I’m too tired of political bickering over the MTA’s capital plan to tackle the subject this late on a Monday night. So I’ll be back on Tuesday with more substance. In the meantime, ruminate on Pizza Rat, a symbol of New York City and its subway system. This rodent is all of us, trying to grab a bite to eat and utterly failing at it, but he tried. A real New Yorker would have folded that slice before taking it down to the L train at 1st Ave.
34 comments
Here’s an exciting new revenue source idea for funding the capital plan!
First, allow food and drink vendors to open up in any of the larger station spaces that could support such a thing, then take a 1.125% inside-fare-control tax. (On top of NYC’s existing meals tax, that makes 10% even.)
Second, mandatory $1000 fines for anyone caught littering inside of the subway system. Given the rate at which trash gets produced even without food distribution in-system, we’d have that money raised in no time!
I’m mostly joking about #1 but dead serious about #2 by the way.
Neither would be supported by the political establishment. People frequently discuss banning food and getting food vendors out of the system. People also frequently criticize any attempts by the police to enforce littering and other related “broken windows”/”quality of life” concerns because the burden of enforcement falls disproportionately on the disadvantaged– you’re going to get a lot more poor minority teenagers feeling those littering fines than businessmen in suits.
Nobody criticizes police attempts to enforce anti-littering statutes, except on the grounds that the police don’t bother to enforce them. The rest of the world has more or less learned to manage litter: high fines for litterers with with the proceeds going toward litter abatement and station/street upkeep. This isn’t broken windows; it’s remediation.
Broken windows is a basically discredited proposition that lingers on because it raises a lot of fines, lets police swing their little dicks around, and feeds the prison-industrial complex of lawyer/bale bondsman/parole officer welfare. The types of petty infractions broken windows enforcements go after are subway snoozing, taking up multiple seats, and whatever else an officer chooses to contrive. Catching litterers in the act takes a lot of time for a measly $100 or $200.
That last thought is a cop out. I am a “minority” and grew up “in the hood”. The last time I littered I was 12. The reason I stopped? My father caught me doing it and taught me how disgusting and disrespectful it was. If no one teaches them – then they can do community service en lieu of a cash fine.
The problem with broken windows enforcement is when you have cops enforcing the laws in one (heavily minority) area while not doing it elsewhere.
So if you ONLY wrote littering tickets in the Bronx, and turned a blind eye on Wall Street, you have a problem.
When applied equally, so that ALL littering gets punished, that’s good.
For someone who grew up part of their time in the Bronx – it absolutely made sense to target loitering more in the rough areas of the Bronx (let’s get it straight – the whole Bronx was never crime ridden). Many random shootings and robberies took place on many blocks I walked through all the time. Open air drug trade would make you think it was a movie – not real life. I’m sorry – but they didn’t have that issue on Wall St. Littering is something that happens everywhere – and should be targeted as such.
Except for the fact that littering/loitering and random shootings problem have about as much to do with each other as eating Wheaties and random shootings.
You must not have grown up around street crime. They ABSOLUTELY do correlate. People looking for enemies can find the MUCH more easily. “Stick up kids” could more easily pretend they were just hanging out rather than looking for “vics” (rapist did the same). The same could be said of drug dealers doing hand to hand sales. This is not a guess or what I read somewhere… It’s what I grew up around. Thanks.
Yes, I grew up around corporate crime. Or something.
That’s how things work in suburbs, maybe in housing projects, not cities. Of course they correlate. “Hanging out” isn’t a questionable activity, except in the fevered minds of modernist planners. If anything, it also correlates to to more eyes in public, which in turn causes more safety. Correlation is not causation and urban desolation is not safety.
There is a difference between “hanging out” and loitering… Huge difference!! Illegal dice games in a building lobby is not the same as mother’s taking their children to the park to play. In fact – the first discourages the second. Again – you didn’t live it. The only people who were for it (loitering) were those who supported criminality. Let’s just say my grandmother would have been a more vilified police commissioner than any the NYPD has seen. I wouldn’t want her to catch me idling. It wasn’t pretty the times she (or my father did).. That’s the reason I didn’t end up like most of the people I grew up around.
You don’t know anything about what I lived, whitey. And I doubt there is a particularly meaningful relation between dice games, legal or not, and shootings. Certainly not without another factor involved, like mob or gang involvement.
Actual antisocial behavior might correlate to gun violence in a way that it can be useful as a predictor: gang membership, assaults, larceny, domestic violence, maybe even certain kinds of drug use.
