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Workers in bright blue vests will staff the T tomorrow to guide middle-school kids to their appointed destinations

City and state officials hold a press conference in Maverick Square this morning to highlight steps to ensure the safety of BPS middle-school students who will have to take the T to get to school this year instead of the traditional yellow buses.

Among the thing regular T riders will notice, according to Mayor Walsh's office:

The StopWatch Program will be present at designated locations on the MBTA to assist in making the transition successful all students. The StopWatch Program is made up of youth advocacy agencies including the Boston Center for Youth and Families, StreetSafe, Suffolk Juvenile Probation, City Year members, Clergy, MBTA and City of Boston Transportation officials as well as school officials and law enforcement officers.

More than 50 BPS staff wearing blue vests and additional City Year members in red jackets will be "safety ambassadors" at key MBTA hubs in September. These teams will assist students and help answer questions. Locations include Forest Hills, Fields Corner, JFK/UMass, Bunker Hill, Maverick, Tufts Medical, Sullivan Square stations and other major student transit hubs.

Also, BPS will run 70 yellow-bus shuttle routes between schools and several large MBTA stations: Forest Hills, Mattapan Square, Ruggles, Fields Corner, Ashmont, Maverick, Sullivan Square and Andrew. The goal is to reduce the burden on the T of all those new riders.

Some 2,100 eighth graders will be riding the T this year instead of school buses. Nearly 17,000 BPS students were already riding the T - including many seventh and eighth-graders at the city's three exam schools.

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Comments

Good thing they'll have someone watching over them

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W-w-what? 14 year-olds are given an opportunity to start becoming independent...? What is this, Europe?

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Kids that age are already smoking, drunk, on drugs, screwing around, and shooting each other. Why the heck do they need hand holding to ride the MBTA?

Is the MBTA really THAT SCARY!!!!111?

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Good gracious! Do you actually know any kids? If you did, you would know that MOST kids are not smoking, drinking and shooting people. The majority are traveling to school, not drunk, not high, and not carrying.

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on the MBTA was some of those students.

Think of the number of times Forest Hills turned into chaos because one school decided to West Side Story it out with another school, or some such nonsense. Or Downtown Crossing between 3-6 pm.

I'd take Sob Story Guy over Teenager With Underdeveloped Prefrontal Cortex and Jacked Up On Testosterone Looking to Prove Himself as a Macho Dude any day.

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I think you just made my point. If YOU think some kids are scary to you as an adult, how do you think kids, who are not part of the 'west side story' reenactment feel?

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I know far too many locals.. who grew up in the immediate suburbs (Somerville, Revere, Stoneham, etc) and never set foot on the T until they were almost adults. Some, even, never went into the city until they were adults.

I never understood (at least this country bumpkin transplant) how you could live so close and never get into the city and/or ride the subway.

But I do agree.. with all the media and stuff today, tweens are exposed to so much stuff far sooner than they really should be.

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Where the union is very, very strongly against 'SPY Technology!' such as GPS and cameras. After all, why shouldn't they have the right to privacy as they drive around in a publicly funded bus with a bunch of minors. It's not anyone else's business but their own what they do with their time.

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Student CharlieCards this year are good seven days a week, not just five as in the past. If it encourages kids to explore their city, yay.

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If they get used to riding the T to go out (and have a good experience) they'll continue to support it as they get older.

Similar to Microsoft offering students free software. They get you hooked young, so you'll buy it when you're older.

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when I was going to school, the cards were useless after 9pm

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While I appreciate the concerns some if you have regarding these children's lives being hindered by this type of hand holding, I am glad to see some extra adults around who are willing to help our children.

The MBTA may seem like a safe island In this beautiful city we call Boston to some of you, but for our kids oftentimes this is not the case. The people who prey on children are probably not visible to you because they aren't interested in robbing or harassing adults. They are looking for someone smaller and closer to their age. Unfortunately, I've known a few kids who have been robbed or harassed on the T on their way to school and it is a real thing.

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If the kids act up and start fighting what is the role of the safety ambassadors? If the cops overreact and start tossing the kids out of the stations what is the role of the safety ambassadors?

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actually Stop Watch was invented to bring more public safety with less student arrests.

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