Ring of Steel: Fare Gates at BOS, BON, & BBY

Who's KCS? Surely not Kansas City Southern?

Kansas City Southern de Mexico, lol

Actually, Keolis Commuter Services

rethcir wrote: ↑Thu Oct 20, 2022 8:59 pm Are there “in out” privileges? Can you go in the gate area and come back out or is your ticket “punched” at that point

Once your ticket is scanned it cannot be used again. My guess is that is more in line with the pass back prevention that you have on a subway pass. You can't let multiple people in on your ticket.

I believe the policy is during major events the gates will not be in use. They will be open weekends for the rest of the month.

Isn't major events when the conductors are most overwhelmed & cannot collect the fares / lose the most fares?

I'm still confused by this... are the gates at the entrance doors between the concourse and the tracks, or are they where the Garden alleyway meets the "expanded waiting area"? I can see them at the track doors, cause once you pass through them, you're pretty much committed to getting on your train. If they're before you even get to the waiting area, that means you can't even get into the waiting area without a ticket?

At South Station, they'd have to be at the sliding doors to the tracks, right? There's businesses in the middle of the concourse, not to mention its a walkthrough to get from the bus terminal to the street.

I just can't imagine a station in Metro-North territory using this system... imagine Grand Central and the chaos that would result? Or LIRR/Penn Station at rush hour?

The gates at North Station are around the waiting area. Gates are not at the doors, that would be unsafe.

At South Station they will be in the new concourse created by the tower being built. That is why the platforms have been shortened.

Long term the gates will be used during events. To start while the bugs are worked out, they will not be.

sery2831 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 24, 2022 8:46 pm The gates at North Station are around the waiting area. Gates are not at the doors, that would be unsafe.

You're trapping people in a confined space; in an emergency people are going to panic and injure one another in their haste to get out. How is this not unsafe no matter where you put it?

Fare gates should never hinder someone from exiting. That is evil.

You don’t seem this passionate about this issue in the subway.

In an emergency they would all open if the fire alarm goes off and the emergency services (I was an EMT in Boston till 2018 and learned about these) have access to a switch that pops them all open.

You don't have to scan a card to exit the subway. The gates open immediately and let you out.

Man I guess WMATA, BART, MARTA, TfL, et al are just pure evil then.

I don't know or care about any of those places. What I'm observing is that an agency of my state, instead of trying to fix its seriously broken infrastructure and improve the piss-poor service it offers its customers, is spending my tax dollars to corral customers like cattle; where they used to be able to get up and go to the bathroom or get something in the food court, now they have to ask one of the guards nicely and maybe, is he's in a good mood, he'll let them through.

That sucks, folks. It's fascism. Hey, wouldn't you know it? There's an election in two weeks. I wonder how my state Senator and Representative feel about this.

danib62 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 25, 2022 1:29 pm Man I guess WMATA, BART, MARTA, TfL, et al are just pure evil then.

All of those transit agencies also have a side door/gate for emergency evacuations. I didn't see any at North station when I was last there, but I can't say for certain as to whether they have them or not.

I would imagine that there's some sort of special code or something that the ambassadors can input to open all the gates at the same time, in the event of an emergency

So you all are afraid that in the city where Coconut Grove happened that you think there is no emergency egress from the fare area? You're all joking right? You do realize there is a thing called fire codes?

Again, the fare gates are tied into the fire alarm system and automatically open when the alarm goes off. They’re also built so that they require power to stay closed. In the event of a loss of power they automatically pop open.

1.) There ARE push bar operated swing gates allowing people to exit in an emergency.

2.) There's a button in an unlocked box which turns the gates into open mode.

While I don't necessarily believe the gates are a safety issue...

charlesriverbranch wrote: ↑Tue Oct 25, 2022 4:19 pm I don't know or care about any of those places. What I'm observing is that an agency of my state, instead of trying to fix its seriously broken infrastructure and improve the piss-poor service it offers its customers, is spending my tax dollars to corral customers like cattle; where they used to be able to get up and go to the bathroom or get something in the food court, now they have to ask one of the guards nicely and maybe, is he's in a good mood, he'll let them through.

...this is exactly on point. It shows you where the MBTA and their operating contractor's priorities are, and it's not in providing train service.