no exit (or: observations on the mbta's handicaps)

Say you were in a wheelchair. You're riding the subway, get off at your stop and see a stick-figure-in-a-wheelchair sign posted by the sliding exit doors. Is your first thought, "This sign clearly means there's no elevator on the other side of these doors, so I should roll right through them so I have to turn around and pay to get back into the station to get to the actual handicapped-accessible exit"?

If not, the MBTA really needs to work on its communication skills.

As the T has moved from turnstiles to the sliding-door model for its entrances/exits, it seems to be making more of an effort to be accessible for the disabled. But not really.

I noticed today while riding the T that these handicapped-accessible doors are being installed at Central and Kendall Square exits that only have stairs. Oops.

It's no surprise, really. I've come to expect handicapped service from the T, certainly not adequate service for the handicapped. But the least the T could do is remove the misleading signage.

new and unfare service!

Now you citizens of Boston, Don't you think it's a scandal that the people have to pay and pay. ... Fight the fare increase! ... Get poor Charlie off the MTA. - from the song "Charlie on the MTA"

Poor Charlie's never getting off the train. Hell, with the MBTA's proposed fare increase, he'd be lucky if he could get on the the train in the first place.

You see, Charlie paid cash for his T ride. And if the T has its way, paying cash means you will pay a premium - 55 cents extra per subway ride and 40 cents extra per local bus ride, to be exact.

Here's the rub: Under the current proposal, if you buy a Charlie Card, the subway will cost $1.70 per ride and the bus will cost $1.25, with free transfers between the two. But if you come bearing cash or a Charlie Ticket, you'll pay $2.25 for the subway and $1.65 for the bus - and you get no free transfers between the two. That's $3.90 if you need to take the bus and the train somewhere - more than double the $1.70 you'd pay with a Charlie Card!

Of course, you won't be able to get a Charlie Card from the new self-serve machines that are being installed in every train station (though theoretically you will be able to refill the cards there). This means unsuspecting, unprepared locals will inevitably pay the higher fare, as will tourists. Granted, tourists already get ripped off with the Visitor's Pass (a seven-day Visitor's pass is $35, more than double the $16.50 it costs for a Weekly Combo Pass). And I'll be honest: I couldn't care less about the tourists.

But given the privacy concerns, why would you want to buy a Charlie Card? Right, you only want it because you don't want to fork over more money to a public transportation system that's more concerned with implementing a crappy new fare collection system rather than improving services people have been asking about for years.

Forget about the fact that everyone wants the trains to run as late as the nightlife. Forget that Roxbury residents wanted train service again - not a 10-years-later, too-little-too-late bus replacement. Forget that most everyone would simply love for the existing services to work well and run relatively on time. No, the T just had to figure out a way to get rid of the tokens that no one had a problem with - and do it in a way to penalize customers who would prefer to use good, old-fashioned cash or retain some bit of anonymity.

Charlie, it might be time to buy a bike. Or start making an RFID blocking wallet to hold that Charlie Card.

T-ed off

Dear MBTA,

Your proven ability to infuriate customers is commendable. From replacing rail service 10 years too late with a big, slow silver bus to providing our children with the lifelong gift of asthma, it's clear that the customers always come first.

So it should have been no surprise the last two times I tried to board at Government Center and Park Street that you no longer saw fit to actually employ fare collectors to work in the booth and provide change for fresh-from-the-ATM $20s (which, by the way, are conveniently not accepted at the token machines in these stations). No, your fare collectors were dutifully positioned at the turnstiles, telling customers, "exact change only." A noble idea, if only it were feasible to expect customers at two major hubs of transportation to have exact change or be willing to sacrifice a $10 bill in exchange for eight tokens (which aren't even legal tender at area bars or half the other T stations).

I guess it would make too much sense to demand exact change only after you install those new CharlieTicket machines, which take $20s and allow you to actually decide the number of rides you get and amount of cash back (or $1 coins, anyway).

But perhaps this is a brilliant plan, this making customers walk to the next station in frustration and disbelief, hoping to find a real fare collector. Because if you start now, there will be less backlash from how much people hate the new fare collection system and resent the fact that their money is being spent not on service improvements but on crappy, unnecessary turnstile replacements.

Here's to those fare increases you announced - I can't wait. Keep up the amazing work!

Sincerely,
Sabine Strohem