odds and ends (January 15th)

If you are planning on visiting San Diego in the near future you may not want to tell people you are from New England. The city is in shock after their beloved Chargers lost to the Patriots on Sunday. This may come as a surprise to some of you but the rest of the country is sick of the Patriots winning so much.

Tom Long reported last week in the Northwest Edition of the Globe that North Station will be selling the LinkPass as a CharlieCard starting in February. I would assume this means the same for South Station, Back Bay and other T pass sales outlets.

MBTA spokeswoman Lydia Rivera said "Beginning in February, Charlie Cards will be available at North Station. Customers will receive their link pass on a Charlie Card."

Long also asked Rivera if there was any limit to the number of people who can use a CharlieCard at the same time and she says "there is no limit to the number of users who can use a card on the T."

The column also looks at Amtrak's Downeaster Service that connects Portland, Maine with North Station which is now 5 years old and doing quite nicely. Last year, 333,800 rode the train.

Just a horrible tragedy on Sunday at the Mansfield Commuter Rail stop as a northbound Amtrak Acela hit a 15 year old boy and killed him as his mother watched in horror. Commuters who take the Providence line can attest on how the Acela just appears in seconds as it flies by the local stations at speeds in excess of 130 mph.

Bus and trolley users in Pittsburgh are in shock as earlier this month as the Allegheny County Port Authority announced drastic cuts to transit service in the Pittsburgh metro area. Pittsburgh will eliminate 124 of 213 weekday bus routes starting June 24.

Boston is far from alone in rolling out smartcards for transit riders. USAToday looks at programs across the US that have done so including Seattle, Atlanta, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles.

In Manhattan Monday a homeless man was killed when he fell in front of a #6 train at Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall Station.

Riders on New York's L subway line will soon be the best informed commuters in the system. L line will get real-time train arrival information, which will be displayed on electronic message boards on station platforms. The signs, which will get train locations from a network of onboard and track-side computers, will take the guessing game out of using the subways, officials said. Upgraded sound systems also have been installed in the stations on the Canarsie line.

A Chicago transit blog (CTA Tattler) looks at The exasperated motorman.

Finally on this Martin Luther King Day, Seattle's "Bus Chick" looks back on his roll in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. A very moving piece and reminds us of a day when transit riders were forced to city in the back of the bus as a matter of law.