After a rash of pretty serious fatal incidents over the last year or so, Metro North has some issues. I get it. My comfort is not their priority. However, it’s unreasonable to think I should pay over $300 for a monthly ticket and be forced to make the 67 minute (if we are lucky) trip standing. The train tracks are seriously bumpy and since I had spinal fusion a few years ago, I find it difficult to keep my balance. Why, o why, would one design a train car with a three seat bench seat? I don’t sit as close to my husband on the sofa as I’d be forced to should I choose he middle seat. And it’s winter here in the Hudson Valley, so our normally ‘ample’ girth is increased by layers of down and Parka. Hasn’t someone once considered a more comfortable way to maximize seating and maintain some degree of personal space? It’s as bad as coach class. I’m not a particularly huge guy, which actually makes it worse. People gauge the space and since I’m relatively clean and harmless looking, will sit right beside me. Consistently. I’m hardly a misanthrope, but seriously…
The MTA was created by the auto industry to prevent people from using public transportation.
So, um, you want there to be more seating, but you want it to be sized for larger people and also include more personal space? Have you consulted physics on this matter?
And you admit that standing is uncomfortable but you’re annoyed that other people also want seats and therefore sit next to you?
Have you considered maybe that public transit is not for you?
There’s your solution. Bathe less often, glare at others, mumble incoherently and people will give you more space.
At least, it seems to work on the subway.
I’m confused too. You’re tired of not getting a seat on the commuter train, and demand larger seats and less of them? Wha…?
The new cars are Japanese designed and built, running on old, old US tracks. Nuf sed…
There can be more efficient use of the space on board, but it’d require a lot of costly reconfiguration. If only I could have another option to commute! This is the least worst way, unfortunately. The reason the trains are overcrowded is that they unless wagons on each run. Up to ten can wagons can roll, but it’s cheaper to run seven and overcrowd.
Metro-North does a good job. Except when they occasionally kill people.
But mostly everyone gets there alive.
If you hack and cough loudly while people are boarding, that is also reasonably effective.
Shit, I was clean and in the clean jumpsuit of a worker in manual labor and I was the last person anybody on the C&NW Northwest Line would sit next to. Except an accountant who wanted to talk about how he fed his family of four for pennies a day because he was awesomely frugal and a coupon clipper before it was recognized as a pathology in the DSM. I was trying to read Lovecraft and was willing to offer him up in sacrifice to the Old Ones.
I…see?
Oh yeah…post fizzled out when I went into the tunnel…what I meant to say is here is capacity to increase the number of wagons on each train, but cheaper not to do so and keep us ‘safe’ and squished
Because commuters are always so much happier when fares increase.
Actually, fares are going to increase no matter what. It becomes an issue of ‘how much’. That said, Metro North exists to make the LIRR look good in comparison, but just barely.
If I had issues standing and there are no seats, I’d just sit on the floor. Could you do that? Not trying to be snarky, but if its that bad with your spine, the ignominy of sitting on the floor should be outweighed by health. Even better, some trains have little steps, just sit there so its easier to get up
So you wish there were more seats than there are now, but bigger than what already exist, and even though there are empty seats you won’t sit in them because they are in the middle, even though you claim a medical need to sit.
Um, OK. Good luck with that.
I rode the Long Island Railroad for 30 years. It’s a love-hate relationship. I would have hated driving even more than riding on the Great Silver Slug. (The name my kids had for the LIRR until they were teenagers.) I truly missed it when it was on strike.
Getting on the 8:44PM train after a twelve hour day at work and then having it take six hours to get to my home station because of four inches of snow was exhausting, especially when I absolutely had to be at work again the next day.
The train apparently could sense when my vacation was starting. It never got me home on time so that I could pack and rise early and refreshed for travel the next day. It got so bad I completely gave up on trying to start a trip the first day of vacation. (True story)
I’m glad I’m retired so I can avoid the commute, but when I go into the city, I still take the train. Even on Sundays.
Penn Station NYC, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving
The hyperbole of the title says it’s the worst place on Earth. I would say it had to have been one of the five worst commuter jam ups in the USA that day. Though I’ve actually seen the station more crowded than that. Should have put it in my first response.
Grand Central really is Metro-North’s crown jewel. I’m glad a small number of LIRR commuters will get to use it once they finish digging that new thing under Park Ave.
Penn Station is, in fact, the worst place in the world. Except for LaGuardia.
And the Port Authority.
And the LIE.
And the Belt.
And the Gowanus.
And all of Staten Island.
And all of the bridges.
And I no longer live on Long Island, but have to visit once a year…
How could you forget the Cross Bronx Expressway? I have hit non-accident, non-construction related traffic backups at 2:00am. I despise that roadway, and the spillover onto the Major Deegan.
Re: Penn Station
I’ve been stuck there when it was worse, especially before the latest facelifts.