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Man arrested for taking photos inside Callahan Tunnel - while walking to East Boston
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It Should Be A Public Walkway Open To Everyone
Walking through the Callahan
Walking through the Callahan tunnel, don't they have some type of monitering devices in these Tunnels, Were The Massachusetts State Troopers sleeping on the job, wow, talk abound lax in security, alarming!!
Uhh, did you miss the part of
Uhh, did you miss the part of the story which mentions that the state police nabbed him after he went by the "No Pedestrians" sign? It's not like there was a state-wide manhunt 2 days later.
Public walkway?
You really want to breathe the fumes in there?
It's just Elmer being Elmer
He's just being a silly twit.
If You Say So — But I'm Actually 100% Serious
A lot of people would love the option to walk to East Boston when the Ⓣ breaks down or isn't running. The tunnels provide protection from the elements and the route is miles shorter than other pedestrian alternatives.
Ideally, one motor vehicle lane could be eliminated to make a wider walkway and dedicated bike lanes, but just making the existing walkway easier to use would be benefit many people.
The Callahan
has a merge from 93 south and the tunnel across from Haymarket at the start, and splits off at the end, left to continue on 1A north and right to get into Eastie. Having just 1 lane at both ends would make this a nightmare. The lanes are also pretty narrow in there, so I don't quite know where you're getting the space to widen anything. Not something you can "just" modify.
My apologies for not taking you seriously
First, I apologize for not taking you seriously -- I thought you were simply doing your usual. I'm not opposed to the idea of a pedestrian tunnel, but 1)the air quality in that tunnel would make it completely impractical and 2)once they get across the tunnel (which is about a mile, right?) they've still got plenty of marching to go, in the elements, with no T running. Anyway they'd never make it, they'd be dead of carbon monoxide poisoning before they got halfway there.
New Amusement Ride?
I believe there is plenum above the vehicle lanes where the exhaust pulling fumes out of the tunnel runs about 60 mph (give or take). Install some rails, buy some little carts to ride the rails, build enclosures for protection, oxygen tanks on the back. Hold races to see which cart gets to the other end first. Fun during a pedestrian commute! Using the wind as your motor.
The Ventilation System Can Handle A Tunnel Full Of Vehicles
Fortunately, that never happens because the ventilation system is constantly pulling in fresh air to even the deepest parts of the tunnels. Late at night when there's very little traffic the air quality would be even better.
No one is going to die of
No one is going to die of Carbon Monoxide poisoning walking through the tunnel...hello? They have exhaust fans all throughout the tunnel. What if there was an accident and people were stuck in the tunnel for say 30mins to an hour? They all die from carbon monoxide? Ha! Do some research before spewing idiotic statements.
Isn't that why we have
Isn't that why we have enormous vent buildings?
No, but
last winter after waiting 20+ minutes for a train to arrive to go from State Street to Maverick I would have gladly taken a brisk walk through the tunnel to get to the other side of the harbor.
That's one thing that completely blows about living in Eastie--if the T goes down, you can't just walk home unless you add a few extra miles to go through Charlestown and Chelsea.
The Tunnel Has A Huge Ventilation System
Exhaust fumes are much stronger at bus/train stations, or near busy highways.
Everyone knows you can always get a cab to take you
to Eastie during the wee hours!
That's Only True For People Who Can Afford It
Ummm
That wasn't quite the point being made. See Steeve's comment below.
hilarious
This is how it goes:
"Where are you heading?"
"Easti..." *speeds off*
Geez
Just vet the kid and send him home. So silly.
This grown man is a guest in our country
One would like to think that a man who is a medical student at one of the greatest hospitals in the world would have some kind of intelligence. Yet here we have a man from a predominantly muslim country, a guest here, doing something illegal. In order to do the very thing he was doing, he had to pass signs that indicate it is not permitted. He was doing so on public infrastructure that could easily be considered a terrorist target.
Maybe in just a little jaded in life, but this doesn't pass the bullshit smell test.
So either this guy is a complete moron who should never be allowed near a patient, or there is something more sinister going on.
