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| Unpunched Railroad Tickets (908209) | |||
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Unpunched Railroad Tickets |
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Posted by SilverFox on Thu Mar 4 23:53:34 2010 I'm amassing a small collection in expensive unpunched railroad tickets. I have a weekly and a monthly, both unpunched and past their valid period. I'm working on a SECOND unpunched monthly as well, doing nothing more than sitting in my seat and wearing my ticket around my neck like a cow bell, like many of my fellow commuters do. If I had the cojones and little felon's guilt, I'd go for the refund of about $225.00 which doesn't grow on trees these days. Unfortunately, the real threat of the MTA swinging their legal dicks with arguments like "An unpunched railroad ticket is like an uncancelled stamp in that it is illegal to be reused or refunded" keeps this criminally clean person honest. After all, what excuses can be given for asking for a refund of a monthly ticket or weekly ticket after the month or week is over? I can't be the only one to go without my fare being uncollected or voided on the Railroad. In fact, from before my "monthly" days, from my home station westbound, I had a near-50/50 shot of being asked for my ticket even if the conductor sweeps by and removes seat checks. This is from within two years ago. It's not like I hide in the bathrooms or roam the train from car to car against the flow of the conductors to actively beat the fare. I sit there, plain as day, but the conductors do a half-assed job at collecting the proper fares. They can't possibly keep track of who got on where, who got off before the conductor could get to them and send them a bill, or have the time to ensure that every monthly ticket is properly zoned because they can't possibly sweep the car between every set of stops or even zones if there's heavy ridership. If I don't benefit from these shortcomings, a seatmate does, or someone else around the car, but I don't say anything about it. It's a rare treat to be enjoyed as a rider, and it is not our job to tap the conductor on the shoulder and give him the proper amount. This, however pisses me off as a taxpayer and even a rider who has to suffer because of a shortfall of funds at the operating agency. The MTA is crying that they have no money and that they admittedly spend a great deal in collecting whatever it is they do obtain, yet they still leave a good deal of revenue on the table due to either the haplessness, futility, or faultiness of the system as it stands. And these aren't $2.25 subway fares. These are upwards of hundreds-of-dollars-per-month monthly and weekly tickets, and one-off tickets that can cost between $4 and $15 per which can really add up. I'm sure that the MTA's argument is that they've factored in these shortfalls and that the Law of Diminishing Returns kicks in whereby they will spend far more to collect the X percent they don't already collect than if they just wrote it off. That's just horseshit. There has to be a better way for the MTA to collect what it is due so that everybody is ensured to have paid the proper amount. Only when it receives an honest payment for services rendered should it complain that it has no money, and not because its collection system leaks like a sieve and they are too lazy to correct it. So how can the system be tightened and sealed to ensure proper fare collection? I can't accept that anomalies like short-ridership, heavy ridership where conductors can barely walk through the cars around the standees to collect fares, and laziness in not constantly sweeping through the cars and accurately checking zones on monthly tickets, are a small percentage of lost revenue. The MTA, of course, is entitled to its due, and until it respects my money as I do, I can't believe its cries of poverty. |
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