In Toronto they were looking at setting up gates at the platform level at some stations. The problem is on older subways the trains aren’t controlled by computers, so they don’t pull into the station at the exact same spot every time. I’ve seen trains accidentally overshoot the platform by a car or two and reverse (sheepishly) back to the station. Apparently it would cost millions just to upgrade a single station platform with the gates and the computer systems needed to get the timing right. It might be more effective to invest in a security guard or something.

At the end of the red line I saw a thirty-something inebriate CRAWL TO HIS CAR ON HIS HANDS AND KNEES. I called 911 with license plate numbers many times.

We all know if we have a problem. If you’ve wake up most mornings saying, “Never again!” GET HELP. If you’re in the habit of curing your hangover with a double shot of JD, GET HELP. Or if you know someone who’s in trouble, INTERVENE.

Apologies for the caps. Got all excited there.

Good thing she’s ok.

It’s an ancient system. When I lived there, Park Street Station was basically a big flat area with tracks, and very little to mark the difference between boarding areas and rails.

This article would appear to suggest saving her wasn’t the work of her fellow passengers, but of Jacqueline Osorio, a railway worker who radioed the driver.

I’d be surprised if the train could have stopped in time if the driver was only alerted once she saw the waving passengers…

And through the open window she hands Charlie a sandwich as the train comes rumblin’ through.

I’ve lived lots of places, but Boston is where I met the greatest number of pathetic, denial-ridden drunks.

To which I reply: college students. Boston has a lot of them, and they are amongst the worst drunks (*ahem* I know I was in college)– can’t hold their liquor, don’t know when to stop, have no qualms about puking anywhere they want, etc. Yes, Boston has a lot of college students (go figure), but I’m not sure it’s fair to call them Bostonians, especially since a lot of them are from NY and NJ and other countries. Pretty much every year some kid falls out a window or gets hit by a car while he/she is wasted. So it goes.

As to all of you people diss’ing the drunken Boston Beans – I think you all need to travel more. Glasgow springs to mind right away and let’s not even get into what happens in Vodka-land.

Hey, this lady might have been falling down drunk but she still cared enough about the people around her to ask if it was ok to smoke a cigarette and then do so as far away from them as possible.

Even when their legs stop working and they any sense of self preservation, Bostonians DO care about others!

Taj1f, you need to see some more of the world! I’m born and raised in Boston and we certainly do have our share of drunks, but I’ve seen cities with much much worse public drunkeness issues. Doncaster(UK) and Hamburg come to mind. When I told friends in Doncaster what I’d seen on my way to the pub they said “That’s nothing, you should see Glasgow!”. And it was around 19:00 but I guess it was normal back then when the pubs shut at 23:00.

#57: Alewife is a fish. Why there’s an inland bus station named for a fish is another question…

Coldspell@28: open platforms. Well, you may have more than one model of car/train running on a given line. I suppose it’s less likely in Boston, where each line is pretty isolated from the others, but in NYC, for instance, you have 2-3 routes running on the same track, using different equipment, with doors placed differently. So a fence is less than practical.

The same route may be using both old and new cars at the same time. E.g. the Q, which I take to work, is slowly transitioning from R68′s (8 75′ cars per train) to R160′s (10 60′ cars per treain), each with 4 doors per side. So you see that doors can be differently positioned on the same platform/route.

But… What are the boxes that appear constantly during the cctv footage? Are they running some face recognition software? If so, that’s scarier than a drunk about to be marmaladed.

It’s too bad this woman likely won’t remember what could have been a much needed wake up call. I’m sure she’ll have plenty of time to discuss it with the police later.

When I was a kid in the 80′s we used to go down to Park St. station and stack pennies up on the tracks and wait for the train to come squish them. 4 was the most I ever got to squish into a little blob, after that the pennies would scatter out and hit the ankles of the people waiting to get on board and we’d have to head for the hills before someone grabbed us. I was a free range kid.

I still cannot get over how fortunate that woman is.

I’m in India and I saw it on the evening news here last night, so…good luck with that!