HERE.

My blogorythms, after peeking around June 6th, are back in a valley. I have no rage these days. The last time I got rage fatigue this bad was back in early May, when I posted my first rage fatigue notice. This time it’s partly to do with the heat-wave we just had, I’m sure. It was too damn hot to get up in arms over anything. I mean, just thinking cool thoughts made you break a sweat, never mind waving your arms, writhing around, wailing and gnashing your teeth.

I also think I shot my rage-wad on the lead-up to that awful MBTA hearing. What a cynical, utterly futile process that was. And as I said soon afterwards, I knew I’d have to hang back “in seclusion” and “regroup.” As silly as it was, it was all a little too activist for me. I’m all for talking the talk and walking the walk, but activism is kind of like speed-walking, and people usually look just as ridiculous doing it. I decided back in the Spring to basically “vote with my feet,” and I have been very happily pedaling all around the city ever since, through the theft of one bike, and a rusty old loner. I am now on my third in about as many months–and should this one go the way of the others, I will get a fourth. Nothing can stop me. I think in the last four months I’ve spent about seven-fifty on the T, and that only very, very grudgingly. never mind that I have spent about seven-hundred-fifty on bikes. I am hoping I will, in the end, deprive the T of at least that much. And it’s not that I don’t believe in mass transit. On the contrary. It’s that I don’t believe in the T.

I found it amusing, somehow, that after the Big Dig collapse, the local TV news was really pushing the T as a viable alternative. I can see an alternative. Yes. But not a viable one. That’s stretching it way beyond credibility. I mean, who are we trying to fool here? Well, obviously people who never use the T, and with good reason. But you knew that the truth would eventually out.

I enjoyed watching reporters trying to find some T-rider who would sing the T’s praises. The only one they could come up with, that I saw, was a tourist, who said she loved the Silver Line and that it was efficient and cheap. Well, we know that it’s different for tourists, that they can shrug off an inconvenience or two over the course of a couple of days. It’s sort of like the difference between the common cold and chronic emphysema. If it’s terminal, and you have to live with it every day, it starts to wear on you, you start looking for some miracle cure. I mean, sooner or later you get desperate.

So, even before the heat-wave came along and crushed even the tourists’ sense of goodwill, the commuter lines had buckled. The lesson? Just because the Big Dig is a miserable gazillion dollar fiasco doesn’t mean The MBTA isn’t, too.

And now everyone knows it for sure. Julia Talcott of Newton summed it up in a letter in today’s Glob:

OUR OUT-OF-TOWN friend took the MBTA to the Science Museum with two small children last Tuesday . At the Chestnut Hill station they found they did not have the six dollars in change needed to board the train. They tried unsuccessfully to get it from the only establishment within walking distance . When they called in desperation, we drove the change over to them. Once they were on the train, the trip took an hour.

Leaving from Science Park for the return trip, they found themselves surrounded by tourists looking for tokens or change. There were token machines covered in bubble wrap, lying inert inside the station. The trip back took an hour. They returned exhausted.

The trip by car usually takes 30 minutes round trip without traffic. Is it any wonder Bostonians prefer to drive when they can?

The T’s Silver Line may be coming to the rescue of airport travelers. Could the MBTA make it easier for those who want to get in and out of the city?

Wouldn’t it have been great if all the misspent money on the Big Dig had been used to overhaul the MBTA?

But it’s not always gratifying to know that people now know what you knew all along, especially when it doesn’t change anything. I mean, it’s like this woman says, wouldn’t it have been great if even a fraction of the grossly inflated cost of the Big Dig had gone to improving the MBTA? (Yes, I know that part of the deal was that improvements would be made to the MBTA, and they’ve been largely delivered, but I’m talking real, systemic improvements and upgrades, not little tit-for-tat projects here and there–and I’m talking billions in investment, not millions.)

Now, ironically, even more money’s been appropriated for the Big Dig from the projected budget surplus of somewhere between a hundred and two hundred million to go over the entire system and redo what it cost $10.5 billion more than it should have to do wrong in the first place. So far it’s another twenty million bucks down the hole on account of corruption and incompetence–but I’m confident it will be ten times more in the end–and rest assured it’s going right back into the pockets of the pigs whose shoddy work caused the collapse.

By the way, that twenty million (so far) would have covered almost a third of the T’s FY07 shortfall. By the time this crisis is past, they’ll have spent more than enough on it to have bailed out the T, I’m sure.

It’s not only money, though. In both cases it’s the culture of obfuscation, cronyism and corruption within these organizations, and the contractors they use, that’s to blame for troubles that sometimes, inevitably, turn tragic.

