Thank you, Metro North

I’m writing you, the good people of the MTA, to thank you for the ride on the Metro North train to New Haven yesterday.

The complimentary sauna included with the train ride left me peeling myself off the seat, and the lack of any openable window compounded this. I think I’m a few pounds lighter for the experience.

All kidding aside, this leads me to ask a simple, stupid question: Why aren’t we funding public transportation in this country? A ride on the Metro North costs about 16 USD one way from New Haven to Grand Central station, which still is more expensive than the ride in a gas-guzzling air-conditioned SUV at the current petrol prices. I can’t help but think that if we hadn’t been pissing money down the toilet while tilting at windmills in sand dunes halfway around the world, we could have sunk some of that money into improving, subsidizing (gasp! not subsidizing! what will conservatives say!) and maybe even air-conditioning our public transportation.

That being said, we could also try using solar power, since the train lines take up a pretty large amount of ground space, to subsidize the drain on the power grid. I know, I know, it doesn’t have quite the ring that “shock and awe” has, but at least it might have a net positive effect on the world. Wouldn’t that be nice for a change?