The Dagley Dagley Daily

By Janet Dagley Dagley
Covering the world from the waterfront in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA

ISSN 1544-9114

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Garbled in translation

I was among the first few paying customers to ride the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail extension between Weehawken and Hoboken yesterday, though nobody was checking for tickets on a train full of dignitaries and reporters. Nor did anyone seem to know much about those tickets.

As an experienced light-rail passenger, I knew that when they announced, "The train will leave in three minutes," I wouldn't have time to buy a 10-pack of tickets for $13, because the machines print the tickets out one by one, and very, very slowly. So I opted for a single ticket at $1.50, then stuck it in the validator. Fortunately the train did not leave on time, so I made it just as the doors were closing. I found an empty seat by the window and only then realized I was sitting a few rows behind our state Assemblyman, Brian Stack, who is also mayor of Union City. I didn't recognize the people around him, but some were obviously reporters: they had skinny notebooks, and they were asking questions. "How much is a ticket? How much is a ticket? How much does it cost to ride?" None of the dignitaries aboard seemed to know, and that information must not have been in the press kits they all carried -- or maybe they hadn't opened those yet. As the question rose to a chant, I decided it was time to move on. "A dollar fifty," I told them. "Or 10 rides for 13 dollars. Or 75 cents a ride for seniors. Isn't that in your press kit?" They were too busy scribbling in their notebooks to either answer my question or look to see if I was right.

One of them, Carolina Sotola of the Spanish-language newspaper Hoy (part of the Tribune Company media empire), asked me if I was familiar with the light rail. Yes, I told her. I've been riding it to Jersey City now and then since the Hoboken station opened a couple of years ago. She asked me if I liked it, and I told her I sure did. She asked why, and I told her that the many public transit options make the Hudson waterfront seem like Europe, a place I had lived for a few years.

"Where in Europe?" she asked.

"Prague," I answered. She scribbled.

She asked me if I left my car behind to use public transit, and I told her I didn't have a car, and that a car is a nuisance in an urban area, especially an area with good public transit. I told her that I had spent enough time in cars when I lived in California, because people spend much of their lives in cars there.

"I prefer not to have a car here," I told her. "I don't have to find a place to park it; I don't have to insure it; I don't have to buy gas for it; I don't have to wash it; I don't have to get it repaired. I'd much rather ride public transit and read a book."

I explained that the ticketing system on the light rail was on the honor system: fare enforcers might or might not check your ticket; if you don't have a valid one, there's a fine. She had a follow-up to that, too: "I've heard there are a lot of homeless people in Hoboken," she said. "Aren't you afraid that homeless people will live on the tram?"

I conceded that Hoboken, like most places, does have a few homeless people, but if you ask most residents, they'd say that gentrification is a much bigger problem. Besides, the light rail has been running for a few years now, and so far nobody has taken up residence in any of the trams.

When the tram reached its final stop in Hoboken, Ms. Sotola asked me one more question: "Can you tell me how to get to the PATH train from here?" I pointed her in the right direction and told her she couldn't miss the huge signs that were put up for the Republican convention.

Ms. Sotola had to translate my words into Spanish, of course: she could have interviewed me in Spanish, but I wouldn't have sounded very articulate. But something seems to have gotten garbled in translation. In her article today, she says I'm of Czech descent (I didn't tell her that; she didn't even ask me anything about my ethnicity -- not that it would have been appropriate in any case). She transformed what I said about people spending lots of time in their cars in California, claiming that I had lived in my car for several months in San Francisco. I did spend a long time looking for a parking spot once when we were vacationing there, but for the record, I have never lived in either my car or San Francisco. I did not mention a specific city in California. Is there a part of the Golden State where people don't have to spend a lot of time in their cars?

I mean no ill will in including the names of the reporter and publication in question -- after all, they've already used my name. At least they spelled that right.

Ms. Sotola reported that the Hoboken-Weehawken extension is 2.6 miles long; the Jersey Journal says it's 1.6 miles. The reporter for New Jersey public television news -- I didn't catch his name -- told viewers that one thousand people a day ride the light rail now, then showed us video of a transit official saying that number was 17,000, with another 2,400 riders a day expected due to the extension.

posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @5:13 PM

8.9.04