Orange Line

MBTA Transit Police report arresting a convicted sex offender whom they say was urinating in the middle of an Orange Line platform at Downtown Crossing yesterday afternoon.

Police say a woman "in an excited and shocked state" went up to two officers looking for fare evaders around 4:45 p.m. to alert them that a guy was urinating on the northbound platform and that she had gotten a look at his penis.

According to a police report, the officers got to him in mid-stream and told him to stop urinating, which he did. He was then arrested on a charge of indecent exposure. During booking, police say, they discovered that William Gibbons, 48, had an outstanding warrant for failing to register as a sex offender. According to the Sex Offender Registry Board, Gibbon was convicted in 1994 for indecent assault and battery on a child under 14.

Innocent, etc.

A couple of Orange Line riders.

Via Reddit Boston.

MBTA Transit Police report arresting a Somerville man for an attack on two women on the Orange Line last month.

Joseph Balistreri, 36, was arrested at his home around 1:30 p.m. today after Transit Police say they received numerous tips from people who recognized him from grainy photos posted yesterday. Balistreri will be arraigned Monday in Charlestown District Court on charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon - a shod foot.

According to an MBTA police report, the women said they were sitting on an inbound train near Sullivan around 11 p.m. on Nov. 19 when Balistreri approached them and called both of them "lesbians" and one of them a "nigger:"

Both victims then stated that the suspect kicked them both, hitting [one victim] in the bottom lip, causing the laceration and swelling and [the other victim] in the chest. After the altercation, the suspect spat on both the faces of [the victims] and left the station in an unknown direction of flight.

The report says video cameras showed he gotten on the train about ten minutes earlier by jumping over the fare gates at Malden.

He is currently being held in lieu of $7,500 bail, the MBTA reports.

Read the police report on the incident.

Innocent, etc.

UPDATE: Somerville man arrested.

MBTA Transit Police report two women riding the Orange Line between Malden and Sullivan Square around 11 p.m. on Nov. 19 were kicked and spit on by a man who also "made homophobic and racial slurs" toward them.

He fled the train at Sullivan Square in an unknown direction, police say. If found, he'll face charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

If he looks familiar, contact police at 617-222-1212 x 1052.

People arriving at Forest Hills station today were puzzled by the sudden appearance of a vending machine selling digital cameras, iPods, GPSes, Bose headphones and video games (and, of course, portable devices to play them on). Knots of people kept congregating around the new "Best Buy Express" machine to gawk.

And then the questions started. "What's that doing at Forest Hills?" one guy exclaimed as he walked by. A girl went up to one of the T cops hanging around by the old information booth to ask how they'd keep people from getting jumped after they'd just bought, say, a $300 digital camera.

The guy who installed the thing this morning actually gave me and the kidlet a brief tour of its security features - from the special anti-smash-and-grab plastic film he'd put on the front to the way it uses a robot arm to grab your selection, located relatively far away from the front. He added there's now a similar machine at Alewife. And then we impressed, OK, bored, the kidlet with tales of our youth, when all you could get from vending machines were bottles of Coke and cigarettes.

I've done up a multi-page web site on an alternative to the proposed Green Line extension into Somerville and Medford. I'd like to get some feedback, and/or otherwise promote it. The alternative isn't dissing the use of the Green Line, merely making better use of it than the GLX will do. The current price tag for the GLX is a mind boggling, highly exorbitant expenditure for a short extension of a light rail tram in an already owned rail corridor.

There are no words to describe the size of the ripoff that is the GLX. For $10 billion the Swiss bore TWO tunnels, each 30' wide and 35 miles long, yes, 35 MILES, through the mountains, TWO of em. The price tag actually includes another 24 miles of connecting and support tunnels. The tunnels are sized for HIGH SPEED trains to be traveling at well over 160 miles an hour (which is the minimum in the EU for high speed rail).

A 16-year-old was stabbed and another teen attacked during an altercation at the Forest Hills MBTA station around 3 p.m., T spokesman Joe Pesaturo said. Both were taken to local hospitals for treatment; both are expected to survive.

He said a third teen was arrested in connection with one of the attacks. Transit Police are continuing to investigate.

Orange Line service was being bussed between Wellington and Oak Grove earlier today.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/11/woman_hit_by_tr.html?p1=Local_Links

AlertNewEngland reports why Orange Line riders are being bused between Wellington and Oak Grove tonight.

MBTA Transit Police report this guy snatched an iPhone away from an Orange Line rider easy-peasey on Oct. 23:

Victim was on a Northbound train and when the doors opened at Haymarket Station the suspect grabbed the victim's iPhone from his hand and fled out of the station.

Guy look familiar? Contact Transit Police at 617-222-1069.

MBTA Transit Police report this guy's been busy of late at both North and South stations:

The suspect tells the victim he just purchased a $1,000.00 winning lottery ticket, has to catch a train, and will take $200 for the ticket as he has no time to cash it. Thirty individuals have reported to Lottery Headquarters with these counterfeit tickets as victims of this scheme.

