Recently I was in South Boston to take pictures of the Macallen condo building. Directly across the street is (what I think is) an MBTA bus depot, and I took a few photos in that direction to capture a rainbow that appeared after the rain. As I was leaving, an MBTA SUV pulled up with two people inside and asked me what newspaper I work for. I said the photos are for a photography class I’m taking. They responded quickly something about warning me that I wasn’t allowed to take photos on or of MBTA property and drove off. It struck me as a little silly since Google provides satellite imagery and certainly a small camera could be more easily concealed than my bulky SLR.
This left me wondering what the MBTA photography policy actually is. I remember two years back that there had been some protesting by the Mass. ACLU over the MBTA’s photography ban without a permit. For a while the T Transit Police website had the policy available, but the site has since gone away (replaced with an early-90s-era “Under Construction” image). And while neither archive.org nor google had a copy, a kind netizen sent me a copy of the current MBTA photography policy (pdf).
The policy seems pretty reasonable, although I’m not sure why tripods are thought to be so disruptive. Hopefully it will become more well-known among MBTA employees (still plenty of stories about getting yelled at for taking photos), or at least photographers can print out the MBTA’s policy.
August 29th, 2008 at 6:54 am
The main issue with tripods, at least in stations, is that they can obstruct pedestrian flow and cause a tripping hazard, especially for the visually impaired.
August 29th, 2008 at 7:28 am
This is the first I’ve heard of MBTA goons going to that level of illegal harassment. They must be really scared that people will see what their facilities look like. See, for example my guerilla photography at (http://mcgath.blogspot.com/2008/05/porter-square-garbage-dump.html).
August 29th, 2008 at 7:35 am
It’s still sad the MBTA employees don’t know their own policy, and go and harass people on public property…
August 29th, 2008 at 8:08 am
@Ron Newman: you’re completely right, but I wish they would say “don’t obstruct pedestrian flow” rather than ban tripods & monopods explicitly. There are plenty of uncrowded times & places in T stations where it wouldn’t be a problem.
November 1st, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I was at Riverside recently and the station manager told me to stop taking photos with my iPhone.
I suppose not too many employees know about the official policy and I am guessing the MBTA management would like to keep it that way. If they can continue to operate in a gray area, they can enforce their non-official policy of keeping people from taking photographs and still appease the ACLU with their official paperwork.
On the other hand, I’d like to see them try and stop us.