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Some people a little too eager for the start of the Marathon
By adamg on Mon, 04/15/2024 - 9:39am
A roving UHub photographer reports from Beacon Street at Kent Street in Brookline, where the Green Line stop was supposed to remain open until 10 a.m., but which was closed at 8:40 a.m.
There was no access through the fence. While I waited, a woman was trying to take her kid to daycare and was only able to get through because an employee from the fence company was still around and unlocked the fence for her. Five people who had gotten off the outbound train followed her, saying they were trying to get to work. Kent St is one of the stations workers at the Longwood Medical Area use, and several of them had badges from the hospitals. When I pointed out to the fence guy that according to the MBTA this station is open until 10 AM and people (including me) need to get to work, he responded "You should have planned better." I asked him if people would be allowed to unlatch the fence to cross before 10 and was told they would not be. I checked the MBTA website last night and this morning, and there is nothing about above ground stations only being accessible from one side. The fence company workers said they were just doing their job and the Marathon volunteers said there was nobody from the Marathon organization I could email about this.
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Comments
How much is this marathon worth to Boston?
Is it costing us more in inconvenience than it benefits us?
Yeah we should probably just
Yeah we should probably just cancel the whole thing instead of trying to make improvements, right?
Right on!
Let’s just cancel everything. Marathon. Head of the Charles. First Night. Red Sox. Bruins. Celtics….so we can be convenient.
Big $$
The Marathon brings in tons of money to the state and to Boston from tourists across the US and the world and from suburbanites. That's solid revenue (from excise taxes, fees, and income) from hotels, rental cars, airline tickets, restaurants, and souvenirs.
Also, the marathon has been a great opportunity to raise money for charity.
On The Upside
This demonstrates in miniature the absolute hell of security kabuki which would have turned the city upside down in August if those darn 10 People On Twitter hadn’t help shank the Olympics.
We need a night at Fenway with no Sweet Caroline and the other crap and we need a good late 70’s early marathon. No fencing, no VIPs, just run and people cheering.
It’s not that hard to do.
"We need a night at Fenway
"We need a night at Fenway with no Sweet Caroline and the other crap and we need a good late 70’s early marathon. No fencing, no VIPs, just run and people cheering."
You have hit the nail on the head. But it has passed the point of no return. There were certain local events, which were once just that, LOCAL. And manageable. Such as the Marathon, July 4 concert, First Night, and, of all things, the St. Patrick's Day Parade, which have now become unwieldly, international events with tourists and blow-ins from all over that somehow feel they have a stake in this. And these people seem to base their entire year around said events. Sociologically, it could be observed that, with the decline of religion (and I take no stand on that either way), or even for other reasons, it is a need for ritual. And yes, ritual can take the form of staggering around and puking on somebody's lawn in South Boston on St. Patrick's Day.
Ah, nostalgia!!
“ We need a night at Fenway with no Sweet Caroline and the other crap and we need a good late 70’s early marathon. No fencing, no VIPs, just run and people cheering.
It’s not that hard to do.”
Lovely thoughts.
Looking forward now to seeing the results of your hard work and efforts to bring it all back.
Alas, those carefree days are
Alas, those carefree days are gone, never to return.
How the Olympics would have "worked"
We all know how all the "we'll fix the T because Olympics" would have worked out. Fish and friends would have pissed around, made excuses, underfunded everything, then fucked over everyone in the Boston area over by taking all the buses and commandeering all the trains for the duration of the event while having Shirley "Antoinette" Leung in the Glob telling people to just burn weeks of vacation that they don't have.
Just like they did during the DNC Shitshow in 2004.
The random and capricious station closings and road closures post 9/11 were why I used to bike to work in the medical area on marathon day in particular. The people on the ground just make shit up and don't read the official announcements, but I can always walk the bike on a sidewalk around a corner and try a different route.
I didn't know
I had no idea that the Red Sox now play every night of the year at Fenway.
Hey MBTA!!
The “schedules are subject to change” defense isn’t going to fly here.
Of course it will. What are
Of course it will. What are they going to do, hold someone accountable?
I’m holding you responsible.
For not noticing my transportation related pun.
A few weeks ago
I was entering Copley Station around 12:15 a.m. The T runs until just before 1 a.m. An employee, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, was closing the gate. When I asked him if they were closing up, he said yeah you better hurry up, with some attitude. As I walked down the stairs I called back “you’re supposed to be open till 1!”
How's that even possible?
How's that even possible? Even if they locked people out who were trying to board, what would happen to the 45 minutes of people getting OFF the train?
They never returned
and their fate is still unlearned.
Who's in charge of setting up
Who's in charge of setting up those fences? They don't look like police barriers and post mentions a "fence company." The BAA must get permission to put the fences up from the towns they go through, so either the town gave the BAA permission to fence off the station with no notice, the BAA didn't properly instruct their fence contractor, or the fence contractor ignored their instructions.
I'm a lifelong Bostonian so of course I understand that the Marathon is disruptive, but a private entity should not be allowed to block off public services without warning.
Seriously. Consider the
Seriously. Consider the popular trope about "You can get anywhere and do anything without raising suspicion if you're wearing a high-viz vest" and now apply that to the security that is supposed to exist around the Marathon.
Power Analysis
Everyone will pass the buck.
Nobody is going to pay attention to a single complaint.
Here's how you escalate this to get action: get your medical area employer to write that letter to the MBTA, BAA, etc. and complain about how their frontline workers were treated like crap and lied to, etc.
They won't pay attention to individual complaints. They will pay attention if big employers get into the game and start asking questions.
Missed it by that much...
Glad I went through there at about 8:30 this morning and got off the train at St. Mary's. At that point there were still people there who moved the fence for me.
A similar complaint in Brighton
Somebody filed a 311 complaint: