How the T REALLY plans to accomplish single person operation on the Orange Line

Forget those highly visible mirrors that are showing up on the station platforms. As I observed this morning during my first Orange Line trip from Oak Grove in a long time, most stations now have large flat screen TV panels mounted on the wall adjacent to the end of the platform. These panels, which are not visible if you're on the platform unless you know where to look, show a four-split view of the platform from cameras.

Once again, for the sake of eliminating personnel becuase they claim they're so broke (never mind the money they spend on "necessary" environmental reports and workshops and public meetings, not to mention totally gutting perfectly functional subway stations like Kenmore), the T is WASTING money on yet more USELESS high tech gear that does NOTHING TO MAKE THE TRAINS AND BUSES RUN FASTER OR MAINTAIN SCHEDULE BETTER and will eventually break or be vandalized. But that's apparently the T's mantra -millions for high tech junk that looks pretty, but pennies for maintaing staff that actually do work.

And if you disagree, ask yourself this question: How much has the T's debt burden been increased by introducing this additional equipment, and how long will it take for the supposed cost savings from eliminating some train operators will offset the cost of the fancy new stuff. Of course, the lawsuit from one dragged person (which I hope will never happen) will turn these calculations to mush anyway, but that's another issue for a different day.

Hopefully they don't have a serious incident that requires a train evacuation, which no amount of elctronic gear can help with.