"Thank You For Your Patience"

Okay so you may have changed that stupid automated announcement that comes on when the train is stuck underground between stations for 30 minutes from "please be patient" to "thank you for your patience", MTA, but i still despise you.
1. because now I can no longer rant in my head about how infuriating "please be patient" is to someone who has no choice but to be patient because they are stuck in a dark, rat infested underground subway tunnel.
2. because that almost unnoticeable change has not increased the quality of my daily commute.

Today for example:
I get to the subway station, make it past the turnstile down onto the platform where the next departing train is waiting, doors open, conductor ready. I luck out and find a seat among my fellow commuters - lucky because I have elbow room on both sides ::nods::
I take out my GRE book and struggle over some 6th grade level mathematics and check my watch - I was right on time. The automated announcement lets us know that this manhattan bound train is about to head to the next stop and that we should stand clear of the closing doors. The doors close, the train moves off, and I hit play on my ipod. About 2 seconds into a Drake song the gears of the train make a very unfamiliar sound and the train stops abruptly. Everyone looks up from their books & nooks & kindles and then the doors open & then the angry lady -as I will always call her- gets on the PA and announces that the train we have all made ourselves so comfortable on is going out of service and that the train across the platform will be leaving first. Insert MAD DASH here. Everyone who had a seat hustles across the platform to try and secure, if possible, the same exact seat. We were all at a disadvantage because the other people who had missed our now out of service train were already seated. I managed to get a seat but this time it lacked the elbow room necessary to properly navigate my study aid...
where was I going with this?
Oh right! How is it that a train could possibly break down and go out of service about 2 seconds into its route? And why does this happen more often than we'd like?
The last time I had an incident like this the angry lady had us cross the platform from one train to the other 3 times. I thought it was some kind of game, I thought we'd all involuntarily ended up on an episode of wipe out - some of the older commuters almost didn't make it. Do we really pay up to $109 a month to run back and forth until the people in charge can get it together?
If its not broken trains, its delayed trains. If its not delayed trains, its no trains at all. How long is this construction supposed to take??? why won't my lines be complete until late 2012? They've been "under construction" since my sophomore year of college!
Get it together MTA! Anyone remember when 30 day unlimited metrocards were about $75-ish bucks? Does it not seem that as the prices increase the service gets that much more terrible?
And can we just talk about the people they hire to "clean" these trains? Having a center/terminal as my home station has opened my eyes to what really happens when these trains reach their last stops. Each member of the maintenance team takes about a half car each and they just walk in, take a broom to whatever trash they can see which neverrr everrr includes whats under the seats. They neverrr everrr get anything and they almost always spend most of the cleaning time sitting, talking, or snacking and they probably all make more money than me. Is there someone I can talk to about this?! I mean really!
I have a suggestion for how these subway train janitors can better make use of all that company time...
How bout by rounding up all the homeless people that have made the E train their mobile home?
I say the following at the risk of sounding like the worst person in the universeeee but like really...i'm not sure how many more smelly cars I can walk into - my lungs aren't strong enough to hold my breath until the next stop most times and it really just makes me sick to my stomach. Now I know that a very large percent of the homeless men & women who occupy our subway system suffer from some kind of mental disorder but isn't that all the more reason to get them off the train, out of their filthy clothes, and into a hospital or some sort of care facility? I also know that maybe the funds aren't there but then what? do we just let them ride the subway up & down and live on the benches in the stations until they're found wayyy too late by some patrol cop? Is there anyone working on a solution to this?
Why am I paying all this money a month to have a woman squat in the corner of a crowded train car & relieve herself?
Why am I paying all this money to walk into a train car where an obviously mentally unhealthy person has defecated all over the ground & then smeared that feces all over the seats.
Where is the give? Does it make us slightly inhumane to scowl and cover our noses when we walk onto a train car that a homeless man has turned into his apartment? yes...but then again this is a service we are paying for. shouldn't we at least be allowed to breath?
I've gotta talk to that tool bloomberg about this...although he'll probably just make some ridiculous comment about how most of the manhattanites don't complain, mostly because they are part of that 1% who can afford to jetpack everywhere ::nods::*

On the same transportation note with a much, much different tone:
On friday 2 men were shot on a bus that had just pulled up at Jamaica center (the very station I use every single day, the same station where I did those platform sprints I mentioned). A man who had just killed someone else ran from the scene of the 1st murder and hopped on the bus that he then made the scene of his second murder. A lot of things went through my head when I saw it on the news. The men that were shot were just doing their daily routines, going about their own business when this monster shot them for absolutely no good reason. I started to think about how easy it is for a murderer to get on a bus. Is it possible for someone who has just taken 1 life to have all their wits about them as they hop on a bus to flee the scene? Is it possible that the driver may have just let him on without paying the fare, without giving it a second thought?
I was on the bus one night on my way home from work when a man who was obviously out of his mind boarded the bus. He was yelling, cursing, and somewhat violent. He didn't have any money, he probably had no idea where he was and instead of denying him entry the bus driver said nothing as the man spewed angry words at him. Was it for his own safety? but what about the safety of everyone else on board who had payed their way home? I made the mistake of looking up from my phone and the man made eye contact with me and said my stop. I was officially scared. I immediately called my father who served as the most inefficient body guard ever. Fortunately I didn't need him, the "angry man" got fixated on a paper bag or something on the floor and forgot all about me but what if he didn't and what if he'd had some kind of weapon?
That incident got me thinking about the time I had honestly completely forgotten that my metrocard expired. I swiped it on the bus and it denied me. I tried explaining to the driver and he wasn't having it. I had to get off the bus and walk back home to get change. It blew my mind. I realized that maybe if I was angry, violent, & yielding a weapon that I would have gotten on that bus and gone anywhere I wanted to go...



*after that crazy snowstorm we had last winter when the MTA was completely shut down, our mayor said that it wasnt all that bad because most of the broadway plays were still packed...from that point on anything he said became invalid.