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The MBTA, or Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, now has electronic
tickets available at some of its stations. Eventually, all the old fashioned
brass fare tokens will be replaced by these electronic Charlie
Tickets.
The predecessor of the MBTA was the MTA, or Metropolitan
Transit Authority. The MTA operated the Boston public transit system from
1947 to 1963. A fare increase had been proposed for the MTA system in the
late 1950s (from 10 cents to 15, then later to 20 cents).
In 1959, The Kingston Trio recorded a folk song entitled
Charlie of the MTA. The song is about a man named Charlie that got on a
trolley in Boston at Kenmore Square. After he did, the fare increased and he didn't
have any more money, and couldn't get off the trolley. The song muses
that Charlie would ride forever on the MTA. His wife had to hand him
his lunch through the trolley window each day at Scollay Square Station (now
called
Government Center on the Green Line). A blogger once joked, "Why didn't
Charlie's wife just give him a nickel for the fare?" But of course the song wouldn't
be part of Boston folklore nearly 50 years later if she had.
The chorus went, "Well, did he ever return? No, he never returned,
and his fate is still unlearned. He may ride forever 'neath the streets of
Boston, he's the man that never returned."
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