www.bostonglobe.com
How do you know age was a factor in this driver's particular medical emergency? 62 is neither too old for a CDL nor is the MBTA's normal retirement age (65).
There is no "age limit" at the T; they do not have mandatory retirement. 65 is the elective age for the normal retirement package (and there's an early retirement option for workers 55+ with certain number of vested years), but nobody forces workers out at a certain age and electing retirement is fully optional.
I know this board isn't a bastion of progressivism, but, what in the ageism is this reply?
I hear you, but also wouldn't be surprised at all if this distribution is very different for full-time commercial drivers.You know statistically 62 year olds are actually the safest drivers? The info is old but you get the point, It's all about experience.
Rates of Motor Vehicle Crashes, Injuries and Deaths in Relation to Driver Age, United States, 2014-2015 - AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety
This Research Brief presents updated data on crash risk using data on crashes from the US DOT in conjunction with data on driving mileage from the AAA Foundation's American Driving Survey.aaafoundation.org
Maybe. We could speculate about any number of things but the AAA data set includes commercial drivers of all ages and is stated in millions of miles driven. It is interesting that Ed Markey is called too old but statistically he is probably the same or better driver than Seth Moulton and they are both way more responsible behind the wheel than the majority of twenty-somethings (but not as good as 62 yr olds). I would wonder how many fewer accidents there would be if they never let anyone drive a bus until they were 30
As my driving instructor reminded me all those years ago, it often takes two to tango - and defensive driving does mean that you drive as if there's a maniac-of-any-age behind the wheel of the other cars on the road.
The MBTA has published their new Fall 2026 system map PDF https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/2026-09/2026-09-06-system-map-brochure.pdf
do you happen to have a 'full-service' map - at least every 30 from 6 to midnight?
I do not have such map. The MBTA has a practice of some routes that are upside down and have more service at 11pm Sundays than 11pm weekdays or 11pm Saturdays, the 225 is one of those routes.
Not to sound like im on the side of ageism just adding info: i was a bus driver from 18-22, now im 27 and still get the physical to maintain my CDL every two years. All you need to do is check your vision in both eyes (with corrective lenses if you use them which I do), then pee in a cup for a drug test, and finally they verbally ask you if you have trouble sleeping. There are other things they ask about that are easy to answer dishonestly but I did my renewal last July so I forget. We were told to always say yes to them in my training unless it is already a doctor diagnosed condition, otherwise you need to go through a whole sleep apnea screening protocol to determine if you are fit to drive and it can disqualify you from driving if theres any slight concern of falling asleep. Problem is, you only get there from answering yes, there are no further questions if you say no. Anyone of any age can suffer from sleep-related conditions. I know a guy younger than me with some. But it is more common amongst older adults and i wish screening for it was taken more seriously across all ages. Should be taken more seriously than marajuana usage in my opinion.
Jumping back to BHA bus lane project. I have been getting served a lot of posts about people coming out against the project and even saw Erin Murphy (CM at-large) supporting the demonstrations against. Similar to other postings about the project, no compromise is going to help these nay-sayers go away, especially based on what I see from a sign, rhetoric they are using. Most of them are clamoring about wanting Rail down the corridor, based on what Culpepper and Worrell put out with their AI generated map. They claim they have not been involved in the process and want a feasibility study exploring rail. Hypothetically, say that feasibility study comes back and says rail is not viable within 15 years, do these demonstrators want nothing done until then? They claim to want to release money now for "safety improvements", but presumably the grant moneys figure drops dramatically if the project is status quo with some lipstick at existing intersections. Bus lane project is just shy of $200 million. A surface rail project is probably in the realm of $1 to $2 billion, and an underground rail project is probably sitting around $6 billion. Clearly these demonstrators don't realize they are advocating for projects that are 5-10 times or 30 times the cost? I so desperately want to chime in on the social media postings, but know it is futile (I also already make people pissed on the Dot Reporter page for housing projects haha). And don't have time to get to the public meetings (project area is only about 1 mile from my house). Wish there was a way to just shake some common sense into folks!!
I hope that any bus lane layout for Blue Hill Ave will be designed to accommodate future conversion to light rail, even though that would be decades off. At least lay out a plan now for bus and bike lanes which doesn't geometrically make it harder to put in LRT in the future.
Burlington and Woburn's bounds are off by several hundred feet on that map. The bounds between Burlington and Woburn are offset to the north by about 2300 feet and to the west by about 1500 feet (the border between Burlington and Woburn does not run through the Mill Pond Reservoir, it runs east of it, just beyond the foot of the main dam and through part of the water treatment plant, just before it meets the Woburn/Burlington/Wilmington tripoint). Additionally, the bounds between Burlington and Lexington are shown a few hundred feet to the west of where they are. In real life the three towns meet in a tripoint that is Burlington's westernmost point and Lexington's northernmost point. Woburn's eastern border with Reading and Stoneham seems off, but I can't quite tell why. It could just be an effect of Woburn's new shape after stealing back a significant part of Burlington that is throwing my perspective off.