An MTA board member reportedly floated the idea of banning food and drinks in subway cars after a number of recent videos surfaced showing food fights and vermin on trains.
However, commuters are opposed to the idea.
Board member Charles Moerdler reportedly floated the idea, which fellow board member Doreen Frasca reportedly called a “swell idea.”
The MTA reportedly carts some 90 tons of trash from the subway system each day. The trash is blamed for attracting rats and causing fires.
As of now, the agency encourages riders not to eat or drink on subways or station platforms, but the practice is not illegal.
In the most recent incident, a brawl on a Brooklyn train started over a teenage girl eating spaghetti from a plastic foam container. The fight begins in earnest after a passenger is heard asking “What kind of animals eat on the train?” She ultimately threw her food at the commuter who made the comment.
A man came between the girl who was eating and the woman who questioned her decision to turn the subway into her dining car. Others took short hops over the spaghetti on the car’s floor.
The fight triggered what has grown into a super-sized debate that’s reached MTA headquarters over whether it’s appropriate to eat or drink on the rails.
(Read More: WCBSTV)
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2 Responses
Food and drink are banned on the Washington Metro, and while they’ve had a few problems with passengers getting upset for getting arrested for eating on the subway, the diference (in terms of cleanliness) is very noticable. The Washington Metro stations and cars are much much cleaner and more pleasant than the NYC Subway cars.
Besides for the trash it leaves and the animals it brings, the odors from the food in the closed train compartments makes the eating close to unbearable at times. I vote in favor of the ban. Growing up in the 60’s one NEVER saw eating in public except in picnic areas or other similarly designated areas. Humans knew and understood where and how one was to eat and drink. Today, one can see, on main streets, people who are clearly otherwise Torah-observant Jews, eating ice cream, pizza, cake (from an after-shacharis tikun), etc. Oh, how we have all lost site of not only who we are. Even if we cannot remember we are Jews, can we at least remember we are humans?