While Lee Matsueda and TRU soldier on with their “action alerts,” God love ‘em, there’s very little hope for their cause. Because there’s just no money in not raising fares, and there’s no real political price to pay for raising them, either. Suck it up, Boston. You’re used to it, anyway.

From here in my blogofunk I think it’s all pretty shrugworthy. Frankly, if you feel you’ve got no other choices in transportation in Boston, then you’re right.

This just in from Lee Matsueda over at TRU:

At last month’s TRU Rox/Dot Committee meeting the group decided it was ready for an initial action. This is not the only way to recruit other riders, win service improvements, and stop the fare increase, but it is a start. To be honest the meetings are boring but we’re planning on having some fun and making our presence known during the public comment period at the beginning of the meeting. The details will be decided upon at the TRU Rox/Dot Committee meeting on Monday, July 10th.

There are 9 MBTA board members including the Secretary of Transportation for the State of MA and MBTA Board Chair, John Cogliano. Please consider if you can make this meeting (it is at a weird time of the day – 1pm) and if you are willing to “kindly” address individual MBTA board members during the public comment period.

REMEMBER to bring a PICTURE ID (we need it to go into the meeting)

Thanks,

Lee H. Matsueda
Community Organizer
Alternatives for Community & Environnment (ACE)
2181 Washington, Suite 301
Roxbury, MA 02119

You can contact Lee at lee@ace-ej.org — Mike.

Check out Ric Kahn’s article on fare evasion in today’s Globe.

This just in from Lee Matsueda over at T Riders Union (TRU) HQ:

“Join TRU at our next FARE INCREASE meeting Thursday, June 29th @ 5:30 pm @ ACE’s office, 2181 Washington Street, 3rd Floor (elevator accessible), here at our air-conditioned office in Dudley Square, Roxbury.”

Lee and the gang will be planning the next step in TRU’s NO FARE INCREASE campaign that will include service improvement demands.

He requests that you please RSVP via phone (617) 442-3343, ext. 229, or email lee@ace-ej.org if you plan on coming.

And remember, all public comments on the fare increase are due to the MBTA by June 30th. That’s next Friday to you and me. You can send them to fareproposal@mbta.com.

It’s a scorcher out there.

I got out to the garden early today, before the temperature began to climb, to water a newly seeded section of what will become a little lawn in a couple weeks’ time. Very excited about that lawn–it must be what’s left of the squishy suburbanite in me. Is this a chink in the urban warrior’s armor? I have instructed my neighbors in the Fens to clip me if I start to go all-out suburban on ‘em, and they have promised me they will.

But, honestly, once you become what you despise (and we all do to some degree or another), you often despise what you were before you did. It is the logic of metamorphosis that once we have transformed we no longer understand or sympathize with what we once were. We may, in fact, look on our former selves as our own worst enemies. Do you think the butterfly looks back wistfully on her caterpillar days?

If my lawn-pride warps me sufficiently, I may metamorphose into something I don’t yet understand. Like my new neighbor across the path, who is methodically removing all traces of the previous tenant, an old woman who had the plot for several years and was fond of roses, and replacing her sweetly and long-nurtured beds with…lawn. Her garden was idiosyncratic, with small paths only she walked on. Now it’s full of cement bricks and dyed nuclear-red mulch. It appears hideous to me now, but there is a kernel of fear in me that someday I may understand it all too well.

I have just a little lawn, a spot of grass among the flower beds, and I am proud of it, and it’s enough for me. For now.

So I’m riding home, and the left pedal on my loaner bike flies off. How do you like that? I’ll have to stop into the bikesmith’s tomorrow and have it mended.

I got home in time to nap. This is true siesta weather. And I do love my siesta. I love my twilight, too. Last night was cool and overcast, and there was a breeze blowing. And I lay down and listened to the sounds of the neighborhood, the gunshots in the distance, the little girl screaming bloody murder (we have a couple of little screamers in the ‘hood), laughter and tears, revving motors and screeching tires. And all the while the light fading, fading, quietly but insistently. That lovely subtle, inexorable movement from daylight to darkness. That extraordinary twilight time.

