Mayoral candidates have exact same opinion on T service

As previously mentioned, I’m a bit dissatisfied with the current crop of Mayoral candidates. That said, I’m willing to hear what they have to say, and will inevitably vote for one who loses in the run-off (looking at you, Arroyo) before being forced to choose between a corporate shill and a union hack.

But okay, currently there are a lot of candidates. I wasn’t excited to have to wade through all of their platforms, but luckily on the issue of late-night transportation, they’ve saved me the trouble by all having virtually the same position![i] And what’s that position? According to a Boston.com “Meet the Mayoral Candidates” piece, it’s that Boston should be open later.

City Councillor John Connolly. Get used to this face.
He's probably your next mayor.

So every candidate agrees we should be open later. Then how do they separate themselves from each other and help us separate the almost nonexistent wheat from this ever-growing pile of chaff? Let’s read more closely and find out!

Both Felix Arroyo and John Connolly manage to use the term “24/7,” while Bill Walczak suggests we become a “24-hour city.” Mike Ross, John Barros, and Walczak all hoped for “late-night” service, while Charlotte Golar-Richie couched her position by saying she’d “strongly encourage the MBTA to make improvements to the system.” That’s lovely, candidates. Very innovative. But what are you actually planning to do?

As far as tangible ideas and proposals, John Barros came out swinging. He mentioned working with the Governor (which, to fix the T, you’d need to do) to get system the funding it needs, and proposed a student discount pass for university students, which is a really good idea given how expensive being a student in Boston is.

2013 is not Boston's year.

I'm a big fan of the city of Boston.

I grew up around here. I’ve lived in the city proper for 12 years. I’ve voted in every election, been in the clubs, seen a lot of the bands, and watched all the teams. There have been few moments where I haven’t been proud to be from here, and I have a knee-jerk civic pride that borders on supporting forming our own New English nation-state and declaring Boston the capital.

With that in mind, it’s hard to say we’ve been having a very good year.

There’s the obvious thing – the bombing. The bombing was terrible, but produced a really interesting and positive reaction within the community. Boston Strong, before it was co-opted to be a synonym for “Yankees Suck” or “Fuck the Canucks,” was a really positive rallying point that definitely made me feel closer to my neighbors. But then Boston Strong became some weird money-making scheme. T-shirts with no connection to One Fund Boston have popped up everywhere, and the benefit concert went unaired due to rumored promoter opposition in hopes that they could sell a DVD, despite airing the concert live being a much more beneficial way to raise money and serving as one big advertisement for the DVD besides. So now I guess they’ll release it on a medium most people don’t use anymore long after the majority of people even care about the cause (not trying to be nasty on that last part – people have short memories and other bad things happen). The lineup also left something to be desired. While the Sandy benefit had predictably big names because of its NYC connection, Oklahoma’s Tornado fundraiser had the (granted terrible) national names like Tobey Keith and Garth Brooks. Sure, we had Aerosmith, but really, the Boston concert wasn’t exactly dripping with relevance. Names like Dropkick Murphys and NKOTB certainly have national appeal too, but they’re really local names at heart. At least Dane Cook was there. He just doesn’t ever want anyone else to see it.