Video shows box falling on rider at Harvard MBTA station; Equipment 'served no purpose' since 2013
CAMBRIDGE - New surveillance video shows the moment a box fell at the Harvard MBTA station on Monday afternoon, causing a rider to be hospitalized with minor injuries.
The MBTA said Tuesday that corrosion on support straps that secured the box to a column caused the incident. A supporting brace hit a woman on the Red Line inbound platform.
New MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng ordered inspections at every station following the incident. And now the MBTA says the box that fell at Harvard and similar boxes at Red Line stations have been obsolete for a decade.
"The box that became dislodged was part of a 2011 pilot program led by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and funded by the Department Homeland Security, to house sensors capable of detecting and identifying biological agents," the MBTA said in a statement. "As part of MIT's testing and evaluating of the new technology, the boxes were installed at Harvard, Porter and Davis Stations. The boxes have served no purpose since the pilot program ended in 2013."
Eng has ordered the remaining 13 boxes at Red Line stations to come down.
The area where the box fell at Harvard has been blocked off with yellow caution tape. Red Line riders had their eyes to the ceiling during their Tuesday morning commute.
"I'm hoping that doesn't fall on me," commuter Jeff Peters said.
At the station in early March, a ceiling panel fell, nearly hitting a woman after she got off a Red Line train.
"It kind of feels unsafe. I wish there was better infrastructure down here," commuter Peyton Williams said. "I think people come down here to go to work so they expect to get there safely and on time."
