So my posting schedule should return to some semblance of normality after July 15th. Isn’t it destabilizing when you’re forced to put down your laptop and realize you have nothing to say but your life consists solely of work, stress, and whatever coping mechanism you utilize to keep work stress under control?
This is when you realize you’re trapped in the glass cage of adulthood.
This is when you start fantasizing about moving out west.
This is when it seems inevitable that you’ll become your parents.
In these days of work drudgery, one of the few activities I still have time to partake in that doesn’t make me feel old is riding the subway. I associate fake cheer, soccer games and suburbia with cars (Land Rovers, specifically). Riding the subway (grimy and obnoxiously loud as it is) offers me consolation –I’m still young and hip enough to be in a metropolis with a subway. Things could be worse. My life could be Land Rover dependant.
Yet riding the train has become a sneakily expensive habit. Yesterday, I squeezed in next to two women in their 50’s who were busy hyper-analyzing New York City’s public transportation system. They went through the years chronologically, citing the MTA fare increases. How they missed the days of the 90’s when a subway ride was just $1.00. I don’t even want to know what it is now since the latest price hike. I just swipe and try not to look.
I realize this is more of a Subway Gal appropriate post, but how can the MTA, which is a government subsidized and a monopoly, be almost bankrupt? It’s as non-sensical as Rihanna, celebrity superstar whose albums and songs are inescapable, being almost bankrupt. It just defies logic.
When they started talking about the “doomsday budget” for New York, which would include an increase of train rides to $2.50. I officially zoned out for fear of becoming irrationally angry before 8am. Then I get to work and a colleague starts telling me about a politician named Bruce Ratner who’s trying to finance a multi-million dollar sports arena in Brooklyn, while increasing MTA fares because “funds were too low.”
Um, this is New York and we’re all workaholics. People who crave a healthy lifestyle or the kind of balance that requires insane sports arena type of equipment, leave. We have Chelsea Piers, and we have several arenas for professional sporting events that are already really great as causing traffic. It really made me wonder who is prioritizing these decisions, and why millions of New York MTA riders take the hardest hit?
Someone at work actually answered my rhetorical question and told me to check out democratic mayoral candidate Roland Rogers, who apparently opposes this arena and MTA fare hiking absurdity.
I stared out my office window at the foggy grey and wondered why things can never just stay the same. Just a little bit. Yes, change is inevitable. Change is all we can rely on. But can’t things like bus and subway fares stay the same? Pretty please?
Then I realized I’d just googled and actually took interest in reading about a mayoral candidate. Wow. Change. I’m morphing into my parents after all.
July 3rd, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Here here!!! The MTA is taking advantage of us public transportation people. Instead of rewarding us for riding the subway or bus, which helps save the environment and reduce traffic, they penalize us by increasing fares! Now what sense does that make? SHEESH!