T PASS PLAY
Tardiness, safety concerns as BPS pushes more students to ride on troubled system
Boston Public Schools is pushing another 10,000 students to take the delay- and derailment-plagued MBTA to and from school, raising concerns about both tardiness and safety.
City councilors said they’re worried that the schools’ reliance on the beleaguered transit agency will cause problems for the nearly 30,000 students who now can get free passes. The T has been struggling with serious Red Line problems and chronic reliability issues and is planning a massive, disruptive repair program to begin this fall.
“I have serious concerns about the MBTA’s ability to handle the influx of thousands of Boston Public Schools children when schools reopen in a couple of weeks,” City Councilor At-Large Michael Flaherty told the Herald on Monday. “BPS kids and their families will be depending on the T to get them to and from school safely and on time.”
Last year, the district made free T passes available to about 19,000 of the district’s roughly 54,000 students, despite a report from City Councilor At-Large Michelle Wu’s office last December saying the T’s well-documented delays often caused them to be late to school. But the schools are now eliminating distance requirements — 1.5 miles for middle schoolers and 2 miles for high schoolers — and making all nonelementary students eligible for T passes. That is expected to add as many as 10,000 students to the ailing transit system.
BPS spokeswoman Jessica Ridlen said BPS has been working with the T to accommodate the new riders, and that both will be monitoring routes.
Newly hired Superintendent Brenda Cassellius said in a statement that the expanded T pass program “will increase transportation access for all students in grades 7-12 and that it “brings the ‘city as a classroom’ concept to life, allowing students to more easily access the city’s parks, museums, libraries, after school programs, job opportunities and more. BPS … will continue to be in close communication with the MBTA and our fellow city agencies about their plans to ensure a smooth rollout.”
City councilors remain concerned.
“When kids are getting to school late because the MBTA isn’t dependable, that’s a problem,” said City Councilor At-Large Annissa Essaibi-George, whose own kids will now be taking the T.
Essaibi-George said that while she believes the T is a relatively safe system, “As a mom, I get anxious when my kids get on the T alone … There are incidents that happen that would concern any parent of school-age kids.”
The T has often been the scene of assaults as well as lewdness complaints. But T spokesman Joe Pesaturo said the system has “some of the lowest crime rates in many years” and added that the state is investing $8 billion to make the T more reliable.
Pesaturo said, “Ridership always increases in September and the T adjusts its service delivery levels accordingly. The T works closely with BPS to help make sure students get to school and back home safely and efficiently.”
The T is planning weekend closures at major downtown stations this fall — and General Manager Steve Poftak said weekday closures could be possible, with repairs extending into 2020.
Ruby Reyes of the Boston Education Justice Alliance said Superintendent Cassellius — who recently moved from Minnesota — “may not understand the severity” of the MBTA mess.
“People don’t realize the level of concern our parents have,” said Reyes.
“We do need to have conversations with the T, making sure we are getting our young people to school safely and reliably,” said District 6 City Councilor Matt O’Malley. “Public transit is a good way to get kids to school, particularly high schools — provided that the T is working well and that there are no derailments.”