Whoopsie! MBTA Offends the Wrong Guy

Nothing really seems to change on the T because most of the people riding it are ordinary schlubs like us. We "write to the top," and our letters escape into the void of transportation bureaucracy.

Until now. Paul Levy, President and Chief Executive Officer of Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center, posted a letter to Universal Hub about a Green Line Ride From Hell.

The entire letter is available at Universal Hub, but, in short, Levy hopped a packed Green Line train intending to go to Longwood. Once he boarded, the driver changed the route and turned the car into an Express to Fenway, thereby frustrating Levy and a whole bunch of people who didn't want to go to Fenway. In the end, the driver just made everyone who wanted to go to Longwood – as they expected to do when they boarded – get off and wait for the next train. Anger ensued.

Levy, an Important Person, actually rides the T to work. Now that's our kind of guy. Maybe if Important People rode the T a little more often, then problems would be fixed faster.

Levy's also quite kind. He thinks the T is so bad that he worried about Dan Grabauskas' safety in his comment on Universal Hub:

I really like Dan Grabauskas, and I know he is trying hard to improve the T. But can I offer a suggestion? Take down those really big pictures of yourself at the T stations -- you know, the ones of you standing in front of the American flag -- because I fear for the personal abuse you will take if people get to know what you look like and recognize you on the street.

Charlie on the MBTA proposes a simple solution if Grabauskas wants to protect himself – he should resign: "It really is time for the T to go out and hire a transit professional to be General Manager and not a political hack."

Bad Transit spoke with Levy, and Levy also pinpointed the MBTA's problems on politics: "It hasn’t been since Dukakis that we had a governor that cared about the T... My hope about our new Governor, Deval Patrick, is that he believes in public transportation the way Mike Dukakis did." Hear that, Deval?

Image of Dan Grabauskas from MBTA. If he's willing to post his mug all over the MBTA stops, we may as well post it, too.