(The following editorial was posted on the New York Times website on October 9.)
NEW YORK — No doubt about it, the people who ride the Long Island Rail Road can be a piggy bunch. They chew and strew and turn cars into wastelands of sticky seats, rolling cans and bottles, and brown deltas of coffee on floors tiled with soggy newsprint and subscription cards. They might have learned everything they really need to know in kindergarten, but they unlearn it every morning on the 8:18 to Penn Station.
It’s a daunting job being Mommy to a bunch of commuting slobs. But someone has to do it, and we nominate the L.I.R.R. The railroad seems oddly reluctant, though, given the state of many of its trains and stations and its recent decision to cut the budget for car cleaning by $625,000 a year. The railroad’s priorities are badly skewed. It needs more money for basic maintenance, not less.
Any longtime rider will tell you that customer comfort is low on the L.I.R.R. agenda, but this is not a rant about chronic delays, shrieking intercoms, poor communication and high fares. This is a rant about dirty trains.
Why has the Metropolitan Transportation Authority decided to clean cars less thoroughly and less often even though it recently raised fares and is sitting on a $900 million surplus? If money for cleaning crews is the problem, why has it taken no simpler, cheaper steps to keep litter in check?
Why are the trash cans on train platforms always overwhelmed at rush hour? Why are there no cans on trains? Why can’t someone collect trash on board?
Why can’t litterers be more assertively reminded or cajoled – or even ticketed? If stretches of highway can be adopted by rich celebrities who pay for trash pickup, why not train cars?
Why is your average late-morning, uncleaned, post-rush train car filthier than, say, the OTB parlor on Seventh Avenue, a few blocks from Penn Station? (We checked – the OTB has more of the smell of musky desperation, but a lot less spilled liquid on the floor.)
Why, in the world capital of advertising, has the M.T.A. not come up with an antilittering slogan more dynamic than “The Clean Train Campaign Is Ongoing”? That phrase, drilled into passengers’ skulls on every ride, has been dulled by repetition and inherent lameness. It is emblematic of the M.T.A.’s fatally passive approach to keeping its trains clean, and it isn’t working.