You know I used to live about a block away from where Hoagie Carmichael, who wrote “Stardust”–an American creation at least as great as the martini–is buried. He’s in Rose Hill Cemetery in Bloomington, Indiana, where I went to school. I used to walk through that graveyard on my way home every night, that perfect, mysterious song in my head…

Sometimes I wonder why I spend
The lonely nights
Dreaming of a song
That melody haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you
When our love was new
And each kiss an inspiration
Ah, but that was long ago
Now my consolation
Is in the stardust of a song…

After my nap, I switched on the TV. There was something called “White Shark Red Triangle” on GBH. I caught the end of it. It was about various disagreeable sea creatures feeding on one another. You expect bad behavior from killer whales. And sharks are naughty by nature. But even the cute ones, like seals, behave atrociously. You know that when seals are done birthing, after a brief period of nursing, the adults just up and abandon the young. How’s that for family values? The young are about fifty percent blubber, so they can survive for a few weeks while they learn (or not) how to fend for themselves. In fact, only about fifty percent make it to a year old. It’s no wonder adult seals are so cranky up close and personal.

They aren’t as bad as octopuses, though. I think octopuses are possibly the most unsympathetic creatures in the whole ocean. A while back I watched a documentary on octopuses, called, aptly enough, I guess “The Octopus’s Garden”.

What odious creatures.

Maybe I was a cod in my past life, because I could find nothing particularly redeeming in the octopus. When a shark came along and the octopus was lying very still to avoid being detected, I was rooting for the shark 100%. Same for when, after the starring octopus had hatched her millions of little eggs and was crawling out from under her rock in search of food, on her last leg, so to speak, and a couple of belligerent codfish came up to her and started nibbling on her (actually they grabbed hold of a leg, and did a sort of speedy corkscrew move, since their teeth are only good for grasping but not for pulling)—yes, I was rooting for the codfish, even though, technically speaking, the octopus was the underdog.

I found the starring octopus utterly unsympathetic, and I felt nothing when I saw her corpse wash up on a beach in the end, or even when the seagulls were pecking at her flabby carcass. They kept calling it a she. Are there males and females?

At one point in some underwater garden she’s seized by a bigger, uglier octopus. He grabs her up in his arms—meanwhile she has gone stark white with fear—and spirits her away into his lair. A moment later she is released, rather pink than white now, and torpedoes off into the sea as far from her assailant as she can get, no doubt. Talk about wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. Where’s the romance? This is the Stanley Kowalski school of breeding.

That’s probably why the octopus is so unsympathetic. Not just two arms with which to hold a lover tight, but eight! Not one, not two, but three hearts (!) with which to love, and yet it has never occurred to the octopus to love. They’re too busy sneaking up on crabs, and gorging themselves on unsuspecting lobsters, and even eating their own kind! They retain a mind-boggling eighty percent of the weight they consume, growing bigger with each and every meal! I mean, enough!

The filmmakers tried to drum up a little sympathy for our heroine in the end by saying, well, look at what an inglorious end she came to after three billion glorious years of evolution. But tell me, what has she got to show for those three billion years? An insatiable hunger for shellfish!

Never once did she stop and think of using all her faculties—and she is so extremely well-endowed—for loving. And don’t tell me she can love her young. There are about two-hundred million of them, and they all fly the coop before they measure two centimeters in length. Most of them to get snapped up by the marauding cod.

And thank sweet Neptune for that!

But enough frivolous, idle chatter! Back to the pressing issue at hand!

I have been corresponding lately with a gentleman by the name of John who has some interesting ideas about the fare hikes that I would like to put out there, for your consideration, too. One caveat on this. While I think this sort of deep thinking is valuable, it may be a flawed assumption that there has been any real momentum on the fare issue among riders and their various self-styled representatives. I love the suggestions, particularly in the penultimate (love that word) paragraph, but I am not a nonprofit organization, or any kind of organization, actually, and these suggestions would require investment, staff, and organization. That’s the biggest problem right there.

Here’s what John has to say:

I know this is a frustrating issue, I am sensitive to it because I recently moved from Texas–yes the Traffic State–and am enamored of the concept of public transportation.

I did sign the petition, and have some positive thoughts. I think the rate hike may be a useful thing, hear me out:

- Public transportation is about to show its worth with rising gas prices. Cheap oil has made the economy-factor of the subways less important in recent decades, and subway systems have languished because of this. But Peak Oil is coming and the T may well become a real jewel for Massachusetts.

- A price increase will make the T create more revenue, which will increase its value to the city and state. So though this may be a cynical move to further burden a public asset, the ultimate result is that they are giving it even greater value. Unintended consequences, you know.

- Riders will become more motivated to pay attention as the T takes more of a bite out of their budgets. And also, more upset with delays and more receptive to calls for transparent governance. A group representing T riders will be set to gain from this increasing concern, since by raising prices the T is actually motivating people to pay attention. (Thank you MBTA!)

SO my optimistic conclusion is that now would be the time to kick into gear and prepare for the future. I would say let the rate hike take effect (it will do a lot for your organizing efforts) and turn attention toward solidifying the organization, with the expectation that events are converging to make the T more valuable to lawmakers, and make riders more apt to support a public advocacy organization.

