Stories from my Commute: a woman stuck on the train

Anyone who has spent time in Boston and used the transit system, which is called the T by locals, has probably heard the story of Charlie. According to the story, Charlie got stuck on the train and did not return because he lacked the nickel he needed to pay the exit fare. His wife would meet the train daily and toss him a sandwich, leaving one to speculate why she didn’t just give him the coin. The story isn’t true; it is from a song performed by the Kingston Trio and used during the 1948 election for Mayor. http://youtu.be/3VMSGrY-IlU I never expected to observe a modern-day version of the Charlie story. After all, the T doesn’t use exit fares as it did in 1948, and I would assume that if one entered a train, the same person could exit. However, I did witness this situation on an unseasonably warm, rainy Friday evening. As thousands of people funneled through the t station, I stood awaiting the train I required. The sounds of a local musician echoed in the open space, though the elements of the music were distorted from the rumble of the trains overhead. After a 5 to 10 minute wait that felt much longer, the announcement came that my train was approaching. This train was going to be crowded; no way around that at 5:30 on a rainy Friday evening. The doors opened and a swarm of people got off the train heading to the various stairways. Oddly, only a couple of people seemed to exit through the doors closest to me. I moved closer and discovered that there was a woman blocking the doors unable to get off the train, and judging from the growing number of people behind her, she wasn’t moving back away from the door either. In a pleasant accented voice the woman calmly explained her plight, and a man on the platform indicated he had let the T conductor know she was stuck. There wasn’t anything I could do, so I moved down the way hoping to enter the train. No way; people were already packed in like speared sausages. You might be wondering how someone could manage to get herself stuck in the doorway of a train. Clearly there must be something wrong with the door or she must have much more weight on her than she should. No; neither of these things was true. The woman sat still unable to navigate herself over the gap between the train and the platform. The train was sitting lower than the platform; no wonder with all those people on it. And so there sat this woman looking out from the train a few feet away from the elevator she sought to use. She seemed calm until the announcement of the next train, followed by the tone indicating the doors were closing and they started to slide in on her. I could hardly believe it. I imagine that the intention of the T personnel was to stop more people from trying to get on this train when they clearly wouldn’t fit. A t employee then loudly said that he couldn’t find the part needed to cover the gap. Seriously, were they really going to keep her on this train and pull out of the station? Like Charlie was she going to be forced to ride the train around and around until she could secure her own exit? By this point 5 minutes had gone by. I couldn’t help but think that here was this woman who was using an alternative means of moving herself from place to place, and an environment that was hostel to her independence. And for her effort to go to downtown Boston on a Friday evening, she became the star of the Friday night subway play “Aggravation”. Within a few minutes more a T employee hurried over with the necessary plate, and the woman disembarked. I did here him apologize to her for the problem. And it would be good to pause here and say that parts of the T are quite old, and present a lot of financial and structural barriers in trying to retro fit them for universal access. The city of Boston and the T have made a lot of progress over the years thanks to some willing public officials, unfortunate accidents, and strong advocacy. Clearly, much more has to be done to make the area more livable for everyone. Fortunately for me, I was one of the lucky few the T employee allowed on the overcrowded train. As we rolled through the southbound tunnel, I found it difficult to get the woman off my mind. I wondered how many more starring roles she’d have that night.