Girl injured when Green Line door shuts on her arm in Allston

So much for Baker's pennypinching lemmings fiscal "control" board attempting to maximize non-fare revenue.

Cool story, bro.

designed to automatically re-open like elevator doors. At best, provided sufficient force is applied AND the operator doesn't still have his finger on the "CLOSE" button, they are supposed to reopen or at least stop in a partially closed position (this was the standard default operation for subway and streetcar doors since the Independent Subway was opened in New York City). However, the usual mode is that they will continue to attempt to close - as I've witnessed on countless occasions. When the doors fail to completely or properly close, the door interlock will not release. This is the safety mechanism that prevents the operator from moving the train with an open door.

What most people perceive as the doors automatically re-opening is actually the operator manually recycling the doors to clear the door interlocks. Note that a common failure mode on Green Line streetcars is for the door interlocks to not disengage even though the doors are completely closed.

In this case, whether the door was properly operating or not is largely irrelevant. As this was a surface stop, the girl and her mother should have been leaving the train through the door directly opposite the operator's position (i.e. in plain sight of the operator). If the operator disregarded the rules and opened all the doors, that's still on the operator to properly check before closing the doors.

Historical note - The original plug doors on the Boeing LRVs - the ones that had 800 moving parts per pair of doors - were indeed designed, like elevator doors, to completely reopen if they detected an obstruction when closing, without any force or action required by a person. Problem was that, most of the time, they would immediately close again once they opened. Sometimes, they would cycle through multiple openings and closings, even when the obstruction was removed, before finally closing for good - always thought there was the makings of a Monty Python-style humor skit in that.

Her injuries were documented.

The doors have never closed on me, but I knew a woman who got caught in closing doors while she was pregnant, and she miscarried. Maybe she had other health issues, maybe it was just a freak accident, but it was tragic all the same.