It was reported yesterday that the MTA will soon start sending text messages to commuters to alert them to problems on the subway so that they might take an alternate route. Luckily, I am one of the few who are part of the beta testing of the system. So here you can see the results of their latest multi-million dollar initiative:
I hate the free papers in the morning. Notice I don't dignify them by calling them newspapers. Let's be clear about one thing, they are just waste paper that blows across subway platforms, stairwells and sidewalks. They create fire hazards on the tracks, and slip hazards on the stairs.
The hawkers block subway entrances on the street, and some even stand in the stairwells, blocking people from efficiently going in or out. The narrow stairways are bad enough on a good day, but on rainy days, with wet papers on the ground, people trying to open umbrellas, and some guy in an orange vest blocking your way as he thrusts an excuse for advertising at you — it's simply offensive. Except it is worse than that. Their piles of papers and wire racks create a hazard — they're a disaster waiting to happen should there be some reason to evacuate a station quickly (not like there aren't a dozen reasons to claim there's a disaster waiting to happen). Except that this dangerous blocking of the entrances at rush hour must be illegal.
Call your councilperson to complain. Write your newspaper. Write the fish wrap they give out at the subways. It's an outrage!
I like the new bus shelters in Manhattan. Each one has the intersection name, such as Lexington Ave. & 86th street, large and easy to read so you can always tell where you are. Except for this bus shelter along the 7 & 11 routes up Amsterdam Avenue. Many of these shelters don't have the location visible. But the corrosively bright light that would enable one to read the location is on anyway, blinding cab drivers and pedestrians alike as they make their way up the avenue.
This photo doesn't capture the punishing glare of these incomplete shelters. Mind you, this wouldn't be an issue if the missing location sign went up after a week of absence. Or two weeks. Or three. No, these shelters have not had any location signs since they went up more than a month ago. It is one thing to pollute the environment with advertising lit up bright. But light pollution that burns the eyes is — well, I suppose since the MTA can't hurt our ears with screeching train brakes above ground, this will just have to serve their sadistic ends. Just another example of the MTA not caring about its passengers. An outrage.
Don't you just hate them? In restaurants they never bring enough of them. When you use them, you end up with horrid litter all over the table. And you know they have to be hell on the environment. No one is recycling these little bits of eco-apocalypse.
So you gotta figure there's some reason restaurants use them. Perhaps to advertise how déclassé they are. Or to mock our pretensions of class while we eat out. Certainly they mock by making them semi-impossible to open. Of course, one could assume there is an economic reason restaurants use them. Perhaps they are less expensive to use since than milk or cream in a larger container since, coming in pre-portioned containers, they cut down on usage. And since the containers are free of oxygen, they stay fresh indefinitely, leaving me to wonder whether if in fact the contents of these containers actually came from a cow. I can't really believe they cost less — certainly the cost to the environment is greater. And that alone should lead to a ban on these nasty plastics.
