Your takeout on the train is safe.
MTA Chairman Jay Walder has declared that food won't be banned on the subway, days after the idea was floated by a board member.
Walder said after the MTA's monthly meeting that outlawing food was not likely to happen.
"This is a system that carries five million people a day, and I'm not sure a ban on food is really practical or enforceable," he said.
This week board member Charles Moerdler said the MTA needs "to think about the availability of food products to passengers, who then discard some of all of it on the tracks, on the platform."
"They're the cause of rats," he went on. "They're the cause of the fires. We have to do something to make it clear that the public has to wake up."
The concept ignited debates about eating on the train, and on NBC New York's Facebook page, commenters were divided.
Local
Peggy Mahoney said it's "just another way to raise money for tickets given out for people with two and three jobs" who have to eat on the run.
And Sandy Webb said "if people learned to dispose of their garbage properly, maybe this wouldn't be an issue."
Courtney Reimer, editor for several Yahoo! entertainment blogs and one of NBC New York's The 20, said "there are far more dirty and disturbing things you can do... it's not as bad as clipping your toenails."
Rest easy, straphangers. You can still do all those things on the train. Enjoy.
