Updated: Mass Transit Advocate Encourages Development of Green Line Extension

Posted April 18, 2016 10:39 PM ET; Last Updated May 10, 2016 8:57 PM ET



Welcome to the Big Green Dig. Original Big Dig, original estimate, $2 billion. Latest cost $14 billion. Original Big Green Dig estimate, $2 billion. Don't kill the job. 

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/news/20160509/glx-gets-crucial-go-ahead-vote-but-with-strict-conditions

GLX gets crucial go-ahead vote, but with strict conditions
By Dan Atkinson
Somerville Journal
By Danielle McLean
@DMcLeanWL Follow
Posted May 9, 2016 at 6:42 PM
Updated at 6:51 PM
SOMERVILLE

Cambridge Chronicle

* * *



Editorial and comment from US Rep. Capuano indicate a lack of patience. This is government in action. It took New York City over 85 years after first proposed in 1929, to build the Second Avenue subway in Manhattan. It will open soon, they say.

[From article]

1929: NYC Board of Transportation budgets $86 million for its newly proposed Second Avenue T line, predicted to open between 1938 and 1941.
New York Magazine
July 24, 2009 5:00 p.m.
The Long, Tortured History of the Second Avenue Subway
By Sam Jewler

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20160506/NEWS/160507269

EDITORIAL: Don't stop the GLX in its tracks
Posted May. 6, 2016 at 12:57 PM
CAMBRIDGE Chronicle

* * *

Posted April 18, 2016 10:39 PM ET



MacDougall says, "There are serious public health problems in East Somerville because of major highways in the area, and building GLX will significantly reduce traffic on those highways." He does not mention the money pledged to upgrade that area by Steve Wynn for his casino one mile from Sullivan Station. He adds, "For all of these projects we absolutely need major revenue increases. [. . .] New revenue must come from major increases in taxes and/or fees, with the revenue dedicated to sustainable transportation.” Spending other people's money is great fun. Ask any politician. Why not provide free food kiosks at every Green Line station so non taxpaying riders will enjoy sustenance while they travel. Foot massages for the feet weary will improve emotional health.

[From letter]
There are serious public health problems in East Somerville because of major highways in the area, and building GLX will significantly reduce traffic on those highways.
Let’s not lose sight of the big picture, and of unmet long-term needs. For instance, on the Green Line, we should upgrade electric power supply so we can run three-car trains; we need major expansion of some MBTA bus routes; and we need major improvements on other subway lines.
For all of these projects we absolutely need major revenue increases. Good transportation should be seen as an essential public good. New revenue must come from major increases in taxes and/or fees, with the revenue dedicated to sustainable transportation.”

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/news/20160418/letter-build-green-line-extension-and-community-path

LETTER: Build the Green Line Extension and community path
Posted Apr. 18, 2016 at 12:30 PM
To the editor:
Cambridge Chronicle
— John MacDougall, Richdale Avenue

MBTA Spends Other People's Money

WCVB reported in February 2015, "In 2014, more than 2,000, or 27 percent, of the 7,400 employees earned more than $100,000 a year." and "Last year total employee earnings were more than $500,000,000 -- an 18 percent jump from 2013" In May 2015, WCVB, "There are 46 MBTA managers enjoying this take-home car perk, which is costing taxpayers and riders more than$1 million. And that doesn't include the cost of free gas, insurance, maintenance and repairs they also receive." Now they report "the MBTA's financial control board voted to spend up to $6 million to study the project [. . .] to try and [. . .] save the $4.7 billion expansion." Are there no taxpayer funded employees (among the estimated 1800) who are able to do the job? How many employees are ranking members of the Spending Other People's Money Society?



[From article]
But Monday, the MBTA's financial control board voted to spend up to $6 million to study the project.
Three firms will come up with a redesign and a new price tag to try and slash costs and save the $4.7 billion expansion.

