How I hate the Long Island Rail Road (in NY)

I've been a regular commuter on the Long Island Rail Road for five years-. I pay $100 a month for a monthly ticket. Before I moved closer to the city, I was paying $154.

I can't tell you how many times I have been inconvienced by the incompetence of the entire staff of the LIRR, from the president on down. Trains are consistantly late, they're overcrowded, they're two cars short, and the air conditioning in another one of those cars doesn't work. Two years ago, for a WEEK STRAIGHT, in the MIDDLE OF FEBRUARY, my train was cancelled at the last minute due to "equiptment problems." A WHOLE WEEK FOR EQUIPMENT PROBLEMS????? Are you kidding me?????? Forget about bad weather--my favorite reason for a twenty-minute delay was "wet leaves on the tracks." There are ALWAYS signal problems that cause HUGE delays in and out of Penn Station. But we HAVE to take it because, for many on Long Island and Queens, it's the only source of transportation into NYC.

The final straw was this week. Without making any announcements, the LIRR decided to completely change their schedule due to "trackwork" that most likely doesn't need to be done. I usually took the 9:46 train into NYC. But they decided to cancel it. I was extremely late into work yesterday because I had to wait for the next train. Now I have to get up a half hour earlier and take the early train. And then, the train I usually take home, the 6:39 has been pushed back to 6:42, so I'm inconvienced AGAIN. In totally, that's 180 MINUTES OF MY TIME A MONTH THAT I LOSE TO THE LIRR.

The problem is that nobody fixes these problems, because the LIRR isn't held accountable. I demand for this poor excuse for a transportation system to be held accountable for their actions. The buck HAS to stop somewhere.