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A silly advertisement I found on Facebook:

Source: Boston.com
Read About Detailed Cuts
Read Op-Ed by Joan Vennochi

The MBTA, according to a Globe report, will cut many services if they do not get help with their $160 million deficit. These cuts, detailed in this Globe staff post, would hit anyone and everyone who takes public transportation in some capacity. Major cuts that I am annoyed with include weekend and night cuts. People who come from other states to college here in Boston are already annoyed that the T does not run in the wee hours of the night; how could they possibly even consider reducing weekend and night service? They have listed that they would possibly remove customer service agents in subway stations. Apparently, the T would become so poor that they would no longer have a face. Who will tourists go to when they need help? Who will anyone go to when they need help? Something that may personally hit me would be the reduction of the Mattapan trolley; eliminating that after 8 on weekdays and all day on weekends forces me to either take a twenty minute walk home or hope that one of two buses appears, keeping in mind these buses appear once every 30 minutes to an hour. They also have elimination of the commuter rail service on weekends.

The MBTA is basically threatening the state for money. It is almost like a little kid threatening to stab himself if his parents didn’t feed him. Doesn’t the MBTA know that cuts like these would cripple the mass transit system here? Doesn’t the MBTA know that cuts like these would destroy Massachusetts’s reputation? This would make us even more of America’s walking city, and perhaps put us one step closer to be America’s gas guzzling city. This will put more cars on the road and create environmental issues that T ridership was supposed to counteract. The MBTA has presented an issue that is dire and needs to be taken care of as quickly as possible. Cuts like these cannot be allowed to happen.

There has to be another way to close the $160 million gap. Maybe there is a way to restructure some employee pay (note: start from the top, not the bottom). Executives can take a pay cut first, then maybe something like not accepting pay for a day or something can help to bridge the gap, too. Increasing the gas tax and putting in the soda tax could help close the gap as well. The governor’s office needs to quash this cuts proposal and find a way to close the gap. Raise my taxes if it’s for the sake of keeping the MBTA running; it’s better than paying nothing and getting nothing.

I will also provide a link to an op-ed concerning this issue by Globe columnist Joan Vennochi.

I have developed a habit here at Boston University in which I go home every two weekends. I do it for a number of reasons, the main of which is to do laundry. Sure, there are, of course, laundry machines at BU, but the other reasons I have for going home lead me to do my laundry at home. Home is a different atmosphere than college; there, I have more privacy and a better peace of mind. I can relax by myself to a Red Sox game, an episode of Law & Order, or play music and listen to video games without worrying about being respectful toward a roommate. Conversely, I can live for a couple of days in a week without having to worry about anything my roommate may do that might annoy me. This applies for any roommate, of course, because you can never love everything a roommate does. All the games I play are at home; thus, I get to chill out while I’m there and play games I don’t get to play during my twelve days at school (I spend twelve days at school and two days at home in a fourteen-day period). I get to sleep in my own bed, eat a home-cooked meal, see my family, and get away from the people here for a little bit.

Is this really a problem? Does this say that I have an issue staying away from my family? Or does it just mean that I need to dip into two separate worlds in order to keep my sanity? Next year, when I become an RA, this pattern will definitely change (as much as the person that incited me to write this post refuses to believe). I will want to do the best I can to serve my position, which includes being there for my residents for as many weekends as I can. Yes, I will spend a night at home every once in a while because the stress will be great and I will need a change of atmosphere to keep myself balanced. I find it to be perfectly human. I don’t feel like I should be attacked just because I go home every two weekends to relax from school. I work hard and I feel like I deserve a break every so often.

I can’t take that break here. I have to take it away from my work atmosphere. That’s at home.