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20160126/NEWS/160127072

Report shows chronic Red Line issues
By WCVB
Posted Jan. 26, 2016 at 10:58 AM
CAMBRIDGE Chronicle

East Boston Gentleman Sought In MBTA Double Shooting

SOUGHT: Double-shooting suspect Rogelio Alvarado, 21, is seen in this photo provided by MBTA transit police. 
(Courtesy of Richard Sullivan/Transit Police)

[From article]
Rogelio Alvarado, whose last known address was in East Boston, is wanted in connection with the Jan. 19 double shooting and should be considered “armed and dangerous,”
according to a message posted yesterday on the Transit Police Department’s blog.
Transit police detectives executed a search warrant yesterday on White Street in East Boston and have obtained an arrest warrant charging Alvarado with armed assault with intent to murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and numerous firearm violations.
The brazen daylight shooting occurred about 2:30 p.m. a week ago
today when two men arguing aboard a Blue Line train as it pulled into the station started a fight that spilled out onto the platform,
police said.
The two male victims, a 29-year-old and a 43-year-old, suffered non-life-threatening injuries, officials said.
[. . .]
Anyone with information about Alvarado’s whereabouts is encouraged to contact transit police detectives at 617-222-1050, send anonymous text tips to 873873, or to use
the department’s SeeSay app.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2016/01/t_police_seek_help_in_hunt_for_double_shooting_suspect

T police seek help in hunt for double-shooting suspect
Owen Boss
Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Limited Vision Of Massachusetts Officials On How To Improve Mass Transit

Future New York subway cars could look a lot more like the London Tube and Paris Metro, a new design released by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has revealed.

New York City (a real world class city), has adopted an idea from the far east to increase subway capacity by ten percent. NYC's system carries about 6 million each weekday. If only some MA state and local officials would read about the world, they might learn something outside of their bubble. Here's a recent report on NYC's plans.

http://nypost.com/2016/01/25/mta-to-test-open-gangway-trains-to-give-passengers-more-room/

MTA to test open-gangway trains to give passengers more room
By Danielle Furfaro
January 25, 2016 | 3:31pm
New York Post

* * *

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3416768/MTA-reveals-new-open-gangway-subway-train-design.html

New York subway cars of future: MTA unveils $52m plans for 'bendy' cars that passengers can walk through
The open gangway configuration seals the space between cars
It allows passengers to spread out and move from one to another
Design predicted to increase passenger capacity by up to 10 percent/car
MTA said it plans to spend $52m on 10 open gangway cars for two trains
By Dailymail.com Reporter and Associated Press
Published: 23:50 EST, 25 January 2016 | Updated: 07:18 EST, 26 January 2016

* * *

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20160125/NEWS/160127325

MBTA looking for ways to reduce crowding on the Red Line
By Andy Metzger
State House News Service
Posted Jan. 25, 2016 at 4:42 PM
Updated at 4:51 PM
Cambridge Chronicle

Late Night MBTA Services In Boston For Young Invading Population

Discontinued Due To Cost And Low Ridership

Councilor Devereaux believes the population of Boston? Cambridge? is getting younger. The Boston area including Cambridge was dominated by students, usually young people, for a teeny tiny number of years. Politicians are getting older. Does that have anything to do with the low voter turnout? Devereux suggested spending taxpayer money to convince corporations to subsidize late night MBTA service. Why doesn't she do it and not spend money? She appears comfortable with the elected criminal class (Noam Chomsky's term) explaining that $14 million is a small amount. Best suggestion of the evening was to raise fares, to increase ridership? Why didn't MBTA managers think of that?



[From article]
City Councilor Jan Devereux, who participated the discussion, noted that the young crowd was not typical of public meetings, and was indicative of the region’s changing demographics.
“We have a young population, and we’re getting younger. The jobs we’re creating are attracting a younger work force, so I anticipate the demand for late-night service will increase,” she said.
[. . .]
Devereux proposed the MBTA hire a marketing consultant to gain interest from corporate sponsors, and said $14 million is small compared to the profits of bio-techs and other large employers.
[. . .]
The MBTA hasn’t done enough to talk about this issue, and there’s a lot more people who need to hear about it,” [Jonathan] Alves said.
[. . .]
Some meeting-goers suggested raising the rate of monthly T passes, which are “dirt cheap” in comparison to New York City or Washington, DC.

