LIRR President's Response

Dear Mr. W.:

I have received your recent e-mail and I want to thank you for your feedback regarding the restroom at the Little Neck Station.

My priorities are Customer Safety, Security and Service Reliability. I am conducting a 90-day assessment of the LIRR's operations. As part of this process, your comments were forwarded to the Branch Line Manager for the Port Washington Branch for review.

I have since been informed that the Branch Line Manager concurs with your suggestion, and is making arrangements to have the men's restroom designated as a unisex restroom.

I appreciate your taking the time to share your suggestion with me and I look forward to working with LIRR employees to provide safe, secure, reliable transportation for more than 282,000 customers every day.

Sincerely,

Helena E. Williams
President
MTA Long Island Rail Road

CNN.com Sermons

Dear CNN.com:

Wtf?

Very truly yours,

Christopher W.

McDonald's Letter: Value Meals Are Gross

To McDonald's:

I'll put it right out on the table: I've never been a big fan of McDonald's. I never liked the food as a kid, and I don't particularly enjoy it now. For me, Wendy's has always satisfied my fast-food needs, with crispy, fresh salads, real white-meat chicken, and an extensive value menu. Rest in peace, Dave Thomas, you are sorely missed.

Nevertheless, because McDonald's is everywhere and does serve consistent, if not delicious, food, I occasionally find myself in one of your fine establishments. Unfortunately, as a reasonably healthy eater, I feel completely unwelcome there. In addition to having too few healthy foods, McDonald's structures their menus so that it costs more to eat a relatively healthy meal than it does to eat an very unhealthy meal. The value meals, for instance, do not give you any opportunity to substitute some of the artery-hardening foods with healthier options. If you want to get, say, a burger and a salad, then you can't get a value meal; instead, you have to order the burger and salad separately, which costs more.

Therefore, for the betterment of me and people like me, I'd like to suggest that you adopt a reform that Wendy's--God bless Dave Thomas' sweet soul--recently undertook: when I get a meal, give me the option to include a salad, or a baked potato, or something kinda healthy instead of the fries. And-- ready for this?--let me have some other beverage in my value meal than soda or super-sweet iced tea. Like--oh, I don't know--water. And not just the pink-colored water that shares a spout with the Hi-C. Like real water. Or seltzer perhaps. Juice? Juice would be nice too. Believe it or not, there are a ton of beverages whose primary ingredient is not high fructose corn syrup.

With a simple menu change like this in place, I'm confident you'd have customers taking advantage of the value meal option more often. You'd certainly have me ordering them.

Very truly yours,

Christopher W.

P.S.

Good call on adding the Chicken Selects a few years ago. That was long overdue.

Victory! LIRR Ladies' Room Response

Dear Mr. W.:
I am in receipt of your e-mail regarding the Little Neck Station restroom. You will also be receiving a reply from President Williams regarding your suggestion, but I wanted to let you know your comments were forwarded to the station's Branch Line Manager, and the men's restroom will be changed to unisex in the near future.

Thank you for writing, and thank you for riding the MTA Long Island Rail Road.

Sincerely,

Tom N.
Manager-Public Affairs

----------------

Great job, LIRR! For this you've earned The Grouser Star of Approval™!

No Ladies Room at the Little Neck Station

To Whom It May Concern:

A few times each month, I ride the Long Island Railroad out to Little Neck to visit my family in Queens. Accordingly, I've spent a good deal of time at the Little Neck LIRR station, waiting either for the train back to Penn Station to come or for my mom to pick me up and drive me home.

On more than one occasion, I've found myself in situations where I've been thankful that the Little Neck station has a working mens room: I mean, when you gotta go, you gotta go. Well, at least that goes for men. Women, apparently, don't need similar access to a working ladies room. They do? Then explain why the ladies room at the Little Neck station is located inside the station office, which is generally locked, whereas the mens room is accessible without entering the station office. The practical result of this distribution of restrooms is that men have access to a restroom at all hours, while women rarely have access at all. Unfair! Unjust!

But, thankfully, easily fixed. I'm writing both to draw your attention to this injustice and to suggest a solution. Because I understand that granting 24-hour access to the station office (and thus the ladies room) may not be feasible, I propose making the current mens and ladies rooms into unisex restrooms. This way, all people have access to a restroom at all hours. During the hours when the station office is open (presumably the crowded hours), all people have access to two restrooms.

This seems reasonable, fair, and just. I look forward to hearing your response.

Very truly yours,

Christopher W.

P.S.

Please note that the contents of this letter are being made publicly available as a main article on the website http:www.grouserblog.com/.