Did the MBTA Do Something Sensible? No!

In an astonishingly sensible move, the MBTA has lifted a policy limiting the use of reduced-fare Charlie Cards to specific gates. Now people with Senior, Transportation Access Pass/TAP, Blind Access, or RIDE CharlieCards can use their reduced-fare cards at any MBTA fare gate. There are about 176,000 MBTA riders with such cards. The policy dated from days when fare boxes actually accepted money, and MBTA workers checked reduced-fare cards as customers passed through reduced-fare gates and paid their special fare. Now that there's no need for workers to check cards, there's no need for the gates to be restricted. MBTA manager Dan Grabauskas seems to have actually listened when “A number of senior citizens asked us why, when trying to enter the station to catch a train, they should have to battle tourists with luggage, parents with baby carriages and other customers who are trying to exit through the same gate." In addition to fighting with regular-fare folk, Grabauskas said, “several customers who are blind and use guide dogs shared with us that while it is possible to train a guide dog to find the fare gate array, it is often extremely difficult if not impossible to teach the dog to find the one wider gate that is not positioned in the same location in every station. Customers who are blind and use a white cane had an equally challenging time locating the one gate that would accept their Blind Access Card throughout the subway system.” So does this mean the MBTA actually did something useful for its customers? Say it ain't so!