NY City's Mayor becomes angry about the horrible subway system (and accidentally emails the NY Times about it)

photo from reuters

If you come to New York City, the first thing you will notice is that the subway system here is horrible. It is a very old system - 115 years old, and it looks old.

It is a dirty system and there are rats all over the place.

photo from ny-info.com

Furthermore, the subway cars are always packed full of people and the system is unreliable. People are ALWAYS late in New York City because they never know when their trains will arrive and they often wait for long amounts of time.

Who is to blame? The Governor (leader) of the State of New York, Andrew Cuomo, is totally to blame - since the State of New York, and not the City of New York, operates the MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority). There used to be a truly good and competent person in charge of the MTA named Jay Walder, but he was very popular and he was changing the MTA for the better. It seems he was TOO popular - Cuomo doesn't seem to want anyone to be more popular than he is and so Walder mysteriously left his job at the MTA when Cuomo became governor (Walder is now running the Hong Kong subway system). Before he left, I remember seeing Walder on TV one time talking about the MTA and crying - yes, the MTA is that bad.

So here's a funny story. The Mayor of New York City (the leader of NY City) decided to take the subway to an important meeting. He stood and waited and waited and waited and waited. After waiting 20 minutes, he decided to leave.

So he became frustrated and left the subway but his car and driver had already left. So he became upset about all of this and sent an angry email message to his staff (it wasn't his staff's fault - it's the MTA!). But he also accidentally sent a copy of the email to a reporter at the NY Times. Ooooops.

In the e-mail he asks his staff to find out ahead of time, in the future, whether the trains are going to arrive on time or not. He doesn't say: "Change this horrible system!" he says, "When I am supposed to ride the subway, make sure it will work!"

Now at least he knows what every other person in New York City knows: THE MTA SUCKS! And we know what we should have known before we stupidly elected this guy: de Blasio sucks!

Here's the article:

http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-de-blasio-accidentally-emailed-the-new-york-times-2015-5

Vocabulary from the article:

a sternly worded missive - sternly means strongly, missive is a fancy term for a letter or message; DeBlasio sent an angry email message

a recipient - someone who receives something

declared - stated

confounded - frustrated, stopped, prevented from doing something (confounded isn't used very often)

the express train - there are express trains and local trains. The express trains are supposed to travel faster. In fact, they travel just as slowly.

the detail - his group of body guards and the driver

to confirm - to make sure

NYPD - the police

to keep track of - to be aware of

hassles - problems