Terry Cowgill

Pay Phones Continue To Vanish

July 31, 2006 on 1:23 pm | In Local, Main |

If you’re driving (or hiking) along the road and find yourself faced with an emergency, chances are you can either shout, flag down another car or activate your cell phone if you happen to be in range. Chances are, however, that you won’t find a pay phone.

That’s because they have been disappearing at an alarming rate — the victim of vandalism and the burgeoning use of wireless communications. As I discovered when I researched an article on this almost a year ago, there are few payphones left in the Northwest Corner and nearby New York. Unfortunately, links to that article on our Web site have expired, so I have pasted it at the end of this post in italics.

As this more current AP piece appearing in Sunday’s Hartford Courant makes clear, pay phones are becoming quaint relics. Take a walk through an airport or a train station. Entire banks of pay phones have disappeared at Bradley International Airport, for example, replaced by walking legions of travelers with plastic phones glued to their heads. Some cell phone yappers have dispensed altogether with the extra effort of pulling out the phone with the convenience (some might say ‘decadence’) of walking around all day with a headset.

But if you don’t own a cell phone or can’t afford one and can’t locate a pay phone, what do you do? Bang on someone’s door and beg the occupant to help you? An estimated 43% of Americans do not own a wireless phone. That number has got to be considerably higher in our area, where spotty coverage discourages people from getting one in the first place.

To make matters worse, even those pay phones that do exist are often broken or vandalized. And often it is not worth the phone company’s time to fix them. There is a pay phone smack in the middle of Falls Village (see photo at the beginning of this post) that is in a perpetual state of disrepair. Hikers and passersby in need of a phone often come into Town Hall next door, but that’s only open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Are there any pay phones in Millerton? There used to be one at the intersection of routes 44 and 22 across from Gilmor Glassworks, but it was always in bad shape and was removed a few years ago.

I bring the subject up only because I ran into someone recently who said there is a public interest in keeping pay phones operating even if the phone companies no longer find them worthwhile. Does that mean state or local governments should pay the companies to keep pay phones in a central area, as the town of Salisbury does at the Town Grove? Is the public interest sufficiently compelling?

Wireless Pushes Payphones Aside (09.29.05 Lakeville Journal)

By TERRY D. COWGILL

The scene has surely been repeated over and over again in rural areas like ours. A young couple walks into the Lakeville Patco asking to use the store phone because their cell phones don’t work.

“You’ll have to ask the manager,” barks the busy clerk. Of course, the manager is nowhere to be found on this Sunday evening. So the couple, on foot and eager to make a call, is told they must walk to the Town Grove to find the nearest public phone. That’s because outdoor payphones like the one that used to be at the Patco are increasingly being removed either because they are no longer profitable or because of excessive vandalism.

In more heavily populated areas, the availability of cell phone service is rarely an issue. But in the Northwest Corner service is spotty, so the great disappearing public phone takes on a heightened importance. And at the same time, public officials are worried about those who can’t afford mobile phones, such as the elderly on fixed incomes, but may need to make calls.

Pay phones have been declining in numbers for a variety of reasons, industry experts and users say. Increasing numbers of public phone users avoid putting change into the machines, opting instead to use phone cards. Those cards are often issued by companies other than the one sponsoring the payphone, so the host company gets nothing when a customer uses an SBC payphone and charges it to his MCI phone card, for example.

And public phones, especially those located outdoors, attract vandals and loiterers. One such phone was at the Village Deli Mart in Falls Village.

“It broke shortly after I bought the store,” said Denise Cohn, who has owned the Deli Mart for about four years.

Over the years, SBC (formerly SNET) had paid the Deli Mart owners a small stipend to have the phone in that location. After four or five months into her ownership, Cohn said workmen from SBC removed the payphone from the Deli Mart, citing the high costs of maintaining it in the face of persistent vandalism. She received only one $20 monthly payment before it was taken away.

“But they never took down the sign,” Cohn added. “So people still come in and ask where [the payphone is]. We let them use our phone inside the store.”

SBC, the dominant local phone company in Connecticut and now a leading long distance provider, has in the past used vandalism of pay phones to justify increasing its rates, according to news releases on the company’s Web site.

But cell phone use has taken its toll on the once ubiquitous payphone. Where once there were rows of payphones in Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal, for example, there are now only a few. Images of travelers thumping dimes into machines in wooden booths have been replaced by garrulous gadabouts glued to their wireless phones.

“Cell phone use is definitely a factor in the availability of public phones,” said SBC spokesman Seth Bloom.

For competitive reasons, Bloom said he would not disclose precise numbers of payphones over the years in Connecticut, but he acknowledged they are decreasing. For obvious reasons, SBC and other companies like to locate payphones in high traffic areas. When revenue from the machines is no longer high enough to justify their existence, either for lack of use or vandalism, they are removed, he said.

In cases where there is insufficient use to justify maintenance of the payphone, the tenant can pay to have the phone there. One example is the Salisbury Town Grove, where teenagers and others need to call home for rides or other assistance. The town of Salisbury pays $48 per month for that public phone, according to town controller Joe Cleaveland.

Some large companies, such as BellSouth, are reportedly trying to get out of the payphone business altogether. But Bloom said he thought it was unlikely SBC would do that.

“I personally do not forsee the day when payphones will disappear,” Bloom said.

Aside from Housatonic Valley Regional High School, where there are several inside the building and unavailable to the general public, the only remaining payphones in Falls Village are downtown near Town Hall and at the Mountainside Cafe.

One phenomenon saving some local public phones from disappearance is when they are near popular hiking trails. The Mountainside on Route 7 is one such location, according to Tom Carney, who manages the cafe.

Hikers from the nearby Apallachian Trail use the phone often, so much so that the phones outside the cafe become disabled when filled with too many quarters. There are also cabins for rent behind the Mountainside. Since those units have no phones, renters use the payphones at the cafe.

About one in six payphone users come inside the cafe to buy something, so it is a happy marriage between phone and business. And besides, Carney hasn’t noticed any problem with vandalism or loitering.

Some have questioned whether the disappearance of the public phones may be a blessing in disguise since they are breeding grounds for germs. But Dr. Peter Gott, a Lakeville physician and syndicated medical columnist, said public phones pose no particular health concerns that he is aware of.

“Anytime you handle money, you’re going to have germs,” Gott said.

As for the unsavory odors that typically attach themselves to payphones, Gott said they could be from food residue, perspiration or even ear wax, but not necessarily infectious bacteria.

“I don’t think the germs are a factor any more than they are in any other public place,” Gott added.

Aside from the Town Grove, the only other outdoor payphones in Salisbury are next to J. Stack (formerly the Village Store). Owner Frank Fee said the two phones have been there at least 15 years.

“They get a lot of use,” said Fee. “Especially the hikers and the truckers.”

In addition, those who have cabins on Mt. Riga, where there are no utilities, often come down to use the phones. Fee said loitering is only an occasional problem, but the biggest issue for him is the refuse the users leave behind.

“They attract a lot of garbage for some reason,” Fee added. “There always seem to be bottles and cigarette packs.”

Asked who cleans it up, Fee replied, “Well, I go out there and do it myself.”