He's described as white, about 5'10" and 200 lbs. If you spot him, Transit Police and the Lottery Commission would like to have a word with him. Drop a dime to Det. Matthew Haney at 617-222-1178.

No way are they going to let some trolley line upstage them, nuh uh! That seems as good a reason as any to explain why Orange Line signals - which the T spent several years repairing - are malfunctioning at Wellington this morning, causing all sorts of issues for riders.

Strolling by Back bay station my partner and I were alerted by a nice Boston Police Officer that a madman had stabbed several passengers last night. We decided to take a cab downtown.

If you have trouble waking up in the morning, nothing beats one of the frantic shoutouts from an Orange Line operator to people messing with train doors. David Weininger tweets this morning:

Just heard from very distressed MBTA operator on Orange Line: "Don't throw your baby through the doors, please."

Twittering T riders are all a-tweet about this guy who's spent the last couple of days roaming the Orange and Green lines announcing to each car he enters that he needs money to get back to Springfield for an appointment with his probation officer. MBTA Transit Police would like to have a word with him.

ChinatownKicks took this awesome shot of the entrance to the old Essex stop on the Orange Line.

Copyright ChinatownKicks. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

If you peer into the ugly gray pillbox on the edge of the parking lot at Washington and Hayward Place, you can still see the tile "Essex" from back in the day when it was an entrance to the Essex stop on the Orange Line. No doubt there's a perfectly good reason the entrance (and the similar exit a bit down Essex) still exist even though the T moved the entrances to the "new" Chinatown stop in the 1980s. Like maybe, late at night, after the T's shut down, T elves use them to knit those seat covers for the Red and Orange lines.

Matt Kurkowski spotted the construction at Oak Grove on the Orange Line:

Oh my God, IS DONUT & DONUTS REOPENING?? (Still best name ever.)

Tim Murray, Catch the T developer Jared Egan and T GM Richard Davey at Ruggles today.

MBTA and state officials today announced the release of real-time data on three of the system's four subway lines, along with plans to install monitors showing train and bus arrival info at every station where subways and buses connect.

Over the next several weeks, application developers who have already built smartphone and other apps for bus arrivals will use the new data for similar train-based services. At a ceremony at the Ruggles stop on the Orange Line, Catch the Bus builder Jared Egan showed off his upcoming Catch the T app.

MBTA General Manager Richard Davey said the Green Line was left out because, unlike the other three lines, buses and commuter rail, its trains do not have the sort of tracking systems in place to allow accurate predictions of when trains will arrive in a station. It's the same reason you don't hear "the next train to [wherever] is now approaching" announcements on the Green Line - the new real-time data is based on that announcement system for the other three lines.

Davey said real-time tracking of commuter rail trains could be just a few months away.

He added that monitors unwrapped today at Ruggles and Back Bay will eventually be joined by similar monitors at other key stations.

Matt Kurkowski spotted this on one of those four-part monitors that sprouted at the ends of underground Orange Line stations a few months back, in this case at Back Bay:

GPS tracking for the Orange Line?! HAVE I DIED & GONE TO TRANSIT HEAVEN?? (Or another city?)

You may recall how MBTA GM Richard Davey promised to start work on train tracking once the bus-tracking system was done.

City Councilor Ayanna Pressley tells Adrian Walker about the guy who offered her some work at Back Bay station a few weeks ago - and that she worries about the women who don't turn him down:

"You look good and I like your walk," he told her. "You should consider working for me."

Rob Larsen has posted hundreds of photos of Boston-area graffiti.

Meanwhile, Jonas Prang sighs that people like the ones Larsen follows are the reason we can't have nice things, specifically, a mural at the Roxbury Crossing T stop.

The Globe reports on the incident, around 10:30 p.m. yesterday.

GuardadoMBTA Transit Police report arresting one man on charges he pawed a woman who turned down his offer of cash for sex as they headed north from Ruggles and another on charges he grabbed a woman's butt and gave a squeeze as they both exited the train at State Street.

Jose Guardado Reyes of Roxbury was arrested Monday for the alleged attack on the northbound train around midnight. According to a police report, he boarded the train at Ruggles with the victim and offered her $100 to have sex with him. When she refused, the report says, he grabbed one of her breasts and tried to take her tank top down, then began grabbing between her legs. For good measure, police say, he exposed himself to her.

He was charged with indecent assault and battery, failing to register as a sex offender and open and gross lewdness, police say, adding he is also wanted by the feds as an illegal immigrant.

Jaewon Kim was arrested for the State Street attack on Tuesday at North Station by transit police, based in part on surveillance video from State Street. He was charged with indecent assault and battery for allegedly grabbing the woman's right buttock and then squeezing it around 9 a.m. on Monday.

He was charged with indecent assault and battery.

Innocent, etc.

Late-night Orange Line riders had their trip through Roxbury Crossing delayed shortly after midnight when a man fell on the tracks at Roxbury Crossing and the MBTA stopped service to let EMTs get him off the tracks. T spokesman Joe Pesaturo said he was not hit by a train and did not come into contact with the third rail.