As far as suggestions, I would like to help work to raise the profile of T-Justice in various non-threatening, non-confrontational, creative ways. Possibly one would be a “Subway Survey” of riders to ask what their concerns truly are, along with a petition. Sign/fill out and get a T-Justice button. A T-Shirt fundraiser (”T” Shirt!). More stuff on the website (I can help there) including a blog or chat for discussion/complaints (I can help there too). Setting up “T-Justice” recycle bins, for high visibility while doing a public service. Posters. Ongoing communication with the public, maybe even in the form of direct flyers handed to patrons, that shows T-travelers that there is a group honestly representing the public ridership.

Like everyone I don’t have a lot of time, but I am looking for a Cause or two, (Southerner’s love our Causes, especially if they are more or less lost) and this interests me a great deal.

I’ll say. So, any thoughts on this from the rest of you?

So I have had a few emails here and there, and a couple of phone calls from people asking what’s next in the fight for fair fares. The petition’s still up and running, so if you know anyone (and I know you do) who hasn’t signed it yet, tell them you are going to kick their lily asses if they don’t.

It’s at a pathetic three hundred signatures so far (not that the signatures themselves, or the signatories are pathetic–on the contrary!–only their number). I don’t feel all that bad about it, if you want to know the truth, since MassPIRG, with its 50,000 members could only rustle up 1,500 signatures for theirs.

But I think presenting the petition (and I will only do so if we meet a minimum goal of a thousand signatures–I still have some pride left) would be a nice coda to all this hooha and stuff and nonsense over the fares in the first place.

This week saw the last of the MBTA-sponsored meetings on the topic, and the official comment period will end June 30th. If you have not written an email about the fare restructuring proposal to the T, you can do so up to the 30th (send it to fareproposal@mbta.com).

Write your representatives, too, while you’re at it, if you haven’t already. You can find them HERE.

And, as always, encourage your family, friends, and colleagues to take a minute or two out of their day (really–that’s about all all of this nonsense takes) to do it, too.

That’s all I’ve got up my sleeve. But always willing to learn new tricks, if anybody’s got any in their bag.

I want to be clear about one thing. I have nothing against Deval Patrick. I think he could very well be the next governor of Massachusetts, and president by 2016 (after another two-term Republican exits—yes, it’s that bad for the Democrats). It’s obvious his showing up and unequivocally coming out against the fare hikes and suggesting that, if (he actually said “when”) elected, he would take up the issue, got the issue onto the front page of the papers and forced his opponents to take a stand on it. So, Bravo, Deval.

But it was still pandering. That’s politics. I’m just calling it as I see it. No hard feelings. And I stand by my assessment of his sign-bearing lackeys at the rally, too. Did you see them at the hearing? I didn’t. Which isn’t to say they weren’t there, but if nobody saw them it defeated their purpose in being there a bit, didn’t it? You know, like I said, they couldn’t even stand up for twenty minutes, holding their signs behind the speakers at the rally. They were all schlumped over, looking totally zombie-fied. Is that the energized image of a Devalhead his campaign wants to get out there? I don’t think so. At the very least, STAND UP for your cause, bitches.

Enough said.

As for the Devalcentric press coverage of the MBTA fare hikes: while Deval’s appearance was newsworthy, the press should be encouraged by it to dig deeper into the issue of fare hikes. So far what we have seen is only very cursory coverage of the fare hike proposal. It is not enough to present Dan Grabauskas on the one hand repeating ad nauseam that if the T doesn’t raise fares it will have to cut services, and Deval Patrick on the other saying that at a time when gas prices are high the T should be trying to recruit riders instead of scaring them away with increased fares. It’s a start, but, to be truthful, not a very coherent one.

Let’s talk about some of the very reasonable, detailed objections that attendees to these hearings are bringing up. And let’s start viewing this issue, not as Kerry Healey is—namely as a strictly internal issue for the T to decide—but as the public policy issue it is. As many speakers at the hearing said, the T is not just a nice little service for people who either want to do something nice for the environment by not driving into Boston, or for those unfortunate enough to have no other choice—it is an economic necessity without which Metro Boston could not function.