Your grandmother sounds like she created some power/control issues. :-O
You really need some help. Stick to talking about transit issues.
I need help because I don’t apply folksy suburban bildungsromans about fly swatter-wielding grannies to urban social issues?
I know you said you’re mostly joking about the first one, but to clarify things for folks who don’t live here, but might want to visit, it’s not a meals tax, but the good ol’ sales tax that is being charged on your restaurant & fast food purchases. Not to get into a big discussion about it, and it does seem confusing about it, but the sales tax is being charged on the ‘service’ and since one is not able to break things out as to food and service, the entire bill is taxed. That’s why if you buy things at a supermarket (like bread and a pound of roast beef) they are not taxed, but if you have the roast beef sandwich made at a deli, sales tax is collected from you. (And, yes, like the sign reads – “We don’t charge sales tax, we just collect it”).
For suggestion #2, who even gets caught these days littering? If a transit police officer isn’t around, you’re not going to get a summons. But I do like the idea of it. Maybe a few $1,000 tickets might convince folks not to waste food (like that pizza slice) and not to throw away trash on the platform and tracks.
Split the fine 50/50 between the MTA and the NYPD and there will be more litter summons in the subway than there are parking tickets in Times Square.
I’ve seen people litter directly in front of cops many times, and have never seen a cop even say anything to them. I really don’t think police in New York enforce the laws against littering much at all, and as I state above, I don’t think the political establishment wants to see increased enforcement due to the backlash against “broken windows.”
If you’ve been following Streetsblog, you’ll realize that the NYPD also don’t enforce the laws against reckless driving.
NYPD generally also don’t enforce the parking laws (obviously) and usually break the parking laws, parking on sidewalks, in bike lanes, and in other places where they pose a serious danger to pedestrians and bicyclists.
In fact, it seems that NYPD spends more of its time *breaking* the law than it does *enforcing* the law. This attitude comes from the top — Ray Kelly and Bill Bratton, and of course the career criminal Patrick Lynch.
Ben, any info on the daily passenger counts recently? We are entering the peak ridership season of late September/October. By my personal experience we must already be close or setting daily records.
I didn’t know Gov. Cuomo liked pizza.
Looks like a dollar slice. We all know De Blasio is a fork and knife guy.
its time to ban food/drink in the subway immediately. eating on the subway is a filthy habit and it only leads to more vermin. plus think of all the money we can save by eliminating the sanitation crews. also it would allow more space on the subway platforms by removing those storage bins that hold the garbage. the N/R/Q platform at 59th street is DANGEROUSLY narrow, especially during rush hour, people spill out everywhere. at one end of the platform there’s a room that holds garbage for pickup, its a waste of space and if the room was knocked down it would free up more space for passengers. one day someone is going to fall onto the tracks at that station because of lack of room.
Other global cities sell food and drink on the platforms with few problems (i.e. the drink machines of every Tokyo platforms, the sandwich kiosks in Berlin). There’s no reason NYC should be more restrictive or set our standards lower.
Selling food is not the problem… Disgusting slobs are. They litter on the street too – except it blows around more so isn’t as concentrated.
So you’re saying that NYC has more disgusting slobs than Tokyo and Berlin?
Maybe he’s saying New York is too cheap to clean up after it’s slobs?
Long ago, New York City had street cleaning. Technically, it still does, but it’s less effective than it was in the 19th century…
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07......html?_r=0
Rodents infesting the 1st Avenue station on the L? Where are the Cool Cats of the Lower East Side hangouts?
More fines are needed. I personally shame most litter bugs I see. I tell them they must like living with rats. Litter and graffiti both need large fines for offenders that can pay for cleaning. If they can’t afford it – they can do community service by cleaning – at minimum wage until the fine is paid off.
I think there’s consensus in this forum that the rat should be fined for eating pizza on the subway.
It’s not a rat it’s a New Jersey Hamster
Capital plans are very bad for rats. Ben, I’m glad that you’re reminding us just how traumatic it would be for these rats to be displaced by any capital improvements.
All these posts and no one mentioned how cute that rat was? Really, it looked healthy and clean and was being quite industrious, probably bringing home the food to take care of its family. It seemed a much nicer rat than some I’ve seen on the streets at night checking out the garbage, giving me the eye and not much afraid (this one seemed a little shy). Perhaps it is noble rats like this one who keep the subway from being a lot more disgusting than it would otherwise be.
Indeed, it looks like a model-citizen rat.
I can’t figure how the Pizza Rat gets so much play. After all I captured “Cheese Danish Rat”, like, years ago! – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itejOmBtC6w 🙁