Advocates for subway musicians said they oppose new Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority regulations that would restrict performances in subway stations, during a meeting Wednesday at the Middle East club in Cambridge.
The new guidelines are ‘anti-art and anti-community,’ according to Stephen H. Baird, director of Community Arts Advocates. The regulations will threaten musicians’ livelihoods and the quality of their performances, Baird said.
The new regulations, announced Tuesday and set to go into effect Dec. 1, will require performers to obtain permits, wear identification badges, play in designated areas at specific times and refrain from using amplifiers, horn instruments, electric guitars or drums.
An MBTA task force had originally recommended banning musicians from subways altogether, according to MBTA spokesman Joseph Pesaturo. But MBTA General Manager Michael H. Mulhern looked to create a more accommodating policy, Pesaturo said.
The MBTA ‘knows the music adds a lot to the [subway] atmosphere,’ but the line has to be drawn somewhere, Pesaturo said. ‘This is a subway station first and concert venue last.’
The new regulations are intended to allow subway riders to hear announcements, according to Pesaturo. But Baird said the volume of trains arriving and leaving stations obstructs passengers’ ability to hear the announcements more than musicians do. The sound of music can only carry from 25 to 30 feet and is ‘not even loud enough to be heard across the track,’ he added.
‘They try to treat us like an employee, but charge admission,’ Baird said, referring to the $25 registration fee musicians will have to pay under the new guidelines.
But noise was not the only reason for the new regulations. The MBTA task force also factored safety concerns after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Pesaturo said.
Subway vendors and employees wear the identification badges now required of performers, Pesaturo said. The badges let police officers know who is registered with the MBTA and thus belongs in the subway, he added.
According to Baird, the MBTA assumes because they have property rights at the stations, ‘they can do anything to anyone.’
The MBTA changed the regulations without any warning, Baird said. Not only that, but the new regulations also give the MBTA the power to remove any performer who lacks ‘entertainment value,’ Baird said.
‘The subway is MBTA property, and they decide who can and cannot be in the stations,’ Pesaturo said.
According to Pesaturo, the MBTA has that authority over both customers and musicians. Customers who behave inappropriately are removed just as musicians acting the same way are under the new rules, he said.
‘We will rely on our best judgment’ to decide on ‘entertainment value,’ Pesaturo said.
A number of musicians attended the CAA meeting, including Mary Lou Lord, a Boston resident who performs in subways during her free time. Lord said subway performers are an important part of Boston’s character.
‘It is a part of the city’s charm and culture,’ Lord said. ‘Taking it away would just make it like any city in the U.S.’
The CAA is planning to file an injunction against the new regulations before they go into effect. But Baird encouraged every musician, college student and supporter to sit at Park Street station with a trumpet in hand if the regulations do go into effect.
‘If we’re going to get kicked, let’s get kicked hard,’ he said.
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