The most effective refutation to the Healey camp’s insightless observations would have been an Everybody Drive To Work Day. There are approximately 792,600 one-way passenger trips per day, according to the T. If all those people drove solo to work, as most drivers these days do, no one would get anywhere. (Everybody Drive To Work Day is a theoretical argument, not a call to action, by the way.) So Healey, and all those snots who don’t deign to take the T, and feel that it’s a subsidy for the poor that taxpayers should not bear responsibility for, need to understand that Metro Boston would be paralyzed without it. That means it is her business—it is the governor’s business to look into it, and the legislature’s, to make sure that it works for not just the citizens who use it by riding it, but for all those—private institutions, employers, retailers, restaurateurs, even drivers—who benefit from it whether they themselves use it or not.

After Mr. B-I-L-L-I-N-G yielded the mic, a Catherine Pickard, representative of a riders advocacy group focused particularly on The Ride, took the floor. She questioned the fairness of raising the rates (by 33%) on The Ride when the T is still not in full compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). She argued that details of the fare restructuring posed a particular hardship for users of The Ride. They will, for example, have no free transfers and no discounts for monthly passes. She urged the T to do more research on the impact of restructuring for the population using The Ride, and to hold off on fare increases until the entire system was ADA-compliant.

After Ms. Pickard, came Eric Bourassa of MassPIRG who presented a petition with “about 1,400 names” of those in opposition to the fare hikes. He spoke about the environmental impact of decreased ridership on the T due to increased fare prices. Keeping his comments brief he called for “the legislature to adequately fund public transportation so that the T can be more affordable and accessible.”

Several speakers followed with specific service issues (centering mostly on green line trains, the silver line–“The silver line is not rapid transit,” one rider observed to appreciative applause—and buses) which they called on the T to resolve before moving to raise fares.

Terry Russell, from the Conservation Law Foundation, offered an “if…then” scenario for the MBTA to consider. “If we care about traffic, if we care about climate change, if we care about air pollution, if we care about the health of residents of the Commonwealth,” and so on, then, essentially “the MBTA needs to be increasing ridership, not driving it away.” She demanded better service, and urged the T to approach the legislature to increase funding, so that the T will not be charging riders “more for less.”

A Ms. Kruger, from Leominster, asked where riders like her would find the additional funds to pay for increased monthly fares ($52 for her), and related how someone had suggested taking it out of her “entertainment budget”. She concluded that in the short time she has been using the T, fares have increased too many times for services that have not improved.

A Patrick Demsky followed Ms. Kruger, and proclaimed himself a “train-holic.” “I’m assuming many of you are, too,” he added. But I think there were more “complain-holics” than “train-holics” in attendance, truth be known. He then thanked the T, saying “I know you do your best in a job that’s probably pretty thankless.” He might as well have been speaking Swahili. Then, all the sudden he launched into a proposition of his own for funding the T, turning to the audience, and asking, “What makes the most money in Massachusetts?” and answering for us: “The lottery.”

He suggested the MBTA issue scratch tickets. And to prove what a hit it would be he asked if anyone in the audience, “for four thousand dollars, would squawk like a chicken.” A woman in the back of the hall obliged, and he handed her ten scratch tickets, and then asked the T representatives, “when was the last time someone squawked like a chicken to get a train ticket? Ever? When was the last time anybody got excited about riding the T?” (I don’t know about you people, but I don’t squawk like a chicken when I get excited about something, but whatever.) He concluded by urging the assembly: “let’s have some fun in this damn city.” (Again, not quite sure what the connection between squawking like a chicken and having fun would be, but I don’t disagree in principle.)

The Chicken Lady then asked the assembly what exactly she should do with the scratch cards, since she had never played the lottery before. Well, it’s not rocket science, is it? I imagine she was able to figure it out eventually.

After a man suggested the MBTA police force be abolished, it was our own Dani B.’s turn to speak. He spoke for students like him, whom he said were not able to afford the increases. He said the T was “penalizing its best customers.” And that the surcharges amounted to “a tax on visitors, tourists, and college students.”

Dani B. was followed by Jen Stewart, another blogger, who said she would be willing to pay higher fares for better service.

A young woman by the name of Christine, who was sitting with those crazy socialists, was next at the mic. She said she had been at the fare hearings two years ago and had spoken, and nothing had come of it, and wondered if the same would be the case this time around. One of the socialists had moved to the doorway of the meeting room, ready to make his exit when she finished, and the way he was beaming at her, sort of misty-eyed, made it seem like a true Revolutionary moment, like something out of Reds, or something. I thought, wow, they’ve got their whole little subculture there. I bet they’ve all slept with each other. They form mini-alliances, maybe mini-punk bands, have their squabbles, kiss and make up. It’s a whole little socialist ecosystem all their own.

As she banged on (”I know the T inside and out! Anyone can quiz me on any line and I know every single one in order, from one end to the other, because I have been to every, single station I don’t know how many times!”) he drank in her raw courage as if gulping the nectar of the gods, and when finally the crowd applauded her agitprop, he joined them with such conviction I knew this speech would become the stuff of legend among them.