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/news/20160124/residents-speak-out-in-support-of-late-night-t-service/?Start=1

Residents speak out in support of late-night T service
By Natalie Handy
nhandy (at) wickedlocal.com
Posted Jan. 24, 2016 at 9:48 PM
Updated at 10:01 PM
CAMBRIDGE Chronicle

Mass Bay Transportation Authority Hearings

Harvard University could invite what are called "members of the community" (Ew!), to share the HU shuttle van services, which run very late night as if they are ride-sharing taxis. HU could charge some chump change to ride along. MBTA (once known as Mr. Bulger's Transportation Authority) could keep paying remarkable pensions to their retirees and maintain their large taxpayer funded budget. Spending Other People's Money Society rules the Commonwealth. Donald Trump where are you?



http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/1/21/residents-criticize-MBTA-proposals/

Local Residents Criticize Potential MBTA Cuts
By JOSHUA J. FLORENCE and MIA C. KARR,

Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
January 21, 2016

MBTA Publishes Anti Israel Ads, Refuses Pro Israel Ads

November 17, 2015

Boston: Anti-Semitic Ads OK, Pro-Israel Ads Forbidden

It's not just the jihad attacks in Paris and the Muslim refugee crisis -- in this age of Obama, the forces of hatred and oppression are emboldened and on the offensive everywhere. Officials all over the country are kowtowing to evil instead of standing up to it -- even in unlikely places like Boston, which has just agreed to run vicious anti-Israel ads, while continuing to refuse to run our AFDI ads defending Israel and freedom.
The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) has long refused to our pro-Israel/anti-jihad advertisements on their buses. And now, with their acceptance of the Jew-hating ads, their bias is naked and obvious -- and anti-American and anti-freedom.

The MBTA is currently running these vicious, libelous anti-Israel ads.

 

But they refused our pro-Israel ads:

And they refused this pro-Israel ad:

And they refused this Truth About Muhammad ad:

We are not taking this without a fight.

You would think that officials in Boston would have more sense. In the city where Islamic jihadists sowed murder and mayhem at the Marathon, the MBTA claimed our ads criticizing Islamic anti-Semitism and jihad terror were demeaning to Muslims - as if all Muslims were Jew-haters and jihadists.

Now the MBTA has compounded its moral inversion by approving and running anti-Semitic ads that include libels and lies against Israel.

It's beyond appalling: in a city repeatedly wracked by Islamic terror attacks -- the blood of its citizens stains the streets of the city -- the MBTA refused to run our ads opposing jihad.

We are never going to acquiesce to this evil. AFDI vs. Boston's Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s (MBTA)
is going to the Supreme Court. But the costs involved are astronomical. This case is far more important than what ads run or do not run: it's a question of whether our public forums are going to be available to all people, or whether whole segments of the American public are simply going to be silenced and disenfranchised.

The MBTA has repeatedly refused to run our pro-Israel ads, which we submitted in response to vicious anti-Israel ads. This is just the latest in a number of antisemitic ad campaigns. We are fighting the MBTA in the courts. We have filed a cert petition to SCOTUS (attached). Imagine, the city of the Boston jihad bombings refusing to run anti-jihad ads. Despicable.


We can't stand for free speech without the help of free citizens. Please help.

