Fares, cards, transfers (subway, bus, and MetroNorth)

On Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:01:31 -0400, Ruben <ruben@www2.mrbrklyn.com>
wrote:

>On Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:16:55 -0400, Cyrus Afzali wrote:
>
>> My town tax bill
>
>Hmm
>
>Is your town bigger than Staten Island?

Has nothing to do with anything; no matter what the town's size is,
you can still specifically allocate portions of an overall tax levy
for specific services. Have you ever seen how local budgets are put
together? They already know how much of an overall tax levy are going
for specific services, it's not like it's a state secret.

Honestly, attend some meetings and see how things work. You just don't
know a lot of basic stuff here.

On May 1, 3:11 pm, hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> On Apr 26, 7:46 am, David J. P. Long <djlong@wild_wizards.net> wrote:
>
> > hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> > >Staten Island was stolen from NJ.  Some day it will be taken back.
>
> > I hardly think so.  Staten Island seceding from New York City is
> > entirely possible (and referendum on that topic come up every now and
> > then) but New Jersey forcibly taking back Richmond County?  
>
> > As far as being stolen from NJ, it's been part of New York (the
> > colony, now the state) since 1667.
>
> Memories die hard.
>
> You think the battleship New Jersey is merely a decativated floating
> museum?  You're in for a surprise!

I'll see your batteship and raise you a carrier Intrepid (when it gets
back).

On May 1, 7:22 pm, John Mara <johnm...@nyc.*******> wrote:

> The Schalmont School district got its name because it covers parts or
> Schenectady, Albany and Montgomery counties.

Why was such a county-crossing school created?

On May 2, 1:34 am, Bolwerk <n...@way.org2> wrote:
> Phil Kane wrote:
> > On Thu, 1 May 2008 12:17:58 -0700 (PDT), hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>
> >> This confusing to outsiders visiting L.I. or Westchester.  You see a
> >> sign "Town of ..." but you're nowhere near your utlimate destination,
> >> which is actually in the Village of ...".
>
> >> Of course, several other states have boroughs surrounded by townships
> >> with the same name but are different.  And there are post office names
> >> which do not coincide with commonly used names or muncipal boundaries.
>
> > This confuses me about New Jersey.  What is a "township" there?  We
> > have friends who have kept the same street address and zip code but
> > the name of the PO has changed several times.  One of them was a
> > "Township".
>
> New Jersey municipal law may be more convoluted than New York's.
>
> I think a township is just like a town in most states.  It has no
> subordinate municipal units within it, and exists in a county.  But
> there are specific, boring laws governing how it operates (mayor,
> council, what they do, etc.).  Same goes for other variations, like the
> town and borough - all basically just what people in most states would
> call "towns," but operate by different rules and maybe even different
> sizes.   There are also cities, whatever those are (chartered?).

I don't know if "township" and "boro[ugh]" have legal meanings in New
Jersey. (In Massachusetts, "town" versus "city" is an important
distinction, cities, like the City of Watertown [not to be confused
with the City of Townsville], have mayors, towns don't.)
Massachusetts, New Jersey, and maybe a few other small northeastern
states have the situation that there is no unincorporated land. In
Massachusetts it was not by design, the last unincorporated land
became part of a municipality in 1909. (On the other hand, the
counties have less and less responsibility, now limited primarily to
sheriffs, who run jails. I think a few of our counties dissolved all
together, becoming nothing more than regions. I think the UK has
undergone similar things.)
In New Jersey, in at least some places, there is a donut-and-hole
situation, where the old village or business district is named Foo
Borough while the surrounding until-more-recently-unincorporated area
is named Foo Township.

As others wrote, in New York, "town" refers to a sub-county.

As far as I know, every square foot of land that is within a US state
is also within some county (or in Louisiana, parish) whether or not it
is in an incorporated municipality, but in a few cases -- Phil
mentioned San Francisco -- the municipality and the county cover
exactly the same area. In at least five cases, the municipality
contains a county. (That was also not always the case: The City of
Greater New York came into existence before the County of the Bronx.
I'm pretty sure that between 1898 and 1912 [or whatever the exact
dates] the Borough [NYC subdivision] of the Bronx, being that part of
Westchester County, the towns of Eastchester and a few others, that
had become part of the City of Greater New York, was in the County of
New York, same as the Borough [and Island] of Manhattan. And I think
Marble Hill joined the mainland, the Borough of the Bronx, and the
County of the Bronx, at three different dates.)

