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¶ Grandiose station accommodations, in McGinnis' opinion, are a waste of money: "I am sure the commuter could be just as happy if he caught the 5:08 in a tent rather than in the magnificent marble edifice of years gone by."
A Lousy Five Bucks. Even McGinnis' innovations to soothe the public had a way of backfiring. His half-fare "Ladies' Day" tickets each Wednesday were an instant hit with the female population in the commuting perimeter. But they resulted in more overcrowding, more slowdowns and more complaints. The public was well pleased when McGinnis began a program of improving and enlarging the parking lots at suburban stations. Then he announced a monthly parking charge of $5.50 a car. While the customers howled over what amounted to a concealed hike in their commutation-ticket fares. Pat McGinnis turned the affair into a real Donnybrook with a speech in Norwalk. "Because I want to charge a lousy five bucks," he roared, "people act as though I've torn up the tracks. There's going to be parking at every station, and if it costs me money, it's going to cost you money, because I'm a businessman—not the Ford Foundation."
Recently, Pat McGinnis has shown a new and surprising reluctance to comment in public. He stubbornly refused the demand of the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities that he appear at its hearings, sent along a posse of glib lieutenants instead. While the Boston hearings were in progress. Archbishop Richard J. Gushing publicly offered up a prayer to "have our railroads run regularly on time and comfortably."