Woman sues Metra after toilet explodes on train

Metra apparently intends to pay on the toilet lawsuit by raising the rates on their trains.

Metra set to raise some fares Monday
January 31, 2010 8:48 AM | No Comments

Metra riders who buy one-way tickets or use weekend passes will be paying a little more starting Monday. So will passengers who don’t get a ticket at the station and end up buying a ticket from the conductor.

Most Metra users won’t see a difference in what they pay. About 79 percent of riders use ten-ride tickets and monthly passes, officials said, and those prices will not increase.

One-way tickets will cost an average of 6 percent more, depending on distance. The per ticket increase will range from 10 cents to 45 cents for the furthest zone.

The cost of weekend passes will rise from $5 to $7. This is the first time Metra has increased that fare since 1991.

The charge for buying a ticket from the conductor on the train will increase from $3 to $2; there will be no additional charge for passengers who board at stations that don’t have a ticket-seller.

Metra says the increases will raise about $6 million a year.

Good article in the Journal online.

* The Wall Street Journal

* REVIEW & OUTLOOK
* JANUARY 31, 2010, 7:16 P.M. ET

The Runaway Subsidy Train
In some corridors, ‘high-speed’ rail won’t be much faster than trains in the 1930s.

By WENDELL COX

On Thursday the Obama administration awarded $8 billion in stimulus funds to plan and build high-speed rail projects in California and Florida, and for other routine passenger-rail projects masquerading as high-speed rail. This is a political plum to the states that will receive the money.

It is also a dream come true for fans of bullet trains in Japan and Europe and the faster, greenhouse gas-belching Mag-Lev (magnetic levitation) lines. But this is not money well spent.

Supporters say high-speed rail is a cost-effective, “green” solution to airport and highway congestion. In reality, it is costly to build and operate and has a negligible impact on highway and airport traffic. High-speed rail is driven by little more than a romantic notion to confer a European ambiance on American cities.

Proponents also claim that high-speed rail is profitable, but this too is off the mark. Internationally, only two segments have ever broken even: Tokyo to Osaka and Paris to Lyon.

Ridership in these markets has been bolstered by high gasoline prices and one-way highway tolls of $40 and $100, respectively. These and other foreign routes have attracted much of their ridership from a strong core of rail passengers that does not exist in the U.S.

The administration is giving California $2.25 billion for trains that are expected to reach 220 miles per hour between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The cost of building this rail line is now estimated by the California High Speed Rail Authority to be more than $40 billion and could be $60 billion or more.

Even after adjusting for inflation, the projected cost of the system has increased by half over the original cost in the past decade. Ridership projections have also fluctuated wildly, from as low as 32 million annually to nearly 100 million; now the rail authority estimates the train will carry 41 million passengers each year.

excerpt

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703389004575033672230734364.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

This isn’t the first case of something like this that I heard, but nobody got sued.

Eighty-sixth Street]
George is giving the street a long burst from the jackhammer. Suddenly, there is a clang. George stops hammering, and listens. There is a deep rumbling sound, from beneath his feet, which seems to be getting louder. He looks around for the source of the noise.
[Jenna's Apartment]
Jenna and Jerry are still eating on the couch. The rumbling noise can be heard, though not so loud as outside. Then, in the bathroom, the toilet starts to rattle.
JENNA: Do you hear something?
They both listen intently. The rumble continues and, in the bathroom, the toilet rattles again, the cistern shaking.
JERRY: I don't know what that could be.
Jenna gets up and goes to the bathroom door.
[Eighty-sixth Street]
There is a rending sound, and a huge jet of water erupts from the ground right in front of George, where he was hammering. There is a shot from above the rising column of water. On the top rises George's keyring.
HEAD: Holy cow!
The plume of water rises high above George, who can be seen looking up at the height of it.
[Jenna's Apartment]
In the bathroom, Jenna is peering curiously at her rattling toilet, wondering what's wrong. She leans toward the bowl. Jerry is in the living room, still talking to her.
JERRY: Anyway, I'm a new man, and I'm looking towards the future. Clean, dirty, whatever.
There is the sound of a wet explosion and splashing water, followed by Jenna screaming in the bathroom. Jerry leaps to his feet and rushes to see what has happened.
Jerry enters the bathroom and sees Jenna. Only her forearm is visible to us, but it's enough for us to know that she is wringing wet as the result of a violent eruption from the toilet bowl.
Jerry's face registers his obvious distaste. He shrugs, sorry.
JERRY: Holy cow! Have a nice life.
He closes the bathroom door as he leaves.

< /seinfeld >

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