Or vote to finance a transit system.
That assurance is heartening for a transit system in dire need of expansion.
Power to the track was shut off moments later, said Paul Fleuranges, a transit system spokesman.
And Kerrie Kemperman, a graduate student from Somerville, said: "It's a transit system.
"There is not a transit system in the world that can operate profitably in the commercial sense," Mr. Warrington said.
As a result, she said, commuters encounter a transit system with differing levels of service and lacking uniform practices.
"When you're 50, you're still active," said Tom Prendergast, a former L.I.R.R. president who is now running a transit system in Canada.
"The number of people has probably tripled there in the last 30 years," he said, "but they are relegated to a transit system that their grandfathers used".
It is a transit system that officially celebrated the 100th birthday of its first subway in 1997, and has undergone many a transformation in its many years.
"There is not a transit system in the world that can operate profitably in the commercial sense," he said in an interview with The Times in 2002.
He also sees a turnaround for the district, thanks to plans to revive a transit system that was dismantled in the 1950s: the humble streetcar line.