Please contribute here, NOW -- or send a check to:

AFDI
Attention: Pamela Geller
1040 1st Avenue
#121
New York, NY 10022




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Medford, MA Gentleman Sentenced To Prison For Counterfiet Transit Cards

[From article]
Casey Kolenda, 28, pleaded guilty today in Middlesex Superior Court to seven counts of counterfeiting and was sentenced to three years in state prison, Healey said.
[. . .]
The investigation in Kolenda revealed that he “orchestrated a scheme to fraudulently create counterfeit $70 monthly MBTA subway and bus passes, known as ‘LinkPasses,’ between October 2013 and March 2014,” the announcement read. “The electronic data stored on the LinkPass magnetic strip e was copied using a magnetic stripe reader, also known as a ‘skimmer.’ That data was then downloaded onto the magnetic stripes of hundreds of MBTA stored-value cards that were purchased for as little as five cents at ticket kiosks.”
The MBTA estimates that Kolenda is responsible for more than 60 counterfeit MBTA passes in circulation from October 2013 to March 2014 — investigators estimate that the lost revenue attributable to the counterfeit tickets made and sold by Kolenda was in excess of $225,000.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/06/medford_man_sentenced_to_jail_for_selling_fake_mbta_passes

Medford man sentenced to jail for selling fake MBTA passes
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
By: Owen Boss
Boston Herald

Boston Transit Union Fights To Keep Privilege Which Makes Transit Inefficient

What other businesses, union and non union, have this problem?

[From article]
The Boston Carmen’s Union has been quietly fighting an MBTA reform meant to stop workers from taking phony sick days before and after Christmas, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July — an abuse the agency says has led to hundreds of dropped bus and train trips.
The Carmen’s Union has been challenging an August 2013 MBTA special order forcing workers to lose their holiday pay if they call in sick on a work day before or after Christmas, Turkey Day and the Fourth “without good cause.” The policy was intended to curb abuse of regular sick days as well as time taken off under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).
The order, the MBTA said in a statement yesterday, “was issued in an attempt to curb absenteeism” on the days around holidays, which often led to “spikes in missed bus and train trips on those days.”
The T recorded a combined 129 missed bus trips on Christmas Eve and Dec. 26 in 2012 for “personnel reasons,” and a whopping 236 trips on the days before and after July 4, 2013.
[. . .]
The special order has been in arbitration for more than 20 months.
[. . .]
The fate of the T’s 2013 special order now rests with an arbitrator whose decision will be binding and not subject to a review by an outside agency. That’s another perk enjoyed by no public union in the state outside the MBTA.
[. . .]
The panel found that the average T employee misses 57 days of work, mainly by using the FMLA.
However, the Herald has since reported that by last year, the average train operator was actually taking 68 days off — well above the figures tallied by Baker’s panel.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/04/carmens_free_ride

Carmen's free ride
Union fights to keep time off
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
By: Matt Stout
Boston Herald

Massachusetts Transit Unions Exercise Influence To Thwart Reforms

[From article]

The 6,000-member-strong Carmen’s Union Local 589’s influence and reform-blocking tactics include:
Its political action committee, which poured thousands into the campaign coffers for sitting members of the Transportation Committee and has doled out more than $58,000 in campaign donations to more than 100 politicians and committees since 2014 alone. That’s more than twice the political cash handed out by the powerful Boston Teachers Union during that time.
The union spent nearly $360,000 lobbying Beacon Hill in the past five years and doubled its lobbying budget, bringing on the firm Travaglini, Eisenberg & Kiley for two years as lawmakers debated 2009 transportation reform.
The union has skirted reforms through binding arbitration settlements, which are not subject to approval from any board — an advantage held by no other public unions, outside of the MBTA, in the state.
“In some respects, the MBTA is run by unions rather than management,” said Gregory Sullivan, a former state inspector general and Pioneer Institute’s research director. “The unions have been able to exert tremendous political pressure. It’s almost as though state government has lost control over the MBTA.”

