Subway Delays Somehow Still the Conductor’s Fault, Says MTA
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced Tuesday that recent catastrophic subway failures were “everyone’s fault collectively,” in a masterclass of avoiding responsibility that would make federal politicians jealous. The statement comes after three consecutive weeks of system-wide meltdowns that stranded millions of commuters, none of which were apparently caused by anyone specific or actionable.
“We’ve conducted a thorough investigation,” explained MTA spokesperson Jennifer Walsh, reading from prepared remarks that somehow mentioned every possible contributing factor except actual management decisions. “The delays were caused by weather, passengers, aging infrastructure, cosmic radiation, Mercury in retrograde, and general bad vibes. Certainly nothing we could have prevented.”
The explanation mirrors federal shutdown rhetoric, where everyone’s to blame for shutdown except people who actually did it. New York’s version substitutes government dysfunction with transit dysfunction, though the end resultsuffering constituents and zero accountabilityremains identical.
MTA officials presented a detailed breakdown of blame allocation: 30% belongs to passengers for having the audacity to use the system, 25% to “signal problems” (the cause of and solution to all MTA woes), 20% to unspecified “infrastructure issues” that apparently arose spontaneously, 15% to weather that occurred three weeks ago, and 10% to the general concept of entropy. Conspicuously absent was any mention of deferred maintenance, budget mismanagement, or the fact that executive salaries somehow remain fully funded while the actual trains don’t work.
“What people don’t understand is that running a subway system is complicated,” Walsh continued, apparently unaware that dozens of global cities manage to do it successfully. “We can’t be expected to predict that trains would need maintenance or that New York experiences winter every single year.”
The MTA’s blame distribution strategy has proven remarkably effective at ensuring nobody faces consequences while fares continue increasing. Commuters noted that train conductorsthe one group with absolutely zero power over system-wide failuressomehow still get blamed by passengers during delays, while executives responsible for actual decisions remain comfortably anonymous in offices far from the broken tracks.
“I’ve been driving trains for fifteen years,” said conductor Maria Rodriguez. “Somehow when signals fail because of budget cuts I had nothing to do with, passengers yell at me. But the people who decided not to fix those signals? Nobody even knows their names.”
The announcement included a promise that the MTA is “committed to improvement,” a phrase they’ve deployed quarterly since approximately 1985 with identical results. Officials outlined a comprehensive plan to address future failures: blame more things, conduct more investigations that find nobody responsible, and raise fares to fund the investigations.
City residents greeted the news with weary acceptance, having long ago realized that accountability and functional public transit are apparently incompatible concepts in New York.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/everyones-to-blame-for-shutdown-except-people-who-actually-did-it/
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/everyones-to-blame-for-shutdown-except-people-who-actually-did-it/.
By: Annika Steinmann.