Next came a proposal for elimination of fares altogether, which was greeted with applause by the assembly. But upon reflection, I think a reasonable fare is actually a much better proposal. Can you imagine if it was free? You think the buses and trains are trashed now? People should pay for public transit, but it should be affordable for those who do.

Surcharges for use of the Charlie Ticket were questioned by the next speaker. “Let’s not punish riders who don’t have access to vending machines.”

Then there was a long-winded BC student, who recounted dramatically and in great detail how he had discovered that fares were being raised. He objected to paying for the outbound green line, of course. What was interesting about him was his cadence. Each sentence started…very…slowly…and…deliberately…andendedupallinarushedjumble.

There was another young woman, a bit later, who also, like, had an interesting, like, verbal, like, tick. Like, it was, like, she, like, said “like,” like, all the time, like, almost, like, between each, like, word.

Finally, a former State Representative spoke, saying the proceedings reminded him of “the emperor’s new clothes,” because nothing could come of the “self-contained discussion” currently underway. “The MBTA can only do what the outside forces” allow. The “outside forces” were then identified as the Executive Office of Transportation and Construction. A call was issued for representatives of the “parent organization” of the T to step forward. None were in attendance. “That’s the problem!” he said. “They should be out lobbying the legislature for more profits for the MBTA!” Wild applause seemed the thing to do at the moment, and so wild applause ensued.

He then reiterated that “public transportation is a public good, and should be as cheap as possible. Why? To help our economy and environment.”

He concluded: “There’s got to be a greater emphasis on people speaking out on this issue and taking the burden up, because…this discussion is too self-contained…. We have to engage everybody. As Ben Franklin said once, ‘we must all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately.”

This worthy comment concluded the second hour of testimony. The MBTA agreed to continue past 6:30, to allow others in attendance to speak. I will sum up the additional half-hour of testimony I stuck around for in a future entry.

Now, you had to sign up upon entering the meeting room in order to speak on the record. This put people who were locked out of the room (because the MBTA had booked a small one, and it was filled to capacity) at a slight disadvantage, since, once they were finally let in, the sign-up period was over–and even if they had wanted to, by the time their names were called it would have been well past eight o’clock (the meeting ran to about seven-thirty, the sign language interpreters had been booked until 6:30, and left promptly at that time, I myself left a little after seven). I mention all this because, again, I want to echo Senator Jarrett Barrios’ observation that everything about the hearing was cynical.

Once the testimony of non-elected officials was underway, the MBTA representative in charge announced that he would spell everyone’s name, to ensure that none would be mispronounced. The first name on his list was “b-e-a-c-o-n”. And as promised he did not venture to pronounce it, such was his commitment to impartiality.

The T, conscientious as always about the feelings of their customers, did not wish to offend anyone by mispronouncing a difficult name, or anyone else by not spelling an easy one and just pronouncing it instead. I mean, how would you feel if you had a name like Smith and the chairman didn’t bother to spell it like he did Bhreitheamhnaigh? You’d feel neglected. Admit it. So it was actually very thoughtful of the T. We have, of course, come to expect nothing but the most deferential treatment from them, so it should surprise no one.

The aforementioned B-E-A-C-O-N, of The Greater Boston Group of the Sierra Club, shocked the assembly by praising the MBTA on the proposed policy for free intermodal transfers, which he said would bring the T in line, finally, with national transit systems, farewise. He said the new policy on transfers, coupled with the decrease in the cost of the monthly OnePass, which will take the place of combos, and will be good for the entire system, “may for those people utilizing the services and for those services impacted, actually result in an increase in ridership, and an increase in revenues, [which] was the case in New Yawk City…. That needs to be retained.”

Stunned silence. This audience was out for blood, and B-E-A-C-O-N was being a little too namby-pamby with the enemy. In order not to get strung up himself, B-E-A-C-O-N tossed us a bone, advising against surcharges, because “the whole issue…is very confusing to people.” And I certainly don’t disagree.

But he really won the crowd back with his spot-on assessment of the T’s funky fares to date. He said, come on, as for fares, “let’s start with a dollar on buses, because in reality, during the last fare increase when they raised the bus fare to ninety cents, who has ninety cents?”

“Amen!”

“Speak it brutha!”

“Testify!”

He went on: “People just paid a dollar. So let’s take it into consideration that the bus fare has really been a dollar. So let’s keep it a dollar.”