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/04/derailing_reform_how_all_powerful_union_fights_efforts_to_fix_t

Derailing reform: How all-powerful union fights efforts to fix T
Thursday, April 23, 2015
By: Erin Smith, Matt Stout
Boston Herald

* * *



[From article]

The union has displayed its clout through its endorsements, too, an advantage coveted in local state races. Of the 16 Democrats currently on the committee, seven were blessed by Carmen’s Union backing in each of the last two elections, including Boston representatives Daniel Ryan and Evandro Carvalho last year.
McGee, the only committee member contacted by the Herald to return a call yesterday, said his political ties to the union don’t have an outsized influence on his decision-making.
“I’ve been in the Legislature a long time, and when I look at an issue, I do what I believe is right based on the facts that are in front of me,” said McGee, who also chairs the state Democratic party. “I make decisions based on all the information. And I will continue to do that.”
South Boston state Rep. Nick Collins filed a budget amendment backed by the Carmen’s Union that would keep the MBTA under the requirements of the so-called Pacheco Law, which stymies the T’s ability to hire outside contractors for much-needed repairs. Collins, who’s taken donations and endorsements from the Carmen’s Union, says the union doesn’t “outweigh support from anyone else.”

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/04/politicians_ride_on_carmen_s_gravy_train

Politicians ride on Carmen’s gravy train
Thursday, April 23, 2015
By: Matt Stout, Erin Smith
Boston Herald

* * *



[From article]

“The unions regularly trot our their members to campaign for legislators who treat the unions well,” said David Tuerck of the conservative watchdog Beacon Hill Institute.
“They show up at the polling places under order from the unions. It’s all a cozy little family where everyone is scratching everyone else’s back.”
Pam Wilmot of Common Cause said it’s not surprising that the Carmen’s Union Local 589 is donating regularly to Transportation Committee members, who are set to take up Gov. Charlie Baker’s MBTA reform bill — nor is it uncommon for any interest group to target those who regulate their industry.
“But just because that’s the way it is doesn’t make it right,” Wilmot said. “What we want to see is very low contribution limits so these kinds of questions aren’t always raised when legislation is concerned.”
Denise Roth Barber, managing director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics, said when donors give — especially “very strategic” donations to committees and other pols — “they want a seat at the table.”

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/04/donations_to_lawmakers_raise_ethical_red_flags_with_watchdogs

Donations to lawmakers raise ethical red flags with watchdogs
Thursday, April 23, 2015
By: Matt Stout

Boston Herald

MBTA Employs Inmates, Students and Employees To Clear Snow From Rails

[From article]

“As we navigate through this challenging winter, we will inform the public with consistent daily updates to keep the lines of communication open and allow Bay Staters to plan ahead as much as possible,” MBTA General Manager Dr. Beverly Scott said in a public statement.
Scott also said Monday that it could take 30 days for the transit system to return to normal service.
A mixture of union workers, students and others just looking to make some extra cash are shoveling MBTAtracks, WBZ-TV’s Nicole Jacobs reports. The MBTA is paying $30 an hour to workers who help clear the snow.

About 50 inmates from the Department of Correction are also helping to shovel, the MBTA said.

The transit system shut down completely on Sunday for the storm that dumped 16.2 inches of snowin the city, and rail and bus lines were operating on a limited schedule Monday.

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/02/16/general-public-inmates-helping-to-shovel-out-t-tracks/

MBTA Offers $30 An Hour To Shovel Out Tracks
February 16, 2015 4:00 PM

CBS News Boston MA

MBTA Slow To Allow Wheelchair Access

WORK TO BE DONE: Olivia Richard, a member of the Boston Center for Independent Living, is sometimes frustrated by the lack of accessibility at some MBTA stations.
Photo by: Stuart Cahill

U.S. law (Rehabilitation Act) was in effect in 1973 requiring the MBTA to be accessible. It is only 41 years late. Hear the silence from human rights activists?


