LIRR ala Carte

Imagine going into a fine restaurant and ordering a 5 course meal only to be told that you must pay in advance and use a separate method of payment for each course.
Now imagine that restaurant is hurting for business, not really a stretch since that policy alone would lose quite a few patrons.
No I am not talking about the Seinfeld Soup Nazi but rather about Long Island's own MTM - mass transit moron, the Long Island Rail Road.
Once again the Metropolitan Transit Authority has shown how anti-cunsumer their operation is with their latest ruling against their most loyal of rider, the "Mail & Ride" monthly ticket purchaser.
If you are lucky enough to still have a job while Congress works on far more important issues such as how to get re-elected and help billionaires out with tax breaks then you know how expensive a monthly ticket is.
If you live in "Zone 3" for example you are charged $254 per month for the pleasure of waiting for an overcrowded, dirty, and late train every day.
But if you are also working for a forward thinking considerate employer you may be enrolled in the 'TransitChek" program which allows you to have up to $230 of pre-tax dollars per month deducted from your salary to pay for a portion of your commute.
Mind you the money is yours but can only be used for purchasing commutation so unless you buy a railroad ticket it's useless.
So how does one pay the extra amount above the $230?
Well until this month all you had to do was drop off the vouchers in a Mail&Ride envelope at Penn Station and the balance owed would be taken from a credit card you had on file with them. 
But that was way too easy for the customer so a policy change was necessary!
Now you have to go on-line and register the TransitChek card to deposit the amount into your account by the 23rd or 24th of every month and immediately mail a check for the balance.  The check must get to the Gods of the LIRR before the first of the month or your ticket will be invalidated!!!
Unlike restaurants who routinely split a bill and charge you and a friend half the tab the LIRR has not figured out how to allow the customer to use 2 credit cards for the same transaction.
And for their ineptitude you are punished!
But wait, it gets even better if you have $230 taken out of your salary for the month and you live in a less expensive zone or go on vacation and have too much money on the card.
If you do not prepare in advance you will be left with a balance on the card with no way to use it!
The railroad's response is an old one, use it or lose it!
Such compassion!
The bottom line is this: Do what the LIRR says, the way the LIRR says, and when the LIRR says or, wait for it - NO TICKET FOR YOU!

Open Letter to LIRR

The Long Island Rail Road is having trouble figuring out why their ridership is down.

What with oil and gas prices in the stratosphere they wonder why more people are getting in their cars and driving to work rather than use their mass transit rail service.

They scratch their empty heads as they search for ways to fill the ever increasing revenue gap.

And speaking of gaps notice how management fixed the physical gap problem.  For those of you lucky enough to not use the LIRR the gap between the trains doors and the platform is terribly wide at many stations.  Management now has recorded announcements telling riders to step over the gap.  (Much cheaper than actually fixing the problem.)

So let me see if I can help these ostrich types of our Metropolitan Transit Authority with a few suggestions.

First and foremost we must examine their ability to run a reliable and trustworthy business.

When people tell their mortgage company they will pay on time they are expected to do so.  The bank will not accept 5 or 6 days late as on time and will charge dearly for the tardy behavior!

The LIRR seems to consider anything up to 6 minutes late AS ON TIME!

They even have the nerve to boast on-time service based on this faulty premise.

As for overall service, when it rains somewhere in the tri-state area riders are hit with immediate delays, cancellations and disruptions.

Again the LIRR takes no blame claiming rather that the weather is an act of God.

One wonders if they have ever hear of contingency plans?

BREAKING NEWS – THERE WILL BE SNOW THIS WINTER!

They constantly ask riders to keep the trains clean and keep their feet off the seats.  Frankly most trains are so filthy to begin with riders don’t even like putting their butts on the seat.

Enter at own risk

Now I agree that some of the blame for the filthy condition of railroad cars must go to the ridership but people sense conditions when they enter the cars and tend to act accordingly.

But the final nail in what should be managements coffin is their constant indifferent stupidity.

They act as though customers are mindless sheep and will do whatever they are told to do.

It’s not bad enough that their mentality forces them to raise rates when ridership is down in order to continue making money but they have made it impossible for riders to exist!

Long Island is comprised mainly of large middle class working communities.  The people in these communities who still have jobs are making less money than before as business owners see the high unemployment rate as an excuse to pay lower wages.

So with less cash in their pockets workers are faced with the new LIRR policies that force them to rethink their commutation plans.

