Wednesday, February 14, 2007

T is having some problems Wednesday afternoon

Mac Daniel is reporting delays on the Blue and Green Line (Boston College line)

I have tried to get updates at www.mbta.com and the site is not loading as of 3:45 PM

and the Fung Wah has another accident at the Allston tolls

I would like to know if others are having problems with accessing the T website

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can not load the T website at all. I can't believe they can't switch to text only mode when load level is high. Even the Red Sox message board Sam Horn does that.

Sons of Sam Horn non graphic website

Anonymous said...

No argument that the new MBTA.com site is horrible. I can not believe that they actually paid someone to deliver something that dysfunctional. Anytime that the traffic volume goes up, the site crashes. Not just the first day, but also today and Mooninite Day. Something needs to be done to fix the bandwidth problem.

BTW, the site does load in to a text-only mode after a long while. I was able to get it after reloading the page twice and waiting for several minutes. Most people and their computers will not wait that long.

Is anybody at the MBTA actually using the site? Do they know that it is so unresponsive?

Anonymous said...

Hey Charlie,
Love the blog. Just thought I would drop you a note regarding the new "state of the art" T website that promises up to the minute updates on service interruptions, etc. As I sit here at 5:40 pm on 2/14, the Boston.com website on its main page has an alert that due to a broken water main the Orange line is busing between Wellington and Oak grove. Below that is a link to the MBTA website and their Service Updates page. What do you suppose it says? Orange Line service is listed as "Normal". I'm glad their new website is so informative and up-to-date.


-Mike in Dorchester

Anonymous said...

Mr. Levy made a good point about the MBTA shouldn't post pictures of it's general manager. If I see that prick walking down the street, he's going to need to visit Mr. Levy's excellent hospital after I get through with him.

oddjob60 said...

I could load the T website yesterday, but it was so slow I couldn't find anything useful.

I also hate that the site is not updated with breaking news when conditions are changing rapidly; the alerts are usually about pre-planned construction, escalators, etc.

IF the T would commit to updating the site on bad days, there's a way they could cut down on traffic: add a function to myMBTA so you can sign up for breaking news emails on your routes. Right now, myMBTA is pretty much useless to me.

Anonymous said...

The problem is that the T website uses an overly complicated database architecture. Instead of just having a directory full of .html files for things like bus schedules, every time someone requests a schedule the web server has to request it from an underpowered database and convert it to html.

What exactly was wrong with the old site, that couldn't be fixed by replacing the decorative .gifs around the edges with trendier ones?