Coffee on the Subway

On the one hand, it's awesome that New Yorkers can drink coffee -- and whatever else they like -- on their subway. They should be able to, and as this article points out, their feeling of ownership to the subway is justified: not only are they taxed for it, but some "55 percent, use public transportation to get to work, and the majority of them use the subway".

So, now rules are on the table that would make illegal "drinking from open containers, moving between subway cars or straddling a bicycle on a moving train," and of course the city's riders are up in arms.

Chance has it that this will just crumble and be "shouted out of the system," like the ill-advised prohibition on photography within the subway last summer. No wonder it was buried in the front section.

But I'd like to point out, as does the article, that:

In other cities, passengers don't seem to mind tough restrictions. The Chicago El completely bans food and drink; it allows customers to carry bottled water during "periods of extreme heat." The Washington Metro is so adamant about keeping its uniform stations spotless that in 2000, its police officers handcuffed a 12-year-old girl for eating a single French fry.

I'm not advocating banning water (anyone who's spent a summer in DC will realize that that's impossible) or jailing preteens for minor infractions. But I would like to point out that the DC Metro is one of the cleanest of any I've seen in the world, with the possible exception of Vienna, Austria. It's certainly the cleanest Stateside -- no eau de urine wafting up from hot corners; relatively few rats scuttling about in the dark; well-lit. All this contributed to me feeling safe in every subway station in the District, even if above-ground were the more unsavory neighborhoods.

New Yorkers probably won't change their caffeination habits over a proposed rule. But they might do well to look at this one a little harder than they did the photography ban -- that is, if they value cleanliness ...