Posted on 05/12/2019 8:22:36 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
In Massachusetts, several years ago I saw that a conductor on a commuter train (whose job appears to be simply to check tickets) could make up to $60 on weekends or holidays.
And a toll booth operator could make $30 during those hours.
Amazing.
Take the LIRR everyday... decent service... but way over priced.
Apparently they retire on their last two years average salary which includes OT... they are permitted unlimited OT during that period... many retire with $150,000+ annual pensions and extremely low cost health insurance. And since they are railroad employees thier SSN and pensions are not taxed by NYS.
It really is like winning the lottery.
I will nbe leaving NYS after I retire and my kids are done in college... NYS is an economic model that is about to collapse...
Take the LIRR everyday... decent service... but way over priced.
Apparently they retire on their last two years average salary which includes OT (or 3 biggest years, which ysually are the last 3 years given the hourly rate)... they are permitted unlimited OT during that period... many retire with $150,000+ annual pensions and extremely low cost health insurance. And since they are railroad employees thier SSN and pensions are not taxed by NYS.
It really is like winning the lottery.
I will nbe leaving NYS after I retire and my kids are done in college... NYS is an economic model that is about to collapse...
the privately-operated transit companies were under attack by the government via burdensome taxation and regulation. ..
In Chicagoland, it happened in the 1970s.
They called it Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) This includes the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), killing and converting rails to bicycle paths. Also killing ALL local suburban bus companies and their distinctive style busses(OLD).
Now the suburbs have shiny new busses that are mostly empty. They say the main feeder routes bring cheap labor from the city are sometimes full.
Now the RTA spends $5B with two-thirds coming from the suburbs.
BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!!!!
Now they want to make it just like New York!
TAX THE ENTIRE STATE, for Chicagos transit system.
“Recently retired LIRR employee Thomas Caputo claimed he worked an additional 3,864 hours to rake in $344,147 in overtime pay in 2018 for a grand paycheck of $461,646, according to the Empire Center.”
Not counting weekends there is about 22 working days in any month. For 12 months that’s 264 working days a year.
The LIRR employee who claimed 3,864 overtime hours was claiming on average 14 additional hours per normal work day. If we accepted someone working 7 days a week for a year, his overtime would be 10 additional hours every day, the whole year. NO ONE actually works that much overtime.
There is a culture in New York that involves a wink & a nod on both overtime and feather bedding between the unions, the government institutions, the contractors and the politicians, and everything from agencies like the MTA and the Port Authority, to all construction and all infrastructure development is infected by it. It is not a mere MTA problem. MTA is behaving “normally” by New York City standards.
The second avenue subway costs are running about $1 billion a mile.
As POTUS I would not give NYC a federal dime for any infrastructure project.
Indeed. The former North Shore Line to Milwaukee and the Aurora and Elgin interurban were among the first to go, the former’s shore line to Waukegan becoming one of the first bike paths IINM. Never mind what the RTA did to create their “Metra” network.
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