Many of the new regulations for LIRR tickets is not only bad business but it borders on absolute insanity!

Tickets now have very short expiration dates from time of purchase.  If you buy it today in anticipation of travelling in two weeks you lose out completely as the ticket will no longer be accepted.

The opposite to that way of thinking may be seen at the US Postal Service.

The Post Office sells stamps they hope people will collect and keep and never use. But those stamps are good forever at face value so if a collector decides to use them he will pay the difference and move on. The Postal Service makes a nice profit with that strategy and keeps its customers happy.

Back at the 'caveat emptor' LIRR refunds for accidentally purchased wrong tickets now cost more than the tickets themselves.

In other words if you plan ahead you are screwed.  But if you do not plan ahead and must purchase your ticket on the train you had better be carrying enough cash to make a mugger’s eyes light up!

The bottom line is simply this, for some reason the LIRR management feels that the best way to maintain the railroad is to treat the customer like dirt and continue to charge them more for it!

Take responsibility and seek out ways to actually make the railroad better.

Fight FOR ridership not against.

Unfortunately my voice is not important to these well to do anti-social types and rates will most assuredly rise in the coming years as those leaders continue to scratch their aforementioned collective empty heads over lost revenue.

Should they keep on their current course I foresee a time in the not so distant future when the seven remaining customers are paying $50,000 each for one way off-peak tickets purchased three minutes in advance at a ticket machine that only accepts cash.

Oh, and they needn’t rush – because the train will be on-time.

MTA - Lost Their Way

It’s going on a week since our latest weather event on Long Island.  Many of our streets are still dangerously slippery with snow banks blocking parking spots or passing lanes for that matter.

Parking lots in most of the shopping malls are nearly clear but the Long Island Railroad has not finished their work.

Well, that last part is not exactly true.  The LIRR, part of the MTA has finished what they set out to do, raise fares!  (In case you are not from around here - the two acronyms are supposed to stand for the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Long Island Rail Road.)

With the memory of yet another terribly amateurish attempt at running ‘on or near’ schedule still fresh in the minds of the riders the LIRR has just raised the cost to use their service.

Service?

Is it fair to call one word an oxymoron?

For the LIRR "on time" means being less than 6 minutes late!  Imagine telling your bank you were only $6 short on your mortgage payment!!!

What nerve these arrogant bastards have!

But they have not just raised the fares; they have completely canceled trains and combined others on their schedule and basically lowered the expectation of fairness system wide.

If you'd like to see how they don’t care one bit about their customers you need only look at the list of their new surcharges and fees.

For example if you accidentally purchase a wrong ticket for let’s say $6 and wish to return it you will get your money back LESS A $10 SERVICE FEE!

In other words the great folks at the LIRR will take your ticket back IF YOU PAY THEM $4!!!

Oh, and if you wish to buy a couple of extra tickets because it’s a pain to wait on line at the last second you now have only 1 week to use them before they expire!

And don’t even think about buying a ticket while on the train unless you have access to a home equity line of credit and can pass a Homeland Security background check!!!

While there are many more fees and service charges that could make a normal commuter’s blood boil we must still remember that the LIRR is part of the MTA which has added its own set of ‘screw you’ fees.

If you wish to have a Metro Card in order to ride the subways plan on keeping it forever.  And leave that valuable piece of paper in the will for your children.

The MTA, (Going Their Way – Not Yours) is now charging an extra dollar for new cards claiming that the tiny bits of nothing cost too much to print and are not environmentally friendly!

As if the MTA EVER gave a rat’s ass about the environment!

The bottom line is simply if you live on Long Island the experiment is on to see how much can be stolen from your wallets before you are forced to drive everywhere.

And with the price of gas about to top $4 per gallon (it’s already averaging $3.50) that plays right into the hands of George W Bush’s friends, the Saudis.

The consumer really has only one way to show his or her dissatisfaction with something, boycott.

Unfortunately in this case it is very hard to get around without using one of the MTA’s services.  So the next best solution is to leave Long Island; New York City; and New York State altogether (Leslie Nielson would now be waiting for all of you to repeat that last part so…)

The acronym at the top can now be explained to mean Much Too Arrogant!  And its subsidiary stands for Life Is Really Rough here.

So as much of Long Island grays the easy life of ‘early bird’ specials and hanging chads beckons.  And it’s only a matter of time before those of us with any brains and a small amount of pocket change leave this overly-expensive over-taxed under-funded wasteland.

