More Ticket Windows Closing

From the Journal News:

http://www.lohud.com/article/2009912300345

To save money, the railroad is closing ticket windows at the Ossining, Fleetwood, Hartsdale, Chappaqua, Larchmont and Harrison stations in Westchester and the Darien station in Connecticut. Ticket vending machines on the platforms offer passengers the chance to pay for their rides, but the shuttering of the windows disappointed some customers.

I wouldn't be surprised if the residents of places such as Darien, Larchmont, and Hartsdale put up a good fight to keep them open. Remember the talk about closing the office in New Canaan? I'm sure plenty of letters and petitions were sent to the railroad demanding to over turn their ruling.

The people in New Canaan probably have the most pull of any station on Metro-North.
I don't like to see things cut and this is surely a cut but it is far more important to keep the trains running than to keep
ticket agents in some stations. I suspect that as more people retire, jobs will go with them although not necessarily the
same jobs that people retire from.
I said earlier that in time very few stations would have ticket windows. I have not seen anything to change my mind on
this.
A short prediction:
GCT, 125th St., Fordham, New Rochelle, Stamford, Bridgeport, New Haven, White Plains, Harmon and Poughkeepsie and
maybe one or two more. How long? Who knows but I'll bet that 3 years down the road will see much of this happen.
Noel Weaver

I am pro-staffed ticket window, but here's the thing: if you can rationalize taking it away from these stations, how do you make a credible case for having agents at *any* station other than GCT? I agree with Noel that this is where things are headed anyway, but if the budget situation is as dire as portrayed, might as well do it in one fell swoop, no?

LIRR has also reducing the number of manned stations, but NJT seems not to close ticket offices and add TVMs to more stations and also supplement existing ticket offices.

Spuyten Duyvil wrote:I am pro-staffed ticket window, but here's the thing: if you can rationalize taking it away from these stations, how do you make a credible case for having agents at *any* station other than GCT? I agree with Noel that this is where things are headed anyway, but if the budget situation is as dire as portrayed, might as well do it in one fell swoop, no?

There are other stations other than GCT that can justify ticket sellers due to the volume of people using the windows. 125th, Fordham and White Plains come to mind. The worst part with the TVM's taking over is the things that the TVM's can't do that the commuter have to rely on a ticket window for. Two examples of this is with commutation tickets. The TVM's can't accept Transit Checks or multiple forms of payment. Additionally, people are going to be forced to go to GCT to refund tickets purchased in error with is a regular occurrence with the TVM's.

It almost sounds like a good idea to close every thing they want to close at once. Hopefully in doing a handful at a time there will be enough vacant jobs to absorb the fall out from the employees being displaced. If everything got closed at once, there would more than likely be furloughs to some extent.

GCT isn't immune to these cuts. There are three jobs on the chopping block at the ticket office there also.

truck6018 wrote:

Spuyten Duyvil wrote:I am pro-staffed ticket window, but here's the thing: if you can rationalize taking it away from these stations, how do you make a credible case for having agents at *any* station other than GCT? I agree with Noel that this is where things are headed anyway, but if the budget situation is as dire as portrayed, might as well do it in one fell swoop, no?

There are other stations other than GCT that can justify ticket sellers due to the volume of people using the windows. 125th, Fordham and White Plains come to mind. The worst part with the TVM's taking over is the things that the TVM's can't do that the commuter have to rely on a ticket window for. Two examples of this is with commutation tickets. The TVM's can't accept Transit Checks or multiple forms of payment. Additionally, people are going to be forced to go to GCT to refund tickets purchased in error with is a regular occurrence with the TVM's.

It almost sounds like a good idea to close every thing they want to close at once. Hopefully in doing a handful at a time there will be enough vacant jobs to absorb the fall out from the employees being displaced. If everything got closed at once, there would more than likely be furloughs to some extent.

GCT isn't immune to these cuts. There are three jobs on the chopping block at the ticket office there also.

I think agents are justified at points where a fair number of people board trains who are not very familiar with Metro-North
such as people transferring from Amtrak at New Haven, Stamford, Poughkeepsie and Croton Harmon. White Plains and
Fordham are probably locations where people also use Metro-North who are not familiar with the workings of the system.
I think they might be timing these moves as the old times retire in order to avoid furloughs.
Noel Weaver

Steamboat Willie wrote:I wouldn't be surprised if the residents of places such as Darien, Larchmont, and Hartsdale put up a good fight to keep them open. Remember the talk about closing the office in New Canaan? I'm sure plenty of letters and petitions were sent to the railroad demanding to over turn their ruling.

Don't you know the railroad quivers and shakes when the snobs in Snob Central (New Canaan) speak???? LMAO!! Like a bunch of timid servants, when the NC masters speak, the railroad serves at once!! I am sure the same will happen in Darien and Larchmont. But we shall see how receptive they are to their protests and petitions!!