No Blue Line service on Sunday at 5 am
So if you don't want to wait until service starts after 6, walking may look like a good alternative.
You're missing my point
You are muslim (I presume)
You are an immigrant
Its less than a week since a major terrorist attack in which muslims attacked Europeans.
The country is on edge.
Security is beefed up at airports and public infrastructure.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out it is probably not a good time to do something illegal like walking thru a tunnel while taking pictures at 5am in the morning
Funny. I don't remember white
Funny. I don't remember white men having to be on their absolute best behavior right after one of their own shot up a school.
For chrissake
So because a handful of Syrian assholes bombed a place thousands of miles away, everyone who can vaguely be described as "Muslim" (which is to say, anyone who you can't instantly pigeonhole as white, black, or southeast Asian) needs to be on their best behavior? How long are they required to wear their Sunday best when out for a stroll, pray tell? Will there be an official announcement when they can get back to business as usual? Or are we just adopting an open double standard indefinitely?
If you're a med school student, you're hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and working insanely long hours. If you want to get somewhere before the subway starts running, you're not going to take a cab you're going to walk there. If you're a white guy and the cops spot you walking through the tunnel, you get a stern talking to. If you're Bangladeshi, you apparently get arrested, ankle-monitored, and investigated by the FBI for suspicion of terrorism, because you were... taking pictures of a bridge? Seriously? Even in the official police report, they couldn't come up with something more creative to accuse him of?
Also, since we're apparently resorting immediately to ad hom attacks against this man, I will hereby wager any sum of money that you like that he's a hell of a lot smarter than you are, what with having been accepted to the most prestigious medical school in the world and all. But don't let that slow down the Trump brigade.
The Smell Test
Yes, it was weird. It isn't very hard to look into his bio and clear him.
Is it that hard to understand that a med student from a place where the culture is completely different from ours might have made an error in determining where he could go or not go?
He was a tourist who walked into the tunnel with a camera.
He had an explanation as to why he was in there.
He is a med student. If there's nothing else nefarious going on, stick him on a plane and wave bye bye.
Paranoia aside. Get serious.
One problem I have with your
One problem I have with your logic is that one does not simply mistakenly walk into the Callahan Tunnel.
First, you have to walk past this: https://goo.gl/maps/58FrGNZFbBz
And then when you get to the bottom of that sidewalk-less ramp, you encounter this: https://goo.gl/maps/FPUEEtYLyV12
There is no sidewalk, no shoulder, nothing. He had to walk in the travel lanes, at least long enough to cross 2 lanes and climb up onto the narrow, 2-ft wide railing-less walkway. It's a miracle he didn't get hit, and I don't see how anyone could possibly think that was somewhere intended for people to walk.
Does any of this look like somewhere inviting to walk? https://goo.gl/maps/MoQwxHu6VpT2
You think a white person
You think a white person would not be arrested for walking in the Callahan? You're delusional.
Yet here we have a man from a
And I hope thinking like this turns up in evidence in his arrest. Then when he sues the city for millions of dollars maybe nitwits like you will learn a lesson. (Probably not. But at least things like that typically lead to a reduction in profiling by the government.)
How Those Rose Colored Glasses Fitting?
You are letting your lunacy get in the way of logic.
Pedestrians are not allowed in the Harbor Tunnels. That's it. It is a crime to walk in the tunnels.
You do also realize that if our friend here sued, he would sue the Commonwealth not the City.
It is disturbing to know that your sympathy based on skin color of the person overrides the illegal behavior of the person.
Sir/Madam:
Police, intelligence services, marketers, politicians and political groups/parties, those involved with online (or offline) dating services, etc., etc., profile. I'm a white male in my mid 30s....I am profiled every day, judged by my appearance, clothes I'm wearing, my accent, body language...the list is endless, and you better believe I've been negatively 'profiled' because I dress casually and often carry a backpack to and from work, have facial hair. Many people in downtown Boston/Cambridge think these things alone mean I'm homeless. This past Tuesday I had a train operator at Reservoir greenline station ask me if I was going to get on the crowded train (I was standing way back from it), I waved and said no...she then said something about what I was drinking (a can of Lipton Ice Tea) and said drinking alcohol on MBTA property was illegal. She said it looked like I was hiding the can! I told her it was iced tea, flashed my work ID at her, and called her a smart ass. I am clean, groom trim my facial hair every day, clean black khaki pants, casual shirt, and an expensive Columbia jacket, and backpack. Unfortunately, there are A LOT of assholes in this world and just going about your business, minding your own business, is getting more and more difficult. No wonder there are so many angry people and so much tension.
