TRAIN NOT PLAIN
No clear answer to MTA garble
Dear John: On Oct. 17, I was taking the F train from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Because of work on the tracks that day, the F became the D train, making the same stops.
The problem was with the voice on the platform giving people information about the changes.
Riders could not make out the information because it was not clear. Why don’t the people who work on the train go sit out on the platform to hear that the information is not clear? B.S.
Dear B.S.:
For the train conductor (garble) to hear the announcements (garble), they’d actually have to get (garble) out of the train and walk a couple of (garble) steps. That would require more effort (garble) than a city em (garble) is used to.
You should (garble) sign up for notifications at mymtaalerts.com, and you’ll know about changes (garble) that will affect your commute.
You (garble) will also find out (garble) about a lot of other (garble) problems you don’t care about, but (garble) that’s the price you pay. Oh, and it’s (garble) free.
Didn’t I just make you feel like you are in the subway? Now if I could just reproduce the smell, this would be (garble) perfect.
I asked the MTA what it was doing about the lousy sound system on most trains and in most stations.
I was told: “We’re not aware of anything the agency is doing” with regard to the quality of the announcements.
“There was a fair amount of material on customer experience and agency communications in [MTA Chairman Joe] Lhota’s action plan released earlier this year, but it did not address the quality of announcements on the trains.”
Well, (garble) that.
Dear John: Every day brings a new news story into focus — Harvey Weinstein, hurricanes, wildfires, North Korea, hacking, etc. — and it seems that Equifax is fading from coverage.
I am sure that company is pleased about that. Can you keep the spotlight on what it is doing to address the massive security breach? When will letters be sent to those whose personal information was hacked? Don’t let Equifax fade from scrutiny. T.A.
Dear T.A.: Everyone wants you to pay less attention to the possibility of nuclear war and concentrate on the possible destruction of your credit score. Is that good enough? I think this country is on information overload. When you worry about too many things at one time, you worry about nothing.
Dear John: Thanks for your recent article on problems with the Census Bureau data.
What is so wildly frustrating on employment data is that the Labor Department or the Federal Reserve could go to this little outfit down the street called the IRS and get the exact correct data in near real time.
Sadly, that would put a lot of seasonal adjusting economists out of work. R.L.M.
Dear R.L.M.: What about me?! Not only would those economists be put out of business, but I’d have a hard time filling my column if the government did the sensible thing and went to the IRS for raw data.
So let’s not go too crazy on simplifying the system.