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Now why's the Red Line so lame? Window-kicking teens are to blame

By adamg on Fri, 07/12/2019 - 5:53pm
Passengers ordered off Red Line train at Park Street

Stove reported at 5:47 p.m.:

Apparently Red Line to Alewife just got taken out of service because teenagers were kicking out the windows, everyone offloaded.

Gail Waterhouse adds:

The cherry on top of a hellish #mbta week on the #redline is getting on the train at Park only to be told they’re taking the whole train out of service due to teenagers kicking out train windows. Great start to the weekend!

The MBTA is now reporting delays of up to 15 minutes due to having to take the vandalized train out of service.

Neighborhoods: 
Downtown
Topics: 
Crime
The T
Free tagging: 
Red Line
Park Street


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Comments

By anon on Fri, 07/12/2019 - 7:20pm.

Kicking out train windows by teens has been going on the past few years. Transit cops have arrested several individuals but the charges were reduced and the youths were offer mediation and the vandalism goes on.

By Adam Pieniazek on Fri, 07/12/2019 - 7:21pm.

Are we sure they weren't doing their civic duty by getting air flow into an AC-less train? I've told the MBTA I'll be taking a door off its' hinges at Shawmut as the stairwell for that door is stank as hell and needs fresh air. Plus, everyone bashes the door open so the door might as well be removed. I consider it civic duty and an improvement, not vandalism.

By anon on Sat, 07/13/2019 - 7:06am.

You’re talking about the emergency exit stairwell? The one you’re not really supposed to be using? The air quality isn’t to your liking? Wow. I think the T has their hands full without you

By Adam Pieniazek on Mon, 07/15/2019 - 8:52pm.

The one everyone uses? The stairwell even the train conductors give hints about when someone doesn't push hard enough?

Yeah, we're not supposed to use it. And trains aren't supposed to derail. The T could & should adapt, but alas same shit, different day.

By anon on Sun, 07/14/2019 - 1:12pm.

Even if someone thought they were helping, they weren't. The train got taken out of service, and everyone got to sit on a hot platform even longer.

But they didn't think they were helping. They were smashing things up to cause trouble.

By Tom on Fri, 07/12/2019 - 7:32pm.

They should be arrested for destruction of property.

Plus they caused a headache for the rest of us.

Make an example of them so this does not happen again.

By craftperson on Fri, 07/12/2019 - 9:02pm.

Great new summer fad for JDs. Hooray.

By anon on Fri, 07/12/2019 - 11:17pm.

Crowded train. Crowded platform. Nobody saw/did anything?

As for "teens" my money is on "twenty something drunks from the 'burbs".

By adamg on Sat, 07/13/2019 - 6:28pm.

There's a center platform, so doors open on both sides, and the window was kicked out on the side opposite from the one the people in the photo of the top are on.

By Anon on Tue, 07/16/2019 - 9:39am.

It was 15 teenagers doing a fight club (they were on when I boarded at Fields Corner). They would square up in the middle of the car and throw punches at each other until one retreated all the way to the end of the car (like a more violent reverse tug-of-war).

I got off at Downtown Crossing, so I missed the climax of their out of control behavior; but given the circumstances of how out of control these kids were and how many of them there were, tough to see how one can blame the bystanders for not intervening. I certainly felt like if I had said something to them that I would have just ended up as the new target for the punches they were throwing.

By anon on Sat, 07/13/2019 - 11:00am.

Why does the entire train need to be taken out of service? Assuming one car was damaged, they close off the one car and still use the others. They could also have taped off the specific area with busted windows.

Hell, in a lot of countries the trains run with the doors totally open. They make it work.

By anon on Sun, 07/14/2019 - 1:11pm.

Not safe. What if someone climbed in the open window at a stop?

Some less lawsuit-happy countries where everything's less formal run mainline trains with doors open, but not subways.

By anon on Sat, 07/13/2019 - 8:07pm.

Significant delays Red Line due to vandalized north bound train taken out of service at Charles/MGH.