We’d lamented the demise of the Westchester section of the NY Times, as it was always a good source of local news, much of it transit-related, because all we truly care about in the ‘burbs is a smooth ride to the city each day.

Well, the replacement for the Sunday Westchester section (not to mention the Jersey, the Long Island, the City, etc.) is the all-encompassing Metropolitan section. And the most recent one actually has two interesting stories about local transit–three, if you include the surprisingly moving Lonelyhearts subway poetry culled from Craigs List.

One story looks at the weird conundrum of train stations with long waiting lists for spots, juxtaposed with the fact that lots of people are laid off and no longer need their parking spots, at least for the time being. So there are long lists of people who cannot park at the station in their town, while spots are unoccupied because a permit holder is sitting at home, sending out resumes for jobs that will eventually get him or her back into the city.

Our fearless forefather Robert Meehan is quoted in the story.

Roughly 100 of the 573 spaces at the parking lot in Dobbs Ferry were free at 3 p.m. on a recent Tuesday. Over in Hartsdale, Stephanie Kavourias, executive director of the public parking authority, figures that about 90 of the station’s 900 permit spaces are empty on an average day now. And Robert Meehan, the supervisor of the town of Mount Pleasant, which includes Valhalla (191 spaces) and Hawthorne (355), has also seen growth in vacancies.

“I went down to Valhalla on a recent Monday and there were 30 spaces empty,” Mr. Meehan said. “Before the recession it would always be full.”

Some are pushing to allow permit holders to rent their permits (and spots) until they need them once again.

Elsewhere in the section, Timesman Ray Rivera offers an offbeat solution to the modern annoyance known round these parts as Fremix–the unwanted overspill of noise emanating from a fellow train riders’ iPod.

I sat down in the first car, empty but for about half a dozen people, including, of course, two teenagers blasting iPods. Each was playing different music, and the overflow collided in a discordant shrill that flooded every cubic inch of the car like a swarm of angry mosquitoes.

I sat two seats away and pulled out my crossword puzzle for the half-hour ride to Inwood. But those mosquitoes. … I gave the boys a stern look to telegraph my annoyance. They ignored me. Finally, I said, “Excuse me,” tapped my index finger to my earlobe, pointed to their headphones, and pantomimed, “Can you turn it down, please?”

“Go sit somewhere else,” one of the boys said.

“You can hear it through the whole car,” I said. Nothing.

Then Rivera gets clever.

Finally, a bit of subterranean poesy–with a System of a Down reference to boot–to brighten your otherwise unspectacular Tuesday.

metal train guy

i dont use this craigslist thing.

i was sitting right next to you.

long awesome Shavo style beard (soad).

you had headphones on.

chain around your neck.

backpack. big guy.

i had some tattoos.

my arm was touching your leg.

you got off at 42nd street and yes!

you looked back at me for a millisecond …

and i saw a very sad face.

im sad too.

[image: LACityBeat.com]

As I’ve lamented in these cyber-pages, we no longer have the Sunday NY Times “Westchester” section–or similar sections in Jersey, Connecticut, Long Island, or even the city, for that matter–to offer up hyperlocal news, and often transit-related stories.

I also miss contributing to the section, which I got to do fairly frequently. “Westchester” had bought an essay from me on what it’s like to walk in a place where nobody walks, but the piece will not run due to the section being eliminated. The Times gave me what’s known in the biz as a “kill fee” (newspapers do love blood), which means I get a fraction of the agreed-upon amount, and the essay becomes a free agent.

I’m currently exploring the numerous publications that would absolutely die for an essay about walking in Westchester (uh, Sarcasm Alert). In the meantime, here’s a snippet of the essay. At no charge, dear readers!

Walking Tall in the Land of the SUV

I was well familiar with the adage about how nobody walks in the suburbs when I arrived in them 2 ½ years ago. As much as I’d like to say my experience has been different since we departed the concrete jungle for the land of lawns, leaves and giant Hummers, the old axiom certainly seems airtight.

The first house we looked at when planning to move was a sagging split-level in Larchmont within spitting distance of I-95—all we could afford in the trendy village. I asked the owner, an earnest middle-aged man with wistful tales about raising his now-grown children in the house, about access to the train station. “Believe it or not I walk it,” he said. “It’s a mile.”

At the time I couldn’t comprehend why the fellow felt he needed to convince me that he walked a whole mile to and from the train every day. In the city, we wouldn’t think twice about embarking on a 20-block walk to try a new restaurant or hit a theater with a slightly better start time for a film we wanted to see. In fact walking frequently was the entertainment—a chance to do some peripatetic people-watching, a way to exercise without shelling out big bucks for the gym, or just an opportunity to get out of the claustrophobic confines of one’s apartment. Each evening after work, I’d take our (then) infant son out in his stroller, pointing out the beautiful town houses of Gramercy Park, the colorful characters of the East Village, the pubs were Daddy used to hang out prior to his arrival.

