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sooner or later
T management dismisses blogging as noise in the same way that some companies dismiss the complaints of customers. This article on Boston.com demonstrates that we really do represent the sentiments of the population at large.
I look at the all the postings about as free market research for the T. It's too bad they don't recognize it for what it is.
Wired magazine recent spent an entire issue on social networking and the future of advertising and market research. Blogging and consumer provided content represent the current direction. Locally elected representatives beware. Your elected positions are the only other vehicle we have for expressing our dissatisfaction with our government agencies and commissions.
In my many years of
In my many years of babysitting, I can tell you this is not a rare occurance. I had a nightmare about being separated from the kids before it ever happened to me, and luckily I've never lost a kid to an over-eager schedule-driven T driver before. But I've had some close calls. A month or so ago I watched a mother loading her kids in, and the doors started closing on a four or five year old girl. Her mother got on, but the girl was badly frightened-- she cried for a while.
I guess since the T has no plans to actually do anything, parents should discuss how if they should get seperated from their caregiver, they should either find the driver (on the Green line) or get off and wait at the next stop or find a T official. While it sounds silly, it's good to have a plan so your kids don't feel totally powerless.
Plan? What's that?
You are totally right. It is important to let kids know the stop you are heading for, as well as how to go to uniformed people for help and to get off at the next stop and wait if they don't see you.
These plans also work if you are travelling with two adults and two kids. My husband had the older kid and managed to get up to a door and onto a train, without noticing that I was shut out in the crowd. Cel phones don't work on the T, so we had a plan in place. Once he bothered to notice that I wasn't right behind him (he had the more able child with him), he got off at the next stop and waited for me to wave from a train before he got on.
The trolley driver was an
The trolley driver was an asshole/idiot, no question, and should be disciplined for asshattery hazards. But NOWHERE in Mac's column is there anything about how this parent did not follow the rules for strollers on the T: take the kid out and FOLD THE STROLLER UP!
This is a pet peeve of mine. I have two kids and we joy rode the T all the time when they were tiny and loved trains. I used to use a backpack on the T for the little one so I could board easily with the toddler. I also used a SMALL stroller when they got bigger, which I folded before the train came and carried the kid on. It isn't hard to do so long as you don't pack the whole house with you or fill the stroller with 27,000 Filene's Basement bags.
I followed the rules because I saw parents with strollers who were being very rude, taking up the whole aisle for a 20lb dumpling and what usually amounts to a gigantic shopping cart. I have seen people shove a stroller aboard into the legs of a crowd of other passengers and make the whole train wait while getting all huffy because "all these mean people won't move for a bayyyybee". Rubbish. I have also seen parents with kids either small enough to be carried or plenty old enough to walk or stand totally hog the wheelchair space bitch about how they should have special rights because they have a small child with them.
Like 90% of the sensible regulations on the T and in MA as a whole, the stroller rules never seem to get enforced. Much more fun for T personnel to single out and harass a cyclist riding the T well within his or her rights than confront some arrogant parent with a little bundle of entitlement.
If she didn't have so many
If she didn't have so many kids she could've got on.
No more family-friendliness, this is a train station, not a pre-school.
It ain't the number of kids
It is the lack of planning and thinking about the limitations of the young'uns. I have travelled with as many as three or four kids under five, without incident. This family had two adults. Grandma could have held the baby, mom could have held the stroller. Or grandma could have held the older kid's hand while mom had the baby in one hand, stroller in the other.
I have missed trains and taken the next one so I could fold and hold. I used to have a strap on the umbrella stroller so I could sling it and take a 2 year old in one hand, 4 year old on my elbow, another four year old on the other hand. We would board as a unit, backpack of supplies on my back and stroller slung across my shoulders. I consider delays and planning to be part of the journey with small ones. Much easier to hang back, get organized, and then approach the train with everyone under control and nobody even close to running past that yellow line!
Then again, I'm not the least bit afraid to bodycheck any earphone addled student in a crowd who tries to smoosh my kid away from me because they don't bother to see there is another person there and try to push into the space. I've used elbows and stomped on toes with doc martens to make this point.
The T is responsible for safety, even so. There is absolutely no excuse for what happened. Even if the parent was clueless and didn't have her plan together, the driver has to wait if people are still getting on the train. Period.They provide no guidance for those wishing a safe trip with small children - no signs, nothing on the web, nothing. In other cities, you at least get signs warning you to fold the stroller and keep kids at hand.
I hope you get old someday
I'd love to watch you react to somebody saying "too bad you broke your leg when the train door shut and started moving. You're just too old. This is a train station, not a retirement home".
Take out the words "children" and "preschool" and drop in "handicapped" and "rehabilatition hospital" and you get the standard Bostonian attitude toward people with varying physical abilities.