Everyone loves to blame the T.
And they have a good reason.
I used to be one of the few people who ride the T and not complain too much about it. If it got me from point A to point B, it was a success. Yes, I was bummed when they took away the free fair for outbound travel above ground, and I gritted my teeth when they increased the fare.
But yesterday, I became a foe of the T.
I was heading to the JFK/UMASS red line stop, one of my classes was going to be at the Boston Globe. I was pleasantly surprised when a T rolled right up to BU East right as I left my classroom at 1:50pm. I had an hour to get to the Globe and an estimated 45 minute T ride ahead of me, so we were off to a good start.
Until we hit Arlington. I have no idea if something ran or dropped into the tracks, but at around 2:00pm the brakes slammed and everyone on that Green Line T was thrown from their seats. Then, the driver pulled up normally to Arlington as if nothing had happened. The people boarding the T didn’t see anything happen.
Who knows, maybe they had to stop for one of those huge rats that wander the T tunnels.
So the rest of the ride to Park Street was uneventful. I walked down to the sub-subterranean Red Line platform where I was (again) pleasantly surprised that a T was pulling in (it seemed like it was my lucky day).
Everything was fine.
Then, right before South Station, everyone started looking up from their books, newspapers and Ipods, and sniffed the air.
Our car was full of smoke.
It just seemed to appear.
“Is it smoky in here,” a 20-something year old woman said.
Oh yes, it was smoky in there. You couldn’t see the car behind us. We were sitting in the front car, right behind the driver.
A woman, who looked like she was in her mid-30s held up her Bible and started proclaiming that it was the Holy Ghost that was going to come and smite us T riders for being greedy people. Another guy stood up and told her to be quite, and that there was a fire somewhere.
I felt like I was in a movie. And all I really wanted to do was get to class on time.
The T driver I guess, either was unaware of the problem (not likely, we were the last Red Line to run for awhile), or truly thought that the way to get smoke out of a T car was to leave the doors open for 5 minutes at a time.
Let’s just say it didn’t really work.
The most frightening part wasn’t actually the smoke filling up the train (although that was terrifying). It was the ladies sitting next to me, sans headphones, with their heads buried in their Nora Roberts books. Ignoring the rest of us, who were trying to figure out why smoke was filling up the T car.
Is that what riding the T means now? That we now have to put up with smoke filling up our cars and drivers who break on a whim?
That’s what was truly frightening. Those ladies didn’t look up once. If they smelled the smoke, their faces didn’t show it. They should complete disregard for it, as if the smoke was an obnoxious BC student on their way to an Allston party.
If the MBTA really wants to raise fairs, they better start getting serious about these safety hazards. Those women must have either had smoke fill their cabin more than once in order for them not to flinch. That is just unacceptable.
I will not pay more than my $1.75 T fare, until those women start flinching at the sign of smoke on the T.
