Rant #1,941: Eat to the Beat

More woes for New York metropolitan area transit, and it will certainly provide you with food for thought.

On Monday nine people were treated for smoke inhalation after a track fire in Harlem jammed up the early week work commute for thousands of straphangers.

What caused the fire? Evidently, according to officials, garbage on the tracks was the culprit, and the resultant track fire caused the entire B and C lines could not run, and it also impacted the A and D lines in both directions north of 125th Street.

Why anyone would throw garbage on the tracks is a mystery in and of itself, but due to this continuous problem that has been going on for decades, if not generations, the Metropolitan Transit Authority is studying a proposal to simply ban food in New York City subways.

The food isn't the problem, but the resultant garbage related to wrappers, bags and other refuse related to eating on the subways is what has caught the MTA's ire.

If this measure passes, how this goes over with straphangers is anyone's guess.

More important, how do you police eating on the subway? Do you assign extra transit police to monitor this heinous action? Will you get a ticket if you eat on the subway? For how much?

Look, we all know, if we are honest about it, that people can be pigs, whether it is on the subway, on the street, or even in their own homes.

Garbages are available for refuse, but out of convenience, many of us throw garbage wherever we need to--out the window of our cars, on the floor, even in places in our homes where the junk does not belong.

So to regulate food eating on the subway will be a task that will be nothing but a nuisance for whoever is there to enforce it.

Human beings are a naturally dirty animal; that does not make throwing garbage on the tracks acceptable, but it just is a natural fact.

A natural fact is that there are plenty of garbage pails for people to use, and for those who throw garbage on the tracks, those people should be fined, and if need be, arrested.

A straphanger wolfing down a breakfast burrito on the subway because they need to get to work is objectionable on several levels, but a be against the law?

No, I don't think so.

And on another level, what about the vendors who feed off straphangers' need to munch?

It will kill their business if you can't eat a candy bar or drink a can of soda in the subway.

I mean, who hasn't bought an edible item from a vendor and enjoyed it while riding a subway car?

The whole idea of banning food is ridiculous, but it is a warranted reaction to people not only being pigs, but potentially causing damage and harm to those who rely on the subway for transportation.

But there has to be a better way.

Most people would say "education," but anyone who does not know that throwing garbage on the tracks is a stupid thing to do simply cannot be educated.

For subway riders, simply put your trash in a garbage can, because if this behavior continues, the "privilege" or eating on the subway will not exist anymore.