North.

Let's get real folks.  Service this poor does not come cheap!  Do you think it's easy to run off consistently inaccurate timetables?  Do you think it is effortless to find and recruit motormen who can fall asleep at the wheel at 83 mph?  Do you think it is a simple matter to run trains that are exactly 10-15 minutes late EVERY SINGLE DAY regardless of the absence of bad weather? 

No!  This takes planning!  This takes coordinated effort!  Most of all, this takes money!  Your money.  Do you really believe it is not a challenge to identify employees whose English is so abysmal that an incredibly irritating voice synthesizer becomes the chosen method to make station announcements?

Let's be fair.  Metro-North senior management, constantly forced to agonize over the size of their six-figure bonus package, additionally has deal with the fact that even though New Haven Line trains only run back and forth on one track all day long; back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, these trains become incapacitated when that track gets cold, or that track gets wet, or that track gets dusty.

Human beings can only do so much when revenue is the bottom line.  All these irritating liberals using anachronistic terms like "Public Transportation Utility" and "Updated Infrastructure" and "Civic Responsibility" Geez!   What are they, Communists? 

Let's get with it people!  Line up, shut up, empty your pockets and say "moooo".

Really now.