Eventually only migrant workers cleaning the pools and trimming the summer lawns of the uber wealthy in the Hamptons will remain.

We're Number Two! We're Number Two!

Nassau County Long Island won the Silver Medal!
Westchester took the Gold!
So what was the competition?
Could it have been a Jeopardy style game?
Was it a kind of real estate Olympics?
No, it was a list of the highest ranking neighborhoods in the country in terms of property taxes!
That's right, Nassau Country taxes it's residents an average of just under $9,000 per year for the pleasure of owning property there.
But for that money residents get, uh, wait a moment, hmmm.
Well we get lots of things.
Let's see, there are plenty of potholes to keep drivers on their toes!  That's actually a good thing because it makes it necessary to keep one's eyes on the road rather than texting or putting on make-up.
Critics will argue that we on the Island have very good schools and for the most part they would be correct.  But the argument has no place in this story wince School Tax is separate from and added to Town tax.
For years there have been politicians arguing that the 'downstate' area should secede from NY State and form the 51st star on the flag.  They even came up with a name, The Empire State.  After all the cool building is in Manhattan not Albany.
If the five boroughs of New York City were to team up with the two Island Counties we would actually have a very populated state.  Empire State would finally have two dedicated Senators and several new Representatives for lobbyists to grease.
And perhaps two stories that appeared in the news on the same day would have different endings.  Those stories were about the sky high and quite unfair property tax and the fact that while Long Island's poverty numbers remain constant they are still terribly high.
Jobs have left Long Island as the politicians continue to make stupid choices in their efforts to grab a personal spotlight.  One need only look at the woman in charge of Hempstead who must think her name includes her title to see the self-serving mind at work.
Supervisor Kate Murray has continued to block 'The Lighthouse Project.'  That development would keep a professional hockey team here (I use the term loosely.)
In fact any development of the ugly blighted area in and around the Nassau Coliseum has stalled while Murray claims she wants to be sure it will be good for the county.
But when it came to her well-off retired dad she never gave the county a second thought hiring him to a cushy high-paying do-little job that could have gone to any number of more qualified unemployed available tax paying Long Islanders!
Daddy Murray quit after the nepotism became known but the intent was evident and the pig's motive was out in the open.
Then there was Mangano voiding his predecessor's cap on severance for top cops by gifting them hundreds of thousand of our tax dollars to retire early!  Those of us who were laid off and forced into a sort of early retirement without as much as a penny truly appreciated that gesture!
The Long Island Railroad has been mis-managed for so long that we don't ever expect it to work!  If the weather forecast has rain in it the trains will be late! And the rain doesn't even have to be in New York!  Ever notice the trains are considered to be on time until they are over 6 minutes late?
I could go on all day with the idiocy of our so-called leaders in government but most if this is known.
The loss of tax revenue from the stalled Lighthouse Project; the gifts of bribe money to and probably from local governments; and the increased cost to ride the rails on Long Island taken together with the high property taxes and shameful poverty level are turning Long Island into a terrible place to live.
And as soon as housing prices stabilize and move higher watch the middle class jump ship and move to more friendly climes.  At that time there'll be plenty of open jobs for daddy Murray!
The county may not win another Silver medal but when it comes to poor value for the money they sure take the cake.

Taken for a Ride

When a passenger enters onto a Long Island Railroad (LIRR) car he is tacitly agreeing to pay for the service he is about to receive.  If he cannot offer a ticket upon request by the conductor he could be subject to fine and imprisonment for theft of services.

Photo credit: Newsday File, Alejandra Villa
MTA workers work on LIRR equipment
at the Hillside facility. (March 11, 2010)

The union members who have been gaming a system they helped break by claiming and accepting overtime when none was warranted or documented are also stealing.  Their supervisors who at the very least have been looking the other way aided and abetted the crime.

These workers are as guilty of theft as are the un-ticketed passengers and should be subject to the same legal scrutiny and possible prosecution.

According to an audit of the MTA & LIRR as reported by Newsday nearly 3,300 employees took overtime pay that equaled more than half their yearly salaries!

Making an assumption that one of those average workers was making $80,000 per year (believe it or not a conservative estimate) that would amount to a minimum of $264,000,000 paid out in excessive overtime payments!  The LIRR is claiming as justification to raise fares and lower services a shortfall in the amount of $900 million!  I believe we just found a huge chunk of that shortfall.

