Apparently, if you are not quite spry enough, the new CharlieGates can close right on you - and they will hurt:

... Why isn't there a sensor on these, like elevator doors, so they don't close on a body. I was one step behind the guy exiting in front of me; and I've never seen these new gates close THAT fast behind someone exiting. ...

Because the T apparently failed to consider what riders would do with used-up CharlieTickets, stations that do support them now look like your basic convenience-store after everybody's realized they didn't win the Powerball - the damn things are scattered everywhere. Mac Daniel admonishes riders to stop being such slobs, while also getting an acknowledgment from a T flack that CharlieTrashcans are still two to three weeks away.

When Josh Ourisman was getting ready to move from San Francisco to Cambridge, he puzzled over all the complaints on Boston-area blogs about the MBTA - which seemed a far more convenient system than his BART.

Thanks to the T's current dual token/CharlieCard system, he's puzzled no more:

Yes, those CharlieTickets can be so annoying. Thankfully, at least for today, the T left a nice open gate at NEMC for anybody who didn't want to bother going through that whole buy-a-ticket thing - which I discovered when I saw somebody taking advantage of it.

BadTransit describes just how easy it is for a group of people to beat the fare at a card-machine station:

... Noticing there was no T employee anywhere to be seen, one of them bought a ticket from the vending machine, put it in, and entered. He turned around, waved his hand in front of the sensor as if to exit, and the doors opened and the the other 4 or 5 walked in. He laughed saying he probably could have just reached around the plastic door, waved his hand over the sensor, and opened it without paying anything. ...

BadTransit reports on coming upon the source of loud banging at the Aquarium stop:

... A gleaming aluminum-finished bank of the MBTA's "Automated fare collection" equipment and an MBTA worker - one of the T's "Ambassadors" - who was, in John Bolton style, kicking the living s--- out of the equipment. ...

Mike Mennonno offers up a behind-the-scenes look at the T fare-hike rally he organized in Copley Square on Tuesday. Word of advice to punk socialists and Deval Patrick groupies: Stay far away from him:

[The Patrick groupies] were as disgusting in their way as the impotent designer socialists. A bunch of Barbie and Ken dolls with super-sized campaign signs who just showed up in a clump and didn't mix with the rabble, either. ...

4 p.m. on the Dartmouth side of Copley Square - followed by a procession to the MBTA hearing in the BPL.

T Justice's petition will be presented to state Senate President Robert Travaglini, since the legislature could help alleviate the problem by changing the finance laws under which the T operates.

This is in contrast to MassPIRG's online petition, which is aimed at the MBTA's board of directors.

Part of the reason for next year's planned fare hikes is the legislation under which the T operates. Mike Mennonno attends one of those MBTA fare-increase "workshops" and learns from a member of the MBTA Riders Oversight Committee that the T isn't legally allowed to ask for legislative changes. So it's up to riders to lobby. He also provides an update on plans for protests on June 6.