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T employees more aggressively enforcing non-existent policy against photographers
By adamg on Sat, 09/26/2009 - 1:04pm
Eric Kilby reports:
I was given a hard time last night by an inspector at the Haymarket bus platform, as I was trying to get a shot of the Government Center garage. The light was interesting. He said that he was instructed to tell people to get a permit or go away. I told him that there was a memo, but I didn't have a copy, and he said he hadn't heard of it. I thanked him for looking out for our safety and left, because it really wasn't worth the trouble to argue. He said it would be ok if I took like 5 steps back so I was on the public sidewalk and not the MBTA sidewalk (the texture was different), which seems kind of odd.
This comes a couple days after another T worker harassed some poor tourist for daring to take a photo inside Back Bay station.
If the T has suddenly changed its photo policy, you'd think they'd update the online version, no? Oh, wait, this is an agency that's only now updating 40-year-old maps ...
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Comments
You can urinate on a train
You can urinate on a train platform, sleep drunkenly on a vehicle floor, shout obscenities, jump a fare gate--all with no official attention whatsoever. But take a photo--get harassed. That's T security in a nutshell.
As if terrorists could do worse in shutting down our transit system and dissuading people from using it than the T itself does every day.
Ad hoc smoking policy at Sullivan Square this afternoon
Two people were smoking on the inbound side. T worker comes downstairs and goes up to the short woman standing by herself right in front of a no-smoking sign (rather than the tall, beefy dude with his tall, beefy friends 10 feet away) and says:
"If you want to smoke you should go all the way down to the end of the platform."
She looks at him like, "Oh, was that a breeze that just went by?" He repeats himself. She continues to smoke and ignore him even as she stares right at him. Then the train comes in, she flicks her butt somewhere (didn't see where, was too busy watching Beefo make a point of flicking his lit butt into some weeds), gets on the train.
It's Simple: The MBTA Has Something to Hide.
I was once harassed about taking pictures when I arrived at what turned out to be a very sleazy motel. The room was in disrepair and the maids never changed the towels or linens. Several times during my stay there I had to complain to the front desk, and I wasn't even in my room most of the day. In retrospect, the person behind the desk probably thought I was either an undercover investigator/reporter or would send my photos to one once I realized how sleazy that dump was.
So how does this relate to "The Route of All FAIL", aka the MBTA? It's simple really: they probably thought that the person photographing at Haymarket wanted to submit the photos to FOX Undercover, Hank Phillippi Ryan, the Massachusetts Department of Safety, or even the Boston Metro. We all know that the MBTA has had some high profile accidents recently, not to mention that the Green Line is so unreliable at times one may wonder if there is another "secret strike" going on. The MBTA's executives are corrupt, even in the wake of Dan Grabauskas resigning. The MBTA's Union is corrupt, and has even filed a frivolous lawsuit in an attempt to block the transportation reform overhaul. The last thing the MBTA probably wants right now is to be featured in another undercover investigation, whether it's about how unsafe their stations are (in the event of a REAL emergency) or how they deliberately delay certain trains on certain days on certain routes as part of a "silent strike" in protest over the transportation reform overhaul.
sounds familiar
As long as it's not "worth the trouble to argue" this will only get worse. People so readily refuse to stand up for what's right.
No Policy Change
This problem resurfaces every time there is some new terror threat announced. It is not happening just in Boston.
The sad fact is that few MBTA employees - and even some of the MBTA Police - don't know the policy. Even then some will attempt to bamboozle you with what ever comes to mind in hopes they can fake you out.
All you need is proper ID - a driver's license if questioned.
The ACLU has sent letters to the MBTA on more than one occasion when things like this have happened before and the MBTA keeps backing down. At some point it will take a court case and an order from a judge to make it stick.
Any person on public property can take any picture of any public property. Regardless of standing on the bus platform area or not, if it is in the open air it is public knowledge and subject to open photography the same as a newpaper might do.
What is interesting here is that you were not photographing MBTA property but something else.
In all seriousness, this uninformed inspector was interfering with your rights to document and publish, a federal, constitutional offense.
They tried it with me a week ago
I was photographing a Charlie card Machine when a Transit Officer came up to tell me I couldn't do that. I very politely asked him if he would call his supervisor and ask the supervisor to read the MBTA transit policy policy on photographs to him.
I offered to show him the copy of the text of it that I keep on my cell phone. He grumbled something and left me alone.
You need a law to prohibit something
Smoking and spitting are banned on the MBTA under the Massachusetts General Laws. These are laws passed by the General Court, i.e. the elected legislature of Massachusetts.
The director or police chief of the MBTA does not have law making authority. He is not the dictator of the MBTA.
It's really that simple.
They don't have a problem
They don't have a problem with people taking pictures when it's a pic of a gropper riding the Orange or Red line.
Maybe I should start bringing my new camera with me...
...to photograph the scam artists who scream and yell that they need money for fare to a rehab in Springfield when he's headed in the northbound direction towards Malden. Emmy-award performance, complete with crying, and all it garnered him was a buck. I see him all the time and the venues of where he's supposed to get said treatment changes all the time - as close as Charlestown and as far away as Providence. Professional scammers have their pitch all prepared...and it's all for money. Whether or not it goes up his nose, into his veins or into his bank account, I don't know, but it really pisses me off that this scumbag plays off people's emotions.
Was it me, or is there something in the rain that wrings out all the lunatics on our public transit system? Along with scammy guy, there was also a woman with a black eye and a aircast, hobbling around a Green Line train. By then, I had my fill and I knew it was time to head for home.
There's a lady who routinely
There's a lady who routinely rides the Red Line and typically takes the Charles to Kendall leg or the Kendall to Central leg to announce to everyone that her purse got stolen and she needs money for bus fare to get back to Danbury. Sometimes it's Albany.
What she ought to get is a more secure purse cause sheesh it's like happening to her all the time.
Her sister
Yes, and her sister needs money to get to Hyannis, based on my experiences.
Sounds like we need a flash mob of photogs on the T
Swarm the T to show how absurd this unwritten policy is?
Interesting contrast... I
Interesting contrast...
I was in NYC back in July, and my gf and I wandered around photographing Grand Central Station without an issue. What makes it more interesting is that this was while SWAT, NYPD, and National Guard were crawling over the place securing it for a press conference with Mayor Bloomberg and the Secretary of DHS. Even took photos of various officers and the bigwigs and no one batted an eye.