Why thank you, sir!

Just came across your site while researching a post on quiet cars for Boston’s MBTA. As a former rider of the Harlem Line, I was glad to see so many true thoughts on the commute.

I also had a similar concept to your red and yellow cards. Was curious if you wanted to collaborate on these because they could be expanded to many situations.

So a weekday exception would be, for example, a 7 car train I rode that only had the first 2 cars open, in which case, the Quiet Ride car rules are not in effect, since 3 cars are not open. Conductors generally announce at the downtown stations that the lead car is the Quiet Ride car as well. I’ve yet to see any problems, especially now that it has been in effect for a while.

I was one of the people who planned and implemented QuietRide on SEPTA. Let me try and ease some of your concerns. There may well be incidents getting media attention, just as there are now with other instances of passenger behavior, but those will be blown way out of proportion. By and large, the passengers sort themselves out pretty effectively.

Enforcement here is designed to be a partnership between passengers and crew. In most instances, just a point to the QuietRide sign and a finger to the lips is enough to get people to follow the policy; and discretely putting a card in the ticket clip in front of them is effective too. The number of cases where a crew member has to intervene is actually pretty small. If you ride the quiet car, keep a couple of these cards (the Metro-North ones) in your bag and set a good example by handling situations with tact and tolerance.

Bob, we looked a lot at relative demand for the quiet car (SEPTA consists are 2 to 7 cars in the peak) and found very few trains where the quiet car was significantly more or less crowded than the rest of the train. A large enough proportion of passengers don’t care too much whether or not they’re in the quiet car that they’ll move one way or the other to get a seat.

Good luck, and please e-mail me at mitchell@dvarp.org or phone 215-RAILWAY if we can help you guys make the program a success.

This summer I rode in quiet car on Amtrak’s Keystone service, lights low, everyone quiet. It was one of the nicest train rides I ever took. I think that people traveling alone will be the main users of these cars. And lets face it, even on the 6 AM train from Poughkeepsie on a Saturday, one loud cell phone yakker pollutes half the car.

Let’s hope the spirit of cars is embraced and everyone is quiet.

Oh, and have you ever ridden a Wassaic early train from like Pawling or Wassaic? They are a very talkative bunch on the platform, at 5:30 am, catching up with each other. But they have to leave that early to be at work, and they don’t step off that train until 7 that night. The morning ride is part of their sleep. They have been on that train a full hour before you join them, so cut em a little slack.

When can we order some of your cards from catgirl press? Why let the train crews be the only ones with cards!!

Smoking on platforms in New York was banned, however the ban will go into effect 90 days after it was signed (which is mid-November I believe). That is another thing that is difficult to police. It was common for me to see people smoking *inside* the station during the winter time, because the idiots were too cold to even go out to smoke. If nobody cracked down on that, I can’t imagine they’re going to bother going after people that are actually outside.

It is possible that the system will work, but they didn’t pick very good trains to test. The real trial will come with the busier trains, not the ones that are already quiet to begin with.