So you're not homeless then?
So you're not homeless then?
He was doing so on public
You're right. Those images would be so vital in a plan to destroy the tunnel. I can't imagine anyone loading a car with explosives and driving into it without those photos. Hopefully Google gets its shit together and deletes all the images of every bridge and tunnel it has on street view so as to not aid terrorist activity.
No one needs to blow up the
No one needs to blow up the tunnel...it falls apart on its own.
not necessarily suspicious
Speaking as a photographer, with a camera in hand you are often compelled to look at and wander through places that normal people find uninteresting - thus they often default to interpreting it as some form of malice. Unfortunately the general public has become extremely suspicious of photography over the last decade or so. I was once threatened with arrest/removal for shooting video out of the window of an Amtrak to the beach. I also had an uppity lady question why I was taking photographs across the street from my local polling center at the most recent primary voting day. Both activities were perfectly legal.
And in any event, is there any actual record of terrorists conducting photo intel of this sort?
Yes it's happened before
At Logan
http://nypost.com/2014/10/05/airport-security-ignored-pre-911-warnings-o...
Guess I'll be taking the TWT from here on out.
I agree with BullDetector, this definitely doesn't smell right. The T would be starting up around the time he was starting out for Eastie. If he were a structural engineer it would be plausible. Taking pictures of a monument is quite a bit different from this. Could he possibly have thought that the "No Trespassing" rule didn't apply to him?
People take pictures of
People take pictures of everything nowadays. Cameras are ubiquitous and people using them for utterly banal or even pointless photos is, too. Today's featured photo on UHub is of a guy's shoeless feet on a dirty subway car.
I think I have three cameras in my daily carry items and that's not even intentional. (Two in the cellphone, one in the laptop, and sometimes four when I have my standalone hiking GPS with me.)
People Also Take Lots Of Videos Of Bridges And Tunnels
At 5 a.m.?
At 5 a.m.?
Yes — The Tunnels Have Lights, And Less Traffic At Those Hours
Oh, thank god
Oh, thank God, one less asshole in the tunnel.
The first outbound Blue Line
The first outbound Blue Line train is at 6:22 am on Sundays.
The most pedestrian-friendly entrance to the tunnel is here: https://goo.gl/maps/3ay8JBDLm692
There is a no pedestrians, bikes, or horses sign. But its placement is kind of ambiguous. I'd assume it applies to the North Street sidewalk, where banning pedestrians would make no sense.
At the other entrance, the sign gets lost in the clutter, but it feels a lot more like a highway where you shouldn't be walking: https://goo.gl/maps/YXMPnjuPBbR2
Be very afraid
Seriously, dude. Are you going to have the State Police stand there and prevent anyone with a high res dash cam from driving through slowly?
Also, what is going to make a bigger threat - a guy with a camera OR a truck full of explosives?
I guess having/being in a car makes you special!
One theory I've always
One theory I've always somewhat bought into: the larger the intelligence, the less room upstairs for common sense.
Two things:
1) This clueless man is a medical student working at a program at Mass General?
2) He seems very pompous, and believes because he's a medical student he should be given special, preferential treatment; maybe that's just a result of the culture he was raised in, I don't know for sure, but it's likely.
pompous?
How so?
I watched him on TV too. His reaction was pretty normal of a guy who wasn't a terrorist being looked at as if he was.
He looked stunned and filled with disbelief at the predicament he got himself into.
No bomb plans? No history of hanging around with questionable Muslims? Maybe just maybe he was a foreign guy walking in a tunnel.
Pay a fine, get on a plane and see ya later.
If
If he was riding a bike hundreds of UHub posters would be vehemently defending him. Poor sap just happened to be walking so he's screwed here.