ObNYCTransit: The Whtie Plains Road line ends in Wakefield. Why does
Wakefield bulge into Westchester distinctly from the straight line
that forms the Riverdale/Yonkers and Baychester/Pelham border?

--
- David Chesler <chesler@post.harvard.edu>
Free Cory Maye

David Chesler wrote:
> On May 2, 1:34 am, Bolwerk <n...@way.org2> wrote:
>> Phil Kane wrote:
>>> On Thu, 1 May 2008 12:17:58 -0700 (PDT), hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>>>> This confusing to outsiders visiting L.I. or Westchester. You see a
>>>> sign "Town of ..." but you're nowhere near your utlimate destination,
>>>> which is actually in the Village of ...".
>>>> Of course, several other states have boroughs surrounded by townships
>>>> with the same name but are different. And there are post office names
>>>> which do not coincide with commonly used names or muncipal boundaries.
>>> This confuses me about New Jersey. What is a "township" there? We
>>> have friends who have kept the same street address and zip code but
>>> the name of the PO has changed several times. One of them was a
>>> "Township".
>> New Jersey municipal law may be more convoluted than New York's.
>>
>> I think a township is just like a town in most states. It has no
>> subordinate municipal units within it, and exists in a county. But
>> there are specific, boring laws governing how it operates (mayor,
>> council, what they do, etc.). Same goes for other variations, like the
>> town and borough - all basically just what people in most states would
>> call "towns," but operate by different rules and maybe even different
>> sizes. There are also cities, whatever those are (chartered?).
>
> I don't know if "township" and "boro[ugh]" have legal meanings in New
> Jersey. (In Massachusetts, "town" versus "city" is an important
> distinction, cities, like the City of Watertown [not to be confused
> with the City of Townsville], have mayors, towns don't.)

They have legal meanings in NJ, but I'm not sure what the specifics are.
Since I don't live in NJ, I don't really care. :-p

> Massachusetts, New Jersey, and maybe a few other small northeastern
> states have the situation that there is no unincorporated land. In
> Massachusetts it was not by design, the last unincorporated land
> became part of a municipality in 1909. (On the other hand, the
> counties have less and less responsibility, now limited primarily to
> sheriffs, who run jails. I think a few of our counties dissolved all
> together, becoming nothing more than regions. I think the UK has
> undergone similar things.)

I didn't know NJ had no unincorporated land either, but I knew that was
the case in NY and New England.

> In New Jersey, in at least some places, there is a donut-and-hole
> situation, where the old village or business district is named Foo
> Borough while the surrounding until-more-recently-unincorporated area
> is named Foo Township.
>
> As others wrote, in New York, "town" refers to a sub-county.

Yeah, I wrote that, but a town has a lot of municipal power in NY.
Then, a county likely does too. That's as opposed to MA, where the
county doesn't really have any power (and probably only exists on paper).

> As far as I know, every square foot of land that is within a US state
> is also within some county (or in Louisiana, parish) whether or not it
> is in an incorporated municipality, but in a few cases -- Phil

Indian Reservations are a *possible* exception. I don't know about
other U.S. territories/possessions either.

> mentioned San Francisco -- the municipality and the county cover
> exactly the same area. In at least five cases, the municipality
> contains a county. (That was also not always the case: The City of
> Greater New York came into existence before the County of the Bronx.

Well, Bronx County was land that was given to New York County way back
when, originally part of Westchester County. The NY Legislature made
The Bronx its own county in 1914.

> I'm pretty sure that between 1898 and 1912 [or whatever the exact
> dates] the Borough [NYC subdivision] of the Bronx, being that part of
> Westchester County, the towns of Eastchester and a few others, that
> had become part of the City of Greater New York, was in the County of
> New York, same as the Borough [and Island] of Manhattan. And I think
> Marble Hill joined the mainland, the Borough of the Bronx, and the
> County of the Bronx, at three different dates.)

