Re: (rshsdepot) East Williston, NY is still dead......

[CoolGuy127_@_aol.com]

In a message dated 12/13/2004 9:25:04 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
LNER4472_@_bcpl.net writes:

Although  at times we entrust them to the task, the role of transportation
agencies  is NOT preserving history--it is getting people from Point A to
Point B,  preferably in the most cost-effective manner possible.  Because
much  or most of the money that goes into public transit comes from tax
coffers  (i.e., it is money taken from taxpayers by coercion under threat  of
imprisonment), it is ABSOLUTELY the fiduciary responsibility of the  agency
to operate in the most fiscally responsible manner possible.   Therefore, if
East Williston is better served by a $10,000 bus shelter, a  $20,000 ticket
machine, and $10,000 in machine service annually rather than  a
million-dollar restoration of a station, ten grand a year in overhead,  and a
$50K annual salary for a ticket agent, it shouldn't even be a  decision.


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    Certainly, providing transportation is the primary  purpose of a 
transportation agency.  But that does not absolve them of  their responsibility to 
preserve historic buildings, when appropriate.  For  example, I know that 
Metro-North recently spent hundreds of thousands of dollars  -- maybe even more -- to 
preserve the historic New Canaan, CT station, in  the process raising it 
several feet so as to make the station  handicapped-accessible.  I'm sure that it 
would have been much easier for  them to have demolished the historic building 
and construct a modern facility  instead.  
 
    I'm making the above comments as a general matter,  since I don't know 
enough about the situation in East Williston to make a  judgment as to what the 
Long Island Rail Road should have done there,
 
            Daniel  Chazin
            Teaneck,  NJ

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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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