Hundreds?
You misunderestimate the power of a fully armed and operational UHubway station. Try thousands. Mwa-ha-ha!
LOL
Adam LOLOL
I'm a cyclist. I saw a guy
I'm a cyclist. I saw a guy riding his bike on Fresh Pond Parkway by Alewife and he then proceeded to get onto Rt. 2 westbound. I thought that was the stupidest thing I've seen anyone do all week. Hope he got off at Lanes & Games or at least the next exit.
Just because some things aren't forbidden, doesn't mean they are a good idea.
I'm a cyclist. I did the opposite once.
That is, I got onto eastbound Route 2 at Lake Street and got off at Alewife station. At the time, either the Acorn Park driveway didn't exist, or I didn't know where it went and instead took the route that I was more familiar with.
That's not the biggest deal.
That's not the biggest deal. Until they added a third lane coming out of the traffic light a few months ago, there was a bike-lane-sized shoulder almost the whole way from Alewife to the Lake Street exit. And where there wasn't a shoulder, there was a sidewalk.
Several crimes committed here
Did anyone watch the video on WHDH? There are several, serious crimes here.
First, the guy is awake on Easter Sunday at 5:00AM. Next, his tie is askew and clashes horribly with his shirt. Third, he is a 25 year old medical student. Finally, when he shows the ankle bracelet, he is clearly wearing white socks with black shoes and a suit. Obviously, these are crimes against humanity and a 20 year stint at Gitmo with their nicely trim orange outfits (the new black) would teach him a thing or two. A president Trump would personally waterboard this guy until he admitted his crimes.
All seriousness aside, this is fishy. First, he was trespassing, so his feigned shock at being arrested strikes me as contrived. Second, he compares taking "scenic" pictures in the Callahan tunnel (rhymes with sewer system) with tourists at the Bunker Hill monument - a site of a *military* victory for revolutionaries. Next, he says he is a "Doctor, a political student". Then he deletes all the pictures on his phone. A president Sanders would have someone else waterboard this guy until he admitted his family's income.
Perhaps 20-something Muslims should re-consider taking pictures of infrastructure while on student visas.
Yeesh
I agree he sounds kind of clueless, if not outright arrogant. And he sounds like he understands English well enough to be able to read signs banning pedestrians.
But as somebody who finds infrastructure fascinating - everybody, quick, get to the Waterworks Museum - I can understand why he'd want to take photos. If you mainly take photos of cute little puppies or sunsets on beaches or yourself, it might be hard to grasp, but, yes, there really are people out there who just like seeing and photographing things like subway tracks and even old culverts, not to mention rusting out old factories. I admit that, if I were stupid enough to be wandering around one of the harbor tunnels, I'd probably be taking lots of photos, too. Not because I'm a terrorist, but simply because I like seeing how cities work. I suspect he's similar.
Well put
I take pictures of public spaces and infrastructure all the time, often with a full-frame mirrorless camera (like dSLR, but looks more range-finder-ish). I collect and use old Soviet and German lenses, which can look weird on the camera. In the right light, I can look arabic/semetic. I figure it's only a matter of time before I'm stopped, but I'm aware of my rights as a photographer. That's why I'm going to flaunt those rights. It's absolutely ridiculous to think that somehow having photos of an overpass, subway station, commuter rail train or bridge is going to aid in a terrorist attack, and as another comment pointed out, all these images are viewable in a google search or on google maps already. Enforcement officials harassing photographers is nothing but security theater. It's also nonsensical.
As a Lynn resident ...
I'm sure you remember the guy arrested for taking a photo of an LNG tank.
Judge Judy says...
Depends
I think I'll invest in their stock, if everyone around you is as terrified of remote possibilities as you are!
A guy walking through and taking pictures is a remote threat. Climate change making the tunnel useless is an impending threat - more a "when" than "if" at this point. Dying in a car wreck in the tunnel is a moderate threat.
Have some sense of proportion!
Adam, this is an annoyingly
Adam, this is an annoyingly misleading headline that I expect from WCVB, but thought you were above.