The empty-nester gent’s gambol to the train took him past a picturesque pond, under an attractive stone entranceway that used to front an estate, and into Larchmont’s charming village. How the heck else would one get to a train station a mile away–a Segway? A jet-pack?

We didn’t buy that house, but did end up with another that’s a mile from a different Metro-North train station. My first morning in our new Mount Pleasant digs, a crisp and perfect October day pushing above the horizon, I set out for the train expecting to walk amidst an army of so-called Dashing Dan’s en route to our jobs in the city. I didn’t see a soul on the first block, the next block, or the block after that. I briefly wondered if it was, in fact, a Saturday; perhaps the madness of moving had messed with my mind.

When I got home that evening, my wife was distraught. Like me, she was adamant that she could retain her walking ways in the land of the SUV. She’d tried to navigate the baby stroller down narrow, sidewalk-less streets, past perilous highway entrances to a playground about a half-mile away—scoring disapproving looks from motorists all the while.

“There’s nowhere to walk around here!” she cried. (It wasn’t completely true. There is an elementary school, a church and, if you’re really brave, a gas station that sells snacks, smokes and other sundries within walking distance. But I got her point.)

…

Yesterday’s New York Times marked the final edition of the Sunday “Westchester” section of the paper, which had long been a good source of local commuter news.

Sure, Timesman Ken Belson covers transit issues doggedly, but the Westchester section, as the name suggests, frequently covered the commuting life on a much more local, and personal, level. There was the trend story on reverse commuting, another on the pants-ripping armrests, and occasionally, an entire edition devoted primarily to commuting.

[Full disclosure: I did a lot of stories for the Westchester section since moving to the 9-1-4 a few years ago. I’ll miss the beer money.]

In this final edition, Nicole Neroulias writes about valet parking at Scarborough station in Briarcliff Manor, and brutal waiting lists in Rye and other towns. (For a peek at how the sausage is made, she’d reached out to a certain smartass commuter blog last month for some good leads on Metro-North parking lot issues.] The concept of valet parking at train station parking lots is intriguing; we’re almost certain we saw a case of it just once at Hawthorne.

In Briarcliff, it appears everyone pays for the valet service as part of their annual fee–whethe they use the valet service or not. Most seem to appreciate it.

The valet service, which is paid for by an increase in the annual parking fee for all permit-holders to $550 from $350, is used by about 94 cars a day, said Ray Gutierrez, manager at Propark America. (Scarsdale, where the valet service costs $120 a month or $11 a day, averages 170 users.)

Some Briarcliff Manor residents grumble about the higher parking fee, particularly those who take early trains and rarely have trouble finding a spot. But for later commuters like Mr. Midgley, being able to bypass the pay-per-day spots makes up the difference; building a garage would probably cost more in permit prices or taxes for all residents, he said.

Starting next week, the Sunday “Westchester” section–and similar sections in Jersey, Connecticut, Long Island and the city–will be replaced by a section called “Metropolitan”–which sounds a bit like that “Metro” section the Times had each day until a few months ago.

As I left the office at 5:30 on Friday, cold rain was landing on Manhattan. As the 5:46 climbed into the Bronx, sleet was befalling our Boogey-Down brethren. But up in Westchester, the white stuff was falling. As if the county wasn’t white enough!

If you were wondering exactly where the sleet turned to snow, it was between Tuckahoe and Crestwood, around 6:15.

Storage Deluxe

Auction All Makes & Models

Topless Go Go Girls

D&M Towing

Streamline Plastics

…

Melrose

Golden Krust

Pena Grocery

Fordham

…

Botanical Gardens

…

Williams Bridge

…

Woodlawn

Self Guard Self Storage

Fleetwood

J.C. Fogarty’s

Bronxville

The Painted Veil

Tuckahoe

Crestwood

Edwin Bennet Funeral Home

Tumble Bugs

Scarsdale

Hartsdale

Big Top

Bud Light – Always Worth It (Editor’s Note: Not)

White Plains

Pace University

Daddy’s Little Girl

North White Plains

Hertz Rental Car

Healy Electrical Contractors

Too Damn Hot

Valhalla

Hawthorne

Trinkets & Treasures

Pop’s Deli

Loving Moments Florist

No Thru Trucks Over 4 Tons

Neighborhood Crime Watch

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