[From article]
“A lot of stations are still not accessible in a variety of ways,” including a lack of signs in Braille for the blind, announcements for the deaf and elevators and ramps for people who use wheelchairs, said the BCIL’s Karen Schneiderman. “The MBTA is required by law to provide equal access to its services for people with disabilities. It’s up to the T to figure out where to get the money. It’s not up to us.”
Retired Judge Patrick King, who is due to give an update on the agency’s compliance with the settlement agreement at 1 p.m. tomorrow at the Transportation Building, said the T has made “tremendous” progress since 2006, but he said it has been slowed by its $8 billion debt load — much of which the T attributes to transit projects that were required as part of the Big Dig permitting process.
“As a result, you’ve got 40-year-old trains on some lines,” King said.
Five of 60 subway stations lack any elevator. Construction of elevators at one of the five — Government Center — is underway and will be ready in the spring of 2016, T spokesman Joe Pesaturo said, while an accessibility project at Wollaston is in the planning stage and Hynes will be made accessible as part of a developer’s project adjacent to Massachusetts Avenue.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2014/12/advocates_urge_t_to_speed_up_accessibility

Advocates urge T to speed up accessibility
Thursday, December 11, 2014
By: Marie Szaniszlo
Boston Herald

Hate Speech Leads to Arrests on Boston Bus

[From article]
A transit police report, citing MBTA video, says Galloway and the girl were riding the Route 23 bus in Codman Square just after 4 p.m.
Dec. 6 when a man sat in Galloway’s lap. Galloway, after his arrest Tuesday, told cops the man used a homophobic slur.
On the video, police said, a different man is seen pushing a woman and the juvenile is seen holding a steak knife. Someone yelled, “There’s a knife, there’s a knife,” the bus driver told cops. He stopped in front of Dorchester District Court and opened the doors.
The passengers exited and the juvenile “twisted the bottle cap of a Pepsi bottle containing a clear colored liquid as she exited the bus with Galloway,” the report says

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/12/assault_victim_s_actions_investigated

Assault victim’s actions investigated
Officials: Hate crime may have prompted bus bleach attack
Friday, December 13, 2013
Boston Herald
By: John Zaremba

Suspect with long record of violence and arrest held for murder

Posted October 9, 2013 9:34 PM ET; Last updated October 11, 2013 5:15 PM ET


Anarae Schunk


Shavelle Chavez-Nelson, 31, of Eagan, also known as Anthony Lee Nelson 
Photo: Dakota County Jail

This gentle, thoughtful man who took time from his busy schedule to end the life of a woman who tried to help him was not under surveillance by any crime family, police agency, the FBI, or Communists. He was free to conduct his criminal conduct with no oversight. But in Massachusetts, on property owned and operated by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, their campus police, and their building superintendents, take turns with city police, crime families, Communists, and assorted criminal lawyers and their associates to conduct a brutal campaign. It includes but is not limited to character assassination, harassment, insults, provocations, sleep disturbances, computer tampering without stop. In October 2013, the MBTA resumed its role in the harassment. Early in the morning one of their supervising inspectors parks alongside my window and turns on his backup warning signal to disturb the quiet enjoyment of my premises. At night when I arrive at my residence I see another MBTA inspector having a conversation with the security guard of the entrance to a $500 million construction project of Harvard University's new art museum, across from my home. Maybe they think that my building is an MBTA bus, or a subway car. Misguided priorities rule the police in Massachusetts where Harvard University, local and state government gave up freedom for security. The police state has arrived.

For those not from the late great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Howie Carr, radio talk show host and Boston Herald columnist, used to call the MBTA, Mr. [William] Bulger's Transportation Authority. The Honorable William  Bulger was President of the Massachusetts State Senate, and then President of the University Massachusetts. He now lives a comfortable retired life on a taxpayer pension of $197,000 per year. 

