Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Public Transportation, I Hate You

So, apparently, the New York City public transit system is not equipped for...rain. Whatever, there was a lot of rain--in fact, there was a big old storm--but something weird happened--because you'd think they'd have these underground electrified tunnels waterproofed, as a colleague mentioned--and the whole MTA was broken this morning. I waited for the 6 train for (what felt like) a hundred million sweaty gross humid years. Then I gave up. Then I waited for the Lexington bus for awhile, and every one that came down the pike was packed to the gills. Hungry and pissed off and exhausted and late for work and still on my very own corner, I went to Dunkin' Donuts and bought a big iced latte and a muffin. Four bucks. Not too bad.

BUT. Two and a half hours (!!!!) of miserable bus-taking later, I get to work and realize that the egg salad sandwich on baguette I packed has spoiled in the heat and non-refrigeration, and now I am hungry and pissed and really not into spending $10 on a midtown lunch place sandwich, especially because I made such nice egg salad, with TJs organic mayonnaise and pieces of delicious new pickle.

MTA, you owe me a sandwich. Also, bite me.

9 comments:

SavingDiva said...

Wow! This makes me very thankful that I am in a small town...and ride my bike to work.

Anonymous said...

Wow, that makes me very thankful that I am now retired and don't have to go to work! But when I did work, I lived 2.3 miles from my office and could get there in 7 minutes in my car or could walk or bike.

Screaming Dime said...

I feel your pain! It took me 2 hours to make it to work from home, and it normally takes me 25 minutes.

Sorry about your sandwich... maybe you can bill the MTA? I know you can if you rip your pants on the Metro North :)

Kim said...

dang, sorry that sucked so much!! you should live in the bay area, where transportation is awesome. :)

Anonymous said...

Here in Melbourne, (Australia, not Florida), our train system, not only can't cope with rain, it also can't cope with the drought we've had for the past ten years or so. You can't win!

Anonymous said...

Haha, it took me an hour and fourty five minutes to get into work downtown (wall street area) from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. It would have been faster had I figured out sooner that the R wasn't running. I don't know if such options exist on the UES, but you should research non- MTA transportation options. This morning I took the boat. Thankfully I work for the City and Bloomy officially forgave all city employees our latenesses. If a train delay is ever an issue with your employer btw, call the MTA customer service line and they will send you a letter documenting the delay (it takes 3-6 weeks though).

Anonymous said...

I feel your pain. The British rail system cannot cope with rain, snow, intense heat, and in a classic case, leaves. When someone pointed out that every autumn leaves fall on the line and it hadn't caused a problem before, the spokesperson said they were the 'wrong sort of leaves'. Legendary.

krystalatwork said...

Now I don't feel so bad about my crappy 35 minute commute to work each day! Public transportation sucks!

Tired of being broke said...

The MTA has known that the system does not cope with rain well, for years. It seems that every year it is the same thing over and over again. You would think that they would figure it out and fix it, but I guess not!

Sorry about your sandwich. That sucks!