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The aftermath of the Orange Line electrocution
By adamg on Sat, 08/25/2007 - 10:18pm
CS was on an Orange Line train close enough to that electrocuted guy to smell his burned flesh as the current to the train shorted out. Just as bad was the awful way passengers had to get off the train - after 45 minutes of just sitting there, they were led down the tracks to a Bunker Hill Community College parking lot::
... An hour later, ONE bus (for a six car Orange line train) and an MBTA inspector shows up. They are yelling and being absolutely rude to the passengers who have been inconvienced in the most outrageous way. After being yelled at by the wonderful and courteous people at the MBTA, we are taking to Haymarket to wait for a train for 30 minuites and were able to go on our way. And passengers had to pay AGAIN to get in the system... World class city right? ...
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Comments
It's agreed that the MBTA staff handled it wrong.
The MBTA staff really didn't handle this horrendous situation very well. They should've kept people abreast of what was going on, and that the driver(s) should've been more courteous to the passengers who were evacuated.
'world class city'
I don't consider the MBTA a worthy representative of the city of Boston. The T is horrendous. Furthermore, I have yet to find an acutal Boston resident that claims that Boston is a 'world class city'... where is this coming from?
Mayuh White
I believe the term was used by a former mayor, Kevin White, when he bulldozed the West End. Somehow, the brick desert and Disfunctional City Hall were supposed to make Boston a "World Class City", despite any number of basic functional issues and entrenched and hobbling customs that are all coming to a head now.
That said, a dysfunctional transit system is very bad for any city of the size and purported stature of Boston. It is certainly a large brown stain if it isn't representative of the larger whole. I would contend that it is part and parcel of a vastly problematic lack of attention to infrastructure in the Northeast as a whole, as well as outdated funding mechanisms which politicians refuse to face or even recognize.
Not Mayor White
White may have had his issues, but he didn't bulldoze the West End - he was actually a pretty strong neighborhood advocate (Little City Halls and all) - at least until Prop. 2 1/2 came in and he seemed to prioritize city services based on which neighborhoods voted for him (so Allston/Brighton got screwed - the city shut the police station and stopped doing much plowing after snowstorms).
You're thinking of Scollay Square, which wasn't really a neighborhood so much as a forerunner of the Combat Zone. And in any case, it was White's predecessor, John Collins, who tore the place down (and who now sternly gazes down from the side of City Hall upon the masses wondering if we're at war with Oceania today).
As for "world class," it's basically a phrase used strictly by politicians trying to convince the massess to support whatever multi-zillion project they're pushing (So Boston wouldn't be a world-class city without a new convention center or South Boston stadium or an 80-story skyscraper or whatever). Bill Weld tried making Boston into "the capital of the Atlantic Rim," which didn't seem to work, either.