Riders bail on broken Blue Line
It was more havoc yet again for people who rely on the embattled MBTA’s trains and buses for work, appointments and getting around the city when a power outage shut down part of the Blue Line Wednesday morning.
Passengers were evacuated from trains and crowds of commuters waited in the muggy temperatures for buses at East Boston’s Maverick station to Bowdoin station.
A 5-year-old boy from Chelsea missed a longawaited camp field trip to the Museum of Science. Margarita Vernaza was taking her son, Max, to the Berkeley Street camp when the trains stopped running at Maverick station and they waited an hour for a train.
It was too late. The campers had already left for the museum.
Max was sad. His mother was sad — and frustrated.
“A lot of people are angry,” said Vernaza, who criticized the recent T fare hike. “More money for the same service.”
Stefanie Penney, 28, took the T to work for years but started using Lyft in March to get to her job at Assembly Row. “I like to be on time for work,” said Penney, who lives in Revere. “I don’t want to risk it. I’m almost never late so I want to keep it that way.”
Penney said it cost about $10 more a day to take a Lyft to work but she’s not getting docked pay for being late because of late or broken trains.
“It’s worth it if I’m not going to be late,” Penney said. “A boss is a boss. They’re going to think what they think and they’re going to probably think you’re (lying) if you’re saying it’s always the train.”
John Cinelli, 52, a construction worker who has lived in East Boston all his life, takes the train to Roxbury. At Maverick station Wednesday, Cinelli said T service is “horrible everyday.”
“You don’t have big enough trains for the volume of the people,” said Cinelli.
Trains, he added, should start running earlier in the morning. If he has to be at work at 4 a.m, he has to shell out $35 for a cab to get there.
Like others, Cinelli fears losing his job because of the T’s unreliable service.
“They want to fire you. They think I’m playing games when it happens three or four times a week,” Cinelli said of telling his bosses the T made him late. “I work seven days a week. I can’t afford to stay home even for a day.”
Cinelli said he had to quit a job in Cambridge a few years ago because the Red Line service to and from the job site was so bad.
Day after day, there are more and more problems plaguing the T and it’s not fair to hard working commuters. T brass needs to hurry up and do more to better the system, especially after hiking fares.