News

After Red Line car jumped the tracks, people's patience off the rails

BOSTON — After a Red Line car jumped the tracks Tuesday, people's patience went off the rails.

“It’s kind of a joke this just happened and it’s happening again," said commuter Andrew Smith.

Kyle Andrews was impacted and so was his friend.

"He couldn’t get to school. He had to wait three hours. He couldn’t take a Lyft 2 miles because that was over 100 dollars," he said.

So Kyle and his friend drafted this petition and posted it on Change.org, demanding that the T freeze fares to fix problems.

"I don’t want to see the fares go up and I don’t want to see people struggle to get to work on time all the time," said Kyle.

They have nearly 3,000 signatures and are hoping for 10,000.

The T responded by owning up to the issues:

The MBTA fully understands and appreciates the frustration recently expressed by its riders. Customers deserve a level of service on which they can depend, and the T is strongly committed to providing it.  To that end, fare revenue helps fund the T's aggressive capital improvement program. - Joe Pesaturo, MBTA Spokesman

To make improvements, the T says fares must go up. Here are some done or in the works.

•    $875 million spent last year 
•    $8 billion on improvements through 2023
•    New Red & Orange Line fleet cars
•    23.5 miles of new Red Line track
•    Improvements will increase capacity

Some commuter think that's worth the wait.

"That’s kind of how things work. You gotta spend money to make infrastructure better," said Grace Fisher.