Abstract
A political folk‐song from the 1940s and 1950s expressed the frustrations of Boston commuters with the over‐priced service and incomprehensible rules of the city's public transport system. The song told about a character named Charlie, who fell foul of a fare increase [1]. Charlie became trapped forever in the subway system of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) because he had boarded a train before midnight on the day the fare was to be raised from 10 to 15 cents. Having only brought the exact change to access the subway when he started his journey, he had no legal way to end it, after the revised fares came into force at midnight. The MTA had decreed that passengers must pay a second time in order to exit the system, as well as to enter it. According to the song, Charlie's wife managed to keep him alive and in good spirits by handing him a daily lunchbox over the barrier. Charlie was popularized in a campaign song …
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