An arresting image in Newton

Lets file a complaint against a guy who is just telling you what the policy is. How about file a complaint against the person who made the policy?

Moscow, London, Tokyo subway attacks were all preceeded by photo and physical surveillance. Almost every terrorist of which I am aware has been preceeded by such surveillance, and in many cases, actual dry runs. There was also substantial suveillance of the WTC before the 1993 bombing. It is this well-known history of terrorists conducting dry runs (and in the case of the plot of the late 90s plot to blow up 12 airliners over the Pacific, not-so-dry runs, where "test" bombs killed several people) that makes security people nervous about this kind of stuff.

That said, Newton Centre (which, strangely, appears to have be re-named Newton "Center" on some of the T's signs) is not the most likely location for an attack, as transit attacks generally target subway stations for obvious reasons.

There is, however, one thing about Newton Center and several other surface stations in the area that would cause me a little concern if I were the T's security chief. The area has a well-known high concentration of Jewish folks. It is not a coincidence that most of the attacks in public portions of airports over the years (LAX 2002, Vienna and Rome in 1985) have been directed at persons waiting in line at El Al ticket counters (many people were killed by assault rifles and/or grenades in those attacks). People who are perceived (correctly or not) to be friendly to Israel, and particularly its government, are targets for certain kinds of terrorists. I think an attack at a place like the Newton Center T stop is a low probability event, but it's probably higher than the probability of a terrorist attack taking place at the Pride's Crossing commuter rail stop (is that even still open?).

The distance that any significant light from a flash travels, is about 30 feet. The train is hundreds of feet away.

I suppose there is some risk that the driver would steer the train off the tracks. No, wait. that's not right.

Oh, someone's corrected this. No flash was used. Never mind.

you can look at the metadata page from the picture, which reads that the flash was "Off, Did not fire".

no flash was used.

The incident was over a folding bicycle. Yes, you read that right: a grand total of 10-12 riders were subject to an argument between a female bus driver who said that if bikes were not allowed on the express bus, even if it was a folding bike.

One passenger (not me) deigned to say, "but there's plenty of room on the bus." She shouted, "THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE ROOM ON THE BUS," and with that assertation that she was not going to give way I finally left the bus. And according to T rules, you can bring a folding bike on any bus as long as it's compacted enough.

The other bus driver (don't remember the bus number) not only let on the folding bike guy, but I said to the driver, tongue in cheek, that the only things I possessed were myself and this bag, and I had no interest in bringing a bike on the bus. He was an old school T driver, so he just laughed and let us both on. And, as a final zinger, the folding bike guy took a picture of the rear of the offending bus before it took off.

To be fair, though, here is where the driver of #0470 is somewhat correct - if you were on the Route 501 bus from Brighton to Downtown, which is almost always crowded, even a folding bike would cause a little bit of a problem. Also, the buses used on the Express Routes don't have bike racks, which makes sense if you're hurtling down the Pike at 60mph and your bike gets smashed to bits when it hits a car or another bus.

If it's two or three people reverse commuting to Watertown or Brighton, I don't think it's a big deal at all, but this driver was wrong - she should review the bike policy instead of shouting down other passengers in a display of power. No, you drive a bus - the only power is from the foot to the pedal, not your mouth.