Well this sucks. I hate seeing machines take over anywhere, especially when its my job being taken over by a machine. But luckily I'm a ticket seller in a job no one wants, so I should be safe for a while! I would like to know why there was like 8 new ticket sellers hired in the last few months though...

I find it strange they want to abolish some of the positions in GCT. All it takes is being there at any weekend and seeing how long the lines are at the ticket windows. They have recently made a new room on the east side of the ticket windows with TVM's, so the direction they want to take is evident. You would be surprised how many people would like to speak to a human rather than dealing with a machine, mainly the senior citizens.

Aside from the obvious points such as GCT and 125th street, having manned windows at outlying points where Amtrak stops (Croton, Poughkeepsie, New Rochelle, Stamford, Bridgeport, New Haven) must be kept. Fordham road and White Plains are 2 busy stations at all hours of the day as well. I also believe Southeast is also another manned ticket window if I am not mistaken.

The New Canaan residents as mentioned before hand are probably the most influential people this railroad serves. They know that as well as the company. Anyone knows you never leave New Canaan a second early because you will know about it by the time you hit Stamford.

There is no window in southeast but there is in brewster village, and it is moderately busy.

Steamboat Willie wrote:I find it strange they want to abolish some of the positions in GCT. All it takes is being there at any weekend and seeing how long the lines are at the ticket windows. They have recently made a new room on the east side of the ticket windows with TVM's, so the direction they want to take is evident. You would be surprised how many people would like to speak to a human rather than dealing with a machine, mainly the senior citizens.

Many have found it strange about the GCT cuts, but it is what it is. I see the people every day that don't want to go to the machines. Then there's the ones that do and buy the wrong tickets. Then they have to come to a window to exchange or refund what they got. They either don't know the difference between peak and off peak or they buy a ticket going to Poughkeepise but don't realize until after they buy it that what they really want Peekskill (they're only going on the train to Poughkeepise). Then there's the classic of a señor buying a senior ticket.

Another thing the machines can't produce is student commutation tickets as these have to be requested in writing with the schools stamp and signature. This increasingly difficult for some as the tickets offices are almost extinct in the northern reaches as there will not be any ticket offices between Brewster and North White or Poughkeepise and Croton Harmon.

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Steamboat Willie wrote: I also believe Southeast is also another manned ticket window if I am not mistaken.

Southeast has never had a ticket window, just two or three TVM's in the overpass. You may be thinking of Brewster Station (in the village) which is only manned from 6am to 1:30 pm, Mon - Fri.

While I do not have any need to ride Metro-North anymore as most of that territory that I would ride is also served by
Amtrak and I can use my pass to ride Amtrak. I did ride the Long Island to Montauk in 2007 and the ticket seller gave my
friend a hard time in Penn Station and I swear I will not go to a LIRR ticket window again. Next time I ride the LIRR I will
buy the ticket from a machine. So much for trying to help keep a job on, the guy didn't care about his job in this case and
neither did I.
I suspect that this guy was a rotten apple in a barrel but it only takes one or two to kill something.
Same thing happened here in Fort Lauderdale on our commuter rail system, Tri-Rail. They had TVM's at all stations but they
maintained a ticket agent here in Fort Lauderdale for a long time. I went to Miami by train one day a couple of years ago and went to the ticket agent to get a ticket, he said "I am closed" in no uncertain terms and I said back that as far as I was
concerned you could close forever as I would never again buy a ticket from you or any other agent in Fort Lauderdale. It was
only a couple of months later that they closed this agency and where this individual ended up, I could care less.
On the other hand, I know one ticket agent with Amtrak who goes out of his way to provide outstanding service to his
customers and he treats them as if he owned the business. His ticket volume is probably high enough to keep that job on
as long as he desires to work. Attitude does help, believe me.
By writing this, I am not accusing any Metro-North people of not doing their jobs, I am only sighting my experiences in a few
cases.
Noel Weaver

It's too bad as some people will lose their jobs but as NYC Subway is eliminating those assistants, or what ever they call them, because they found out they never helped anyone.

Metro North should add ticket machines to all branch stations as well as the New Haven bound side of the New Haven line stations at stations that don't already have them.

Also, combine the ticketing for SLE into the Metro North system (they can figure out the $'s based on what tickets were bought) and put ticket machines into SLE stations.

I guess the ticket window closing is based on tickets sold by the agents. If Agents are nasty and chase people away so they use machines or internet (2-5% discount), eventually the Agents will be eliminated.

Train322 wrote: Also, combine the ticketing for SLE into the Metro North system (they can figure out the $'s based on what tickets were bought) and put ticket machines into SLE stations.

Unirail tickets (SLE in combination with New Haven) can be purchased at the Metro North's TVM's and ticket windows.