I think that's accurate. Marble Hill was never part of The Bronx
though. It's part of Manhattan to this day. Administratively, it's
treated as part of The Bronx.

> ObNYCTransit: The Whtie Plains Road line ends in Wakefield. Why does
> Wakefield bulge into Westchester distinctly from the straight line
> that forms the Riverdale/Yonkers and Baychester/Pelham border?
>
> --
> - David Chesler <chesler@post.harvard.edu>
> Free Cory Maye

JohnAnon wrote:
> On May 1, 7:22 pm, John Mara <johnm...@nyc.*******> wrote:
>
>
>>The Schalmont School district got its name because it covers parts or
>>Schenectady, Albany and Montgomery counties.
>
>
> Why was such a county-crossing school created?

I'm not sure. It almost seems that it was the leftovers from other
school districts. It does not include any cities or large towns. The
area is suburban today but it was probably rural when the district was
set up.

--
John Mara

> This confuses me about New Jersey.

New Jersey has five titles for municipalities. From rural to urban,
they are: township, village, borough, town, city. The state
constitution defines their forms of government, but there is
considerable overlap. Originally, a township was considered to be an
unincorporated rural area, from which built-up areas would form
municipalities under the other titles, but this is no longer the
case. All five are now considered to be incorporated.

For historical reasons there are still some townships with the same
name as a borough that includes the namesake place of the original
township, like Chatham and Mendham (Morris County) and Freehold
(Monmouth County).

Many decades ago some boroughs and villages were considered to be
still part of the township from which they were formed, like villages
in New York state. One of the forces behind the explosion of small
municipalities in New Jersey was school districting, which was to be
done by townships, boroughs, towns, and cities, but not villages. The
villages of Ridgewood and Ridgefield Park (Bergen County) are
coterminous with vestigial townships of the same name. The third
village was South Orange, which still shares a school district with
the former South Orange township, called Maplewood township since the
1920s, and anyway South Orange village became South Orange Village
township in the 1970s.

Joe Brennan

AllstonParkingRefugee@************ wrote:
> Bolwerk <n...@way.org2> wrote:
>> I didn't know NJ had no unincorporated land either, but I knew that was
>> the case in NY and New England.
>
> In New York State, all land is part of either a town or a city. But
> the parts of towns that aren't also part of a village are not
> considered to be "incorporated" (whatever that word is supposed to
> mean).

Well, I think municipal governments are generally considered to be
corporations ("incorporated"). They exist largely by the authority of a
larger government unit. A village, town, city, or county charter can be
revoked, but (for example) New York State has a measure of in theory
immutable sovereignty.

> Some villages make a point of calling themselves things the
> "Incorporated Village of Upper Butzville".

On Apr 27, 2:02 am, Bolwerk <n...@way.org2> wrote:
> David Chesler wrote:
> >  Stolen I don't know, but geography suggests it's on the west side of
> > the water.  The Narrows are a lot wider than the Kills.
>
> According to a pact between the two states, the islands in the river all
> belong to New York, even in the ones in New Jersey waters.
>
> Ellis Island was disputed only because much of it is landfill, and that
> landfill is part of New Jersey.

If Staten Island is "in the river" than so are a number of barrier
islands further south, including Absecon Island (Atlantic City [to
which {ObNYCTransit} I once took a bus from the Bronx.])

--
- David Chesler <chesler@post.harvard.edu>
Free Cory Maye

On Wed, 07 May 2008 17:23:33 -0700, Phil Kane
<Phil.Kane@nov.shmovz.ka.pop> wrote:


>ObTransit - does the NY court administration reimburse jurors for
>transportation and meals as do other jurisdictions?

They do for transportation, provided you don't live within a certain
radius of the courthouse where you have to report; if you live too
close, they don't give you anything. Meals aren't covered unless
you're in active deliberations, in which case they're provided and
brought to you.