By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
MARCH 15, 2019 | Sometimes decisions made years before can benefit you. Here’s how one helped me stay warm on a freezing week in May.
The location was Boston, Mass. It was mid-May in the late 1970s. Before leaving Gwinnett, where it was already warm, I wondered about what type of clothing I should take, and besides a sport coat opted for a light jacket.
Our group of people in the newspaper business were to learn more about early-day computers, in particular, typesetting equipment. We had been through a morning class. That afternoon about 2:30 p.m., the electricity went off.
Our instructors told us: “This seldom happens here. The power should be restored soon.” Meanwhile, those of us from the South had been watching through the windows as snow had been falling since after lunch. The snow soon seemed to be getting heavier.
About 3:30 we were told to go back to our hotel. I was staying at the Copley Plaza. It took a while to get back. Switching on the television, we learned that we were experiencing a springtime Northeaster, that the weather was getting worse, and expected to be more so the next day. And, I was cold.
No classes the next day. But another Southerner and I, in our relatively light clothing, found that the subway was running. We took it from the Copley Street station and went directly from a station into Filene’s Basement. Yep, I bought a raincoat, with heavy lining. It was wonderful wearing it, for I was warm.
That raincoat, which I kept for years, came about because Boston had opened its subway system on Sept. 1, 1897. From Billdamon.com, I learned that a blizzard in 1888 had dumped 40-50 inches of snow on the city. The city was paralyzed. The city realized that better transportation was needed. Street cars came first, but were termed inadequate. Starting in 1895, Boston began construction of its subway system, with the first segment open in two years. Those early lines benefitted me some 75 years later as I traveled to Filene’s for that coat.
As to the current Gwinnett transit question, think well into the future, to 25-50-75 years from now. Perhaps those living then in no-doubt-packed Gwinnett will think back to 2019, when its citizens recognized the needs of the future for an expanded transit system.
Bostonians in 1895 may have had doubts if they could afford an expansion of its transit system. Realize that Boston may not have grown to its prominence today if its people had not pushed for an expanded service. The first part of the project to open in Boston was only 0.6 miles long, was a three minute ride in total, and was budgeted at $5 million. Many there probably didn’t think that Boston could afford it. But they did, and their lives were improved….even to today.
Voting for expanded transit in Gwinnett won’t help the next five or ten years as much as it will help the entire area years from now. Voting for expanding transit in Gwinnett will help your children and grandchildren as they are educated, work and mature in this county.
That’s the real issue before the people of Gwinnett: can they understand not only the short-term need, but what will be a more important problem over the years, as the county adds 500,000 more people by 2040?
Forty years ago, a subway in Boston allowed me to get warm when the streets were useless. Consider how useless roads in Gwinnett will be by 2040 without a positive vote on expanded transit on March 19.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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