And note the theoretical amount of $264 million that was basically stolen from the pockets of Long Islanders is comprised of only those workers whose overtime claims were more than 50% of their yearly salary.  It must be assumed that if all the overtime over-payments were added up the amount would be far greater and possibly enough to forego many of the service cuts or fare increases.

A further investigation found that 77% of the overtime allowed for payment was undocumented and should not have been claimed!

To those who may point out that there is a contract that allows for overtime and it was fairly negotiated between the unions and management I submit that fraud trumps contracts.  And we have precedent for an argument that questions, “what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is!”

If further investigation reveals that the smoke is indeed fraud prosecution must be sought.

At a time when so many American workers are being forced to accept 10% salary cuts or join the millions on unemployment and the entire economy is struggling to stay away from the abyss it must be comforting to know that a large chunk of workers in New York are going to be receiving automatic yearly raises in the amount of 4%.

The bottom line is as a result of these findings each and every overtime payment that has been made must be scrutinized.  If it is determined that the overtime was unwarranted or faked the worker must return the amount and face whatever further legal penalties our system decides!  The supervisor who allowed the irregularity must answer for his part in the alleged crime as well.

We pay to keep the MTA and LIRR running not only with our ticket purchases but with our taxes.  We are therefore entitled to know exactly where our money is being spent or thrown away.  And if the accounting shows irregularities those responsible must pay!

The State and Local governments owe that to those of us who have not yet left Long Island but may be forced to do so shortly.

Cost of Leaving - Long Island that is

The Long Island Rail Road made some drastic cuts in service and schedule this week in order to close a huge budget deficit they caused by their own stupidity and horrible management.

Having said that (I hate that phrase) the time has come to attempt the needed fix and the easiest way to start that journey is on the backs of the ridership.

Regardless of which side of the tracks you live on having to fork up more cash for less service can easily derail a formerly good day.

Ultimately when a business of any kind needs to make more money they have two choices, cut costs or raise prices.
However for a service company such as the LIRR doing either goes directly to the bottom line, but doing both is like main-lining.

Luckily the geniuses at the LIRR have not gone whole hog switching over to a pari-mutuel system of charges like they do at another mismanaged government operation, the Off Track Betting Corporation, OTB.

Assuming a one-way ride from Babylon into Manhattan costs the railroad $10,000 (total fiction) and they wish to have a hefty profit of $5,000.  They charge the 1000 passengers on the train $15 each.

Now assume the same trip is made during a less crowded time period and only carries 500 passengers.  The railroad would have to charge each rider $30 to make the same amount.
Of course with my luck I’d be the only jerk on the train and be asked to fork over all $15,000 by myself.

You would sit in the waiting room at your local station waiting for a more crowded ride watching the odds change for an affordable trip into the Big Apple.

But the pricing schedule is far more complicated than that and includes all types of fares even ‘un’ ones.

The other side of the coin is that many of the cuts should have been made years ago.  Train schedules are not written in stone and should be altered with shifting ridership.  Someone at the LIRR was asleep at the switch.

Personally I rode on many trains where the workers outnumbered the passengers.

Of course the trains must get to the other end of the line in order to carry riders back.  The practice known as 'dead-heading' is used by the airlines.  Many trains will therefore be fairly empty but there are always alternatives.

Since they have similar problems the LIRR should take its cue from the Airline industry.  No I don’t want them to start charging for carry-on bags but they should utilize their hub at Jamaica a little better.

Having trains stop and turn around at that active station would create a sort of shuttle into Penn Station that could operate more frequently than the longer rides heading ‘out east.’

Many riders would complain that they had to get up or rather wake up in order to switch at Jamaica but they would get over the inconvenience when they realized the savings.

Before making any cuts the head of a company always says “Nobody wants to see anyone lose their job but…”  That is PC speak for, “We have to fire someone so I can keep making obscene amounts of money.”

Of course without knowing the exact amount of money the top people are pulling in at the LIRR or Metropolitan Transit Authority, MTA it is hard to rail against them.  But it is easy to realize that their salaries added to all the perks and benefits and healthcare and retirement incentives they receive make the job a very lucrative and desirable one.

Frankly they’re doing a heck of a job!

So isn’t it time they started to do better?

But the shame is when those at the top make all the wrong decisions it is the loyal workforce and customer that gets thrown under the bus, or train for that matter.

At the end of the day (I hate that phrase also) it is always the little guy that gets the raw deal, the wrong end of the stick, the higher priced ticket.