When Mitt Romney was Governor, he urged Mr. William Bulger to resign or he (Romney) would appoint Howie Carr to the Board of Trustees to have him removed. Bulger's response was "You wouldn't dare." He resigned when he realized Romney would dare. Mr. William Bulger's brother James, awaits sentencing for his convictions in US District Court in 2013 for 11 homicides while he was working as an FBI informant. He was charged with 19 homicides. Two of his associates admitted to 29 homicides while they worked for James Bulger. It is always an exciting time to be alive in Massachusetts. You never know what other egregious criminal abuses of government officials or elite limousine liberals at prestigious universities will be uncovered. The extremely funny-if-he-wasn't-serious Harvard University educated and groomed, Governor Deval Patrick accuses the Tea Party of the shut down of the US Government. 

So it is not surprising to find in the upside down world of public safety, criminal  justice and higher education in Massachusetts, that the police work with crime families, Communists, and the FBI to take turns attacking, harassing, humiliating, etc.,  a 70-year-old white man who survived 43 years of previous government criminal abuses. Preying on vulnerable persons, is what they practice and what they teach (and preach?) in the elite Massachusetts universities.

http://www.startribune.com/local/south/226612041.html

Convictions, releases were prolific for Rosemount murder suspect
Article by: PAT PHEIFER and ABBY SIMONS
Star Tribune staff writers
Updated: October 5, 2013 - 10:36 PM
Shavelle Chavez-Nelson had a long and violent record when he met Anarae Schunk. Her friends said she thought she could help him.

Harvard Exploits MBTA Resources Celebrating Academic Vanity

Omphalos, Harvard Square Sculpture


Former Harvard University Professor Dimitri Hadzi 

Does this indicate Harvard's unmanageable influence extends to MBTA expenditures, benefitting a Harvard University professor's vanity, but wasting limited resources to serve ordinary citizen's transportation needs?  

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/9/14/omphalos-harvard-square/#

Underfunded and Overlooked: The Plight of a Harvard Square Sculpture
By AEMILIA M. PHILLIPS,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
September 14, 2103

List of MBTA Pension Patriots Released

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/columnists/howie_carr/2013/08/carr_t_pension_list_a_map_of_bulger_fam_s_free_rides

Carr: T pension list a map of Bulger fam’s free rides
Friday, August 9, 2013 PrintEmail Comments (54)
By: Howie Carr
Boston Herald

Two Arrested After Stabbing On MBTA

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2012/12/cops_stabber_and_stabbee_both_arrested_after_chinatown_t_stop

Cops: Stabber and stabbee both arrested after Chinatown T stop fight
December 17, 2012
Boston Herald
By Matt Stout

Woman With Baby Falls on Cambridge MA Subway Track

Amazing the tricks the mind can play .

http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/202208232_heroes_rescue_attleboro_woman_who_fell_into_red_line_pit_with_tot/

Heroes rescue Attleboro mom and tot from Red Line pit
Boston Herald
By Richard Weir
Thursday, August 23, 2012

Make MBTA Riders Pay

Clearly this funding should be picked up by MBTA riders. Add it to the shortfall needed to cut services and raise fares. Let's be rational when spending other people's money.

http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20220322our_infrequent_fliers_massport_picking_up_tab_for_empty_airport/

Massport picking up tab for empty airport
Boston Herald
By Joe Battenfeld
Thursday, March 22, 2012

MBTA Moves Public Meeting to Smaller Room

Clearly Heather Hoffman does not understand Newspeak. When the government says something it means the opposite. The reason the MBTA meeting was moved is that in the Sullivan Chamber the seats are uncomfortable intentionally so that only dedicated zealots will remain to listen and to speak. Perish the thought of televising public meetings, the City Manager would never allow that unless it is required by state law.

Heather Hoffman comments: "Maybe I'm missing something, but I believe the Sullivan Chamber does not hold more people than the Senior Center, so how is this an improvement? It might be defensible if there were plans to televise and web-stream the hearing, but that isn't mentioned here."

http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/x355687697/MBTA-public-meeting-relocated-to-Cambridge-City-Hall#axzz1nCCnnmwW

MBTA public meeting relocated to Cambridge City Hall
Cambridge Chronicle
Posted Feb 23, 2012 @ 02:42 PM