Tuesday, November 20, 2007

A Thanksgiving present for NYCers: no subway fare-hike!

New Yorkers got some very welcome news this morning, a nice Thanksgiving present, with the announcement by Gov. Spitzer that the MTA does not need to raise its fare. Of course, those who ride the fucking things on a daily basis know that they never needed to raise it, the MTA just figures it should keep its riders under heel and at-attention by sporadically raising the fare, even though it literally BLEEDS money when analyzed. There was the wonderful case a few years back when it was revealed that they were keeping two sets of books and had been for some time, but still the fare-hike they had decided on then went through — their excuse was that the turnstiles had already been changed, no going back on this plan…. They’re crooks, the damned trains never run on anything resembling a regular schedule, and most hardened subway commuters spend the better part of their lives waiting on platforms for the eventual overstuffed train that will cruise into the station (or bypass it, if they feel like it).

Conservative critics of the governor (who I am not a fan of, but certainly not opposed to) have said this is Spitzer’s attempt to change his image after the complete failure of his drivers-licenses-for-illegal-immigrants plan; the fact that that MTA HAD enough dough in the first place and never needed the fare-hike is of course ignored (shades of the Dan Rather fiasco where the content of the memos under consideration, saying that Bush evaded military service as best he could, was ignored in favor of the game concerning whether said memos were 100% legit in and of themselves. The neocon agenda is based pretty entirely on the “don’t watch that… watch this!” philosophy. Screw ’em. I don’t think a penny more needs to come from NYC commuters to subsidize a system that is run horribly, answers to no one, and which receives absolute no slaps on the wrist from the billionaire with the HORRID voice who occupies the Mayor’s office.

Now back to our regularly scheduled entertainment….

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