This man was NOT arrested for taking photos. You can take as many photos of the Callahan Tunnel as you want.
This man was arrested for walking down a limited access highway. He was trespassing. THAT is what the arrest was for.
yup.
And we put GPS monitoring devices on everyone we arrest for trespassing.
No, we don't.
No, we don't.
But there is a difference between trespassing in someone's yard and trespassing on a limited access highway.
The trespassing charges are exacerbated by the fact that
1) It was on a vital piece of infrastructure
2) he pleaded ignorance of trespassing
3) he tried to argue his way out of it - "but I'm a medical student!!!!!"
4) AND the fact that he was taking pictures. That's one factor of many, but the act itself is NOT illegal, and NOT what he was arrested for.
left out some exacerbators
5) Was from Bangladesh.
6) Was potentially Muslim.
Points number 2 and 3 apply to anyone who's ever been stopped by a cop.. "Well I didn't know!" "Do you know who I am?" In the age of the selfie and people posting photos of every plate of food to every bowel movement, Point 4 has become silly. Everyone takes pictures of everything. If some Long Island sorority chick from BU in sweats and Uggs decided to stroll up the Tobin one early morning to get some selfies of the LNG terminal, do you really think she'd have a GPS monitoring device put on her? I'm not sure if they'd even arrest her or just escort her down from this piece of critical infrastructure, give her a stern talking to and let her go.
I'm willing to concede that were I a Muslim student from Bangladesh wanting to get a sunrise photo of Boston from Eastie I would think twice about walking through a vehicular Tunnel, taking photos all the while. I would also avoid all white men as they are probably armed and wanting to shoot me in the face with a bazooka because I'm not white. But bad on me because that would be racial profiling wouldn't it?
people are paranoid.
None of this, however,
None of this, however, changes the fact that he was arrested for trespassing, not taking pictures. Meaning the headline is still factually incorrect.
You win...
...you're the pedant.
Adam, if you could change the headline to something like "Man arrested for trespassing and subsequently subjected to invasive monitoring and suspicion of terrorist activities on the basis of his country of origin and assumed religion." We wouldn't want anyone to misunderstand.
People are fucking idiots..
...and then there are some that try walking through the Callahan.
I mean really, until recently there was a greater risk of your car falling through the deck of the Callahan than some sort of terrorist attack in the tunnel. In fact, if you're driving in Boston on a regular basis the odds are far greater that you're going to die in a car accident than in some spectacular, made-for-tv event.
Governor Baker and the State
Governor Baker and the State must be doing something right!! wouldn't you think a tunnel like this should be guarded by the state police at all times of the day.
For our own safety
it should be closed down immediately. The Teddy too. Can never be too safe. Just sayin...
Being in the tourist trade
Here is just a partial list of some of the things I've seen tourists do:
(VERY partial list)
Riding Hubway bikes on the Mass Pike
Swimming in the Harbor next to the Aquarium
Walking behind the bar at Cheers to take pictures
Not holding the bar on the T and taking out ten people when they fall.
Wanting to buy a shirt and taking the one off of the mannequin as if that's where we keep the t-shirts.
Changing baby diapers on the ground at leaving dirty diapers on the counter of a food stall.
Asking where Finooli hall is , Fileeneezi's basement is, Benmore Square, the yellow brick road, Paul Revere's bar, the list goes on FOREVER.
Yeah, I think a guy from Bangladesh might not have known how we do shit here.
What about your toddler?
You're more likely to be shot in the head with your own gun wielded by your own child than you are to be killed by a terrorist. Governor Baker, get on that!
The ter'ists are probably
The ter'ists are probably looking at our infrastructure and saying "why bother?"
John Kerry warned us
I rarely agree with Mr. Kerry but if his recommendations led to the arrest of the foreign trespasser taking pictures in the Callahan Tunnel at 5 AM, here here!
Pedestrians are not supposed
Pedestrians are not supposed to walk in the tunnel. This man, a well-educated adult, ignored posted signs. He's not above the law.
Well now He's on his way to Git-Mo!
HAPPY NOW??
#OrfWivIzzHead