On the T: Wi-Fi and Low Crime
Both visitors to and residents of Boston have something to get happy about these days as the MBTA spreads news about two commendable developments: the testing of free wireless Internet access on the commuter rail line and a record ten-year low in the violent crime rate on Massachusetts’ public transportation system.
In the first case, starting this Wednesday, the MBTA will make Wi-Fi service available on the Worcester/Framingham commuter line, one of the busiest lines in the commuter rail system. As a result, passengers will presumably have the ability to do just about anything they normally could on their Internet-ready computers, such as surf the Web and watch online videos.
I only hope everybody keeps in mind that “free” and “public” is usually synonymous with “vulnerable” and “security issues,” so beef up your computer’s defenses accordingly. Just say a deafening no to online banking and paying bills electronically on the way in and out of the city; I probably wouldn’t even dare check my email or anything else that requires a password.
In the second case, the MBTA announced today that violent crime on Massachusetts’ trains and buses reached a ten-year low in 2007. The decrease in assaults, murders, rapes, and robberies is a whopping 18.5 percent from 2006, which means that “the probability of someone being a victim of a crime on the MBTA is less than one in 400,000 passengers” now, according to Acting Transit Police Chief Paul MacMillan.
The lower rates are attributed to a recent program that has transit policemen patrolling the same areas on a regular basis instead of rotating geographically, as well as the installation of cameras in high-traffic areas and a public-service program called See Something, Say Something that urges passengers to report any misdeeds or suspicious events they encounter while commuting.
This is the kind of news that should convince travelers who plan on visiting Boston to feel assured they’ll be safe, although I have to add that I’ve never felt unsafe on the T—a decade or two frequenting the public transit system in metropolitan New York can have that effect on a person. In fact, my greatest MBTA dream has nothing even remotely to do with crime.
After nearly getting frostbite or sunburn while waiting for a bus to arrive on more occasions than I can count, I simply wish MBTA personnel would manage to make the darn buses and trains run on time more than twice a day. And, please, start with the #69 bus in Cambridge, which you’d think would nearly always arrive in a punctual fashion since 90 percent of the route basically consists of traveling up and down Cambridge Street in a straight line (but, of course, you’d be thinking way wrong). When that news story breaks, then I’ll jump up and down with joy.
Tags: boston, buses, commuter-rail, commuting, crime, crime rates, internet access, massachusetts, massachusetts-bay-transportation-authority, mbta, new england, public safety, public-transportation, safety, trains, violent crime, wi fi, wireless internet, wireless internet accessRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Getting Around - Local Transportation
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