I refuse to applaud the MBTA for finally–FINALLY–coming into compliance with THE LAW, as regards their new PA system. As The Globe reports, “with the system, the T will finally comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal law [passed in 1990] that calls for both audio and visual announcements for passengers who are visually- or hearing-impaired.” They have, as usual, done the minimum, and then tooted their own horns as loud as they can, about what a big-ass favor they’re doing us all.

But the media is aiding and abetting them. Even the article in The Globe buried the fact that this was a requirement for the T in paragraph 18 of 22.

At least The Globe mentions that “other newer major transit systems are well ahead of the T on announcing train arrivals. On the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, for instance, multicolored displays show the number of minutes remaining until trains pull into the station. In Europe, train announcements are a tradition, and at some stations, a digital clock counts down the seconds until a train arrives.”

The qualifier “newer” is key here. Even The Globe is making excuses for the T. But it’s mostly meaningless. We all know there’s scarcely an underground system older in the world. And it’s a mistake to think that older systems are of necessity poorly adapted to modern riders. The Budapest Metro, the oldest subway system in Continental Europe, and the second oldest—after London’s—in the world, and one with which I am way too intimately familiar, was inaugurated in 1896, a year before Boston’s. Yet, for decades they’ve had displays in the stations that tell you how much time has elapsed between trains, and clearly-posted, easy-to-read schedules that they’re fairly good at sticking to. I mean, at a minimum.

Please, please, please, no more excuses for the MBTA, and no more of this cynical pomp and circumstance for their shamefully slow implementation of federal law.