B-E-A-C-O-N was cool with the subway fare, and having gone into overtime (each non-elected official speaking was officially allotted three minutes to say their piece), he hurriedly demanded that “the money that goes into the system from the riders of the system must flow equitably back out into the neighborhoods.”

He then put in a plug for Dudley Station, to wild applause.

After a brief pause in the action, the chairman called a Miss M-A-Y-E-R, who complained that the information in the fare restructuring handbook was not entirely decipherable by the layman. Miss M-A-Y-E-R was followed by a Mr. P-R-E-S-T-O-N, who was displeased with the new senior fares. From 25¢ presently to 40¢ for buses and from 35¢ to 50¢ for subway. Mr. P-R-E-S-T-O-N was also unhappy about the proposal to start charging outbound riders on the green line, a position which was echoed later by a droning BC student, and with which I have absolutely no sympathy. There are no free rides in this life, people. I am jumping ahead here, but the BC student lamented that the fare effectively cut BC off from Boston so that it might as well be called Chestnut Hill College instead. So be it. It’s a prettier name, anyway.

After Mr. P-R-E-S-T-O-N concluded his remarks, a Mystery Lady in an afro spoke of an instance of sexual harassment on an MBTA bus by its driver. A cover-up and conspiracy had ensued. Details were not presented to the assembly, and the Mystery Lady was politely asked to desist by the chairman, who felt that the forum was inappropriate for a discussion of her case. She concluded by warning the assembly, somewhat ominously, that “No one has the right to sexually harass me.” She then left the hall without event, so far as this reporter could tell, but you never know.

A Mr. B-I-L-L-I-N-G was called next to speak, and spoke about “efficiency goals.” He had obviously given a great deal of thought to how a system of merit pay could be implemented at the T, but the crowd was still under the strange spell of the Mystery Lady, and his excitement, while clearly merited by his slogan: “identify, innovate and implement,” unfortunately failed to capture the assembly’s imagination. One comment drew appreciative hmms, however. When he mentioned the green line’s obvious limitations in boarding and deboarding riders. It is, inarguably, a logistical nightmare.

Mr. B-I-L-L-I-N-G went on a good deal more, and in such minute detail, about his program for reform that one was led to wonder, why on earth Mr. B-I-L-L-I-N-G, a not unhandsome young man, had so much time on his hands (I know, I should talk), and if it wouldn’t be more productively spent popping pills, smoking crystal meth, getting multiple piercings and tattoos in out-of-the-way places on his body, at all hours of the night, and spending his days passed out in the Fenway.

So, as promised, some further thoughts on the June 6th rally and the hearing that followed.

First of all, I have to say, the more I think about it, the more disappointed I am that no representatives from the GLBT community saw fit to put in an appearance. After a mention in this blog, Traniwreck founder Aliza Shapiro contacted me, saying, in part, “[I] would be happy to talk to [you] about collaborations. Drop me an email.” I did, although “collaboration” is an awfully big, flashy word for what I had in mind.

Not a peep from Miss Aliza Shapiro after that. Not one little dickey bird.

A shame, really, because I would love to have seen a fabulous queen in full drag give testimony at the hearing. But that’s just my own little fantasy, and I probably should not be airing it here. These hearings don’t have enough glamour, though, that’s for sure.

The closest we came to fabulocity this time around was that chick with the ‘fro straight out of a blaxploitation flick who went on in an eerily calm, slightly froggy voice for fifteen minutes about a cast of characters including an Omar Jones, a Marvin Jones, and a Willie May, who sexually harassed her on a bus and then “created The Lie” to cover it up. To her credit, when the T representative in charge interrupted her to tell her he was unable to address the issue here, she replied, unperturbed, in that same calm cadence, “I know you can’t, but people need to know.” And then, to boisterous applause: “It’s related to what you said about your ‘friendly service.’” Ouch. That shut him up, and emboldened her to go one for another ten minutes or so.

Ah, life’s rich pageant! Usually these public meetings have at minimum a 3:1 ratio of crazies to concerned citizens, so this was an exceptional hearing in that respect. Their participation makes for a worthy spectacle of sorts, but unfortunately it has the cumulative effect of justifying the cynicism that is so often a part of such proceedings.

What do I mean by crazies? I’m being somewhat liberal with the label here. But there were a couple of people at the hearing on Tuesday who I think were bona fide nutcases, regardless of how real their grievances were. And they obviously had grievances against the T that were likely legitimate, that they have been nursing–for years, it seems. And they show up at public hearings periodically to get publicity for their “cause.”

When they step up to the mic and get going, you soon realize they inhabit one of those worlds within worlds–so individual and labyrinthine—there is no way to get there from here, and no way for them to get here from there. They bang on relentlessly, telling their mostly unintelligible stories, and all we can glean from them is that they have been terribly wronged and that there is no recourse for them and no justice because no one understands them and no one cares.

It is a poignant part of almost every public meeting like this. Inevitable to the point of ritual.

The hearing was held in the mezzanine meeting room in the Johnson Building of the Boston Public Library, a room that can hold only 100 people, whereas there is an auditorium in the building (the Rabb lecture hall) which can accommodate almost four times that. While there were not four hundred people, there were more than a hundred, and many were locked out of the hearing, forced to wait in the corridor until those who had signed up to speak had said their piece and left. As one speaker left, one person waiting to enter was allowed in. But not given the opportunity to speak.

Many did not hesitate to question the MBTA’s motives in booking such a small room, and holding the hearing so early in the day, making it as difficult as possible for people to attend. State Senator Jarrett Barrios called the proceedings “cynical,” a point I echoed in my own comments for the record, and in retrospect, one I would apply as much to Deval Patrick’s cursory appearance there as to the MBTA’s.

Patrick showed no real interest in the details of the proposal, and his contention that with higher gas prices the T should be recruiting drivers to mass transit conveniently ignores the T’s own dependence on petrol. It just doesn’t address a very central part of the problem. His speech was pure populist pap. Which isn’t to say I won’t vote for him in the fall. He’s still the cutest candidate on the ballot.

Senator Barrios, on the other hand, has done his research. But while I guess he’s cute enough, unfortunately the consensus seems to be that he’s not quite as cute as Deval Patrick. It’s funny. Once the testimy got under way, the MBTA called on any public officials present to comment first. And up strides Deval, who, despite a high public profile, is not a public official as of yet. So Barrios had to wait until Deval had done his bit before he could get the floor.

Barrios, a member of the Joint Committee on Transportation, seemed truly passionate in his opposition to the proposed fare hikes. He pointed out that the room was too small and drew out of that a nice metaphor for locking the public out of the process.

He brought up specific points that he said have led him to become somewhat skeptical of the MBTA’s motives. He pointed out that the exact same “service enhancements” being used to justify this increase were used to justify the last increase. He questioned whether the T’s financial situation was quite as bleak as they’ve painted it, or whether they are, in fact, exaggerating it to, again, justify increases that might not be absolutely necessary at this point.

He contradicted the T’s assertion that their security spending has increased since 9/11, implying that they had no scruples in using that catastrophe, as well, to justify fare hikes. “You’ve actually downsized your police force,” he said. “So I’m not sure which increases you’re talking about.”

He reiterated a point I’ve heard him make several times before: that the T should come to the legislature for help. He asked the MBTA, “should T riders be expected to be the sole source of your new revenue? Should T riders bear the whole cost when T riders aren’t even the primary beneficiaries of this…mass transit system?… all of us in the Commonwealth are beneficiaries.”

He then advised, “here’s what I think is appropriate for the T: before you ask the T riders to bear the full cost of your losses, to come back to the legislature and propose to us that all residents of the Commonwealth, all who benefit from mass transit, because of better air, because of parking, because of less traffic, and have the legislature go back and have the Commonwealth … at the State level, help you out of your debt, before you increase fares on the T.”

Well done, Senator.

Barrios was followed by State Senator Pat Jehlen, who was clearly gellin’, and voiced her opposition to the fare increase, though not as wonkishly as Barrios. On the issue of lobbying the legislature, she said: “I understand that you yourself cannot come and ask us, but I am saying that as a legislator I will work with you… to make sure that we can relieve your debt burden.”

Finally, Green Rainbow Party candidate for Governor Grace Ross, who is also, with all due respect, not as cute as Deval Patrick, and who was running late and missed the rally, took the mic, expressing her “solidarity with the people who have not been allowed into the room.” Hmm. She said raising fares was essentially a tax on people who were already strapped for money, and suggested that big companies that have garnered sweetheart tax reductions for building downtown should kick in, since they benefit from the T as much as anyone. Here, here, Grace! You go, girl.

For the record, although, of course, Kerry Healey didn’t deign to come down to the hearing, or even to issue a direct comment, her stance, according to a spokesman (according the the Glob): “Ultimately it’s up to the T to set their fares to the appropriate costs. We certainly hope [the final fare increase] is lower than what’s being proposed. We also don’t think the solution is to go back to the taxpayers and ask for additional subsidies for the T.” Very creative, Kerry. Good use of the word “subsidies”!

Tune in tomorrow for more scenes from the hearing.

In the meantime, check out my semi-regular bullshit round-up, HERE.