Hey Charlie love your blog.
I work down in the Seaport District and usually catch the Silver Line at what they call "Silver Line Way". Yesterday I saw a couple of tourists looking at the bus map there and I offered to help.
They were looking for the Black Falcon Terminal and which bus to take and by mistake they had taken the bus to the Airport and were now trying to figure out which other Silver Line bus to take.
Charlie the map in the bus shelter doesn't have the Silver Line on it. It has all the other bus routes but nothing for SL1, SL2 or SL3. I read last week that the trip planner lost the Orange Line and now it looks like they lost a bus line as well!!
I enjoy your blog and badtransit.com very much as it shows me I am not alone at thinking the T could be a lot better. This morning I had occasion to be confronted by MBTA Police Officers because I was reading a newspaper.
I had missed my train from Abington this morning so I drove to Braintree to catch the Red Line to Boston. Outside Braintree station I picked up a newspaper in a box right outside the ststion entrance for something to read going in town.
As we left North Quincy 2 MBTA officers approached me and told me I was reading pornography on the train and that is not allowed. What I was reading is a newspaper called Barstool Sports which can be a little racy but nothing that is outlandish in todays society. They even demanded to see my ID.
I have never even gotten as much as a parking ticket in my life and I am being harrassed for reading a newspaper I picked up at a T station?
-Jeff-
Abington, MA
Hi there,Hi Amanda and welcome to the blog.
Was just checking out your blog -- lots of great stuff -- and was curious if there's ever been any discussion about the noxious fumes at Back Bay station in the commuter rail passenger waiting area (adjacent to the customer service windows for commuter rail and Amtrak)? When I've stood in line to purchase a ticket, I have been stunned by the smell and the level of pollution, presumably coming up from the tracks below. Thankfully the employees don't have to breath this crap all day. But the passengers do. Has anyone ever tried to do anything about this? Seems like it could be a violation of federal or state indoor air quality or something...I doubt the fumes are harmless...
Thanks
Amanda from Malden
Hi, As a new daily rider on the Red Line from Braintree to Park St, I am blown away by the poor ride quality and service. I know the Red Line "is what it is" and all, but is there any information out there on why the Red Line Trains seem to be brought out of service so often, why they stop, start so often between stations and why the ride is so jarring? Just curious. Are the rails and trains obsolete or something?Paul believe it or not it is actually better on the Braintree line as some speed restrictions have been lifted. However one major problem still exists and that is the set of switches between JFK and Andrew where the Red Line splits. The T in November set aside $19.2 million to address the issue. The Globe quoted T General Manager Daniel A. Grabauskas on November 21st, 2006
Paul
Delays on the subway system, especially on the Red Line and a problematic area of aging switches in South Boston, "are a direct result of the age of the infrastructure," he said.
"This is almost $20 million to fix this problem."
A round of applause to MBTA Transit Police Officer Danny Vieira who rescued a man from the path of a Red Line train entering the Davis Square Station Monday evening.
The folks over at BADTRANSIT.COM point out that the situation could have been averted if the T had a better communication system.
MBTA “communications” system fails; T Police officer fills in the gap
Here's a nice incident for your files. Friday I rode out of Boston on the Red Line with a co-worker. We arrived in Braintree at about 9:30pm. Where were seven passengers in the car, us and 5 high school kids.
Now all the way out of Boston at all the South Boston and Quincy stops all the doors worked fine. However, at Braintree, though other passengers seemed to be able to leave the train from their cars, on our car the doors didn't move. We stood by the doors waiting but long after station platform emptied, we remained locked in.
Finally, I pushed the emergency intercom and alarm button which glowed red and sounded a loud tone. Nothing happened for several minutes until a MBTA employee unlocked the inter-car door at the end of the car.
He stood in the doorway with a angry look and yelled (YELLED!) at us,"WHO PUSHED THE ALARM?!"
Flabbergasted, I yelled back,"We're locked in!!". To this he responded by turning around (without a word) closing the door and locking it. We never saw him again.
A couple of minutes later, by banging on the glass, we caught the attention of a another T employee who was leaving the platform. He immediately entered the train via the engineers compartment and was able to release a outside door. We thanked him and left.
I read that there is a new law that gives jerks (like the first T employee) the power to issue citations, thats a bad idea. He already likes to lockup T passengers at his whim.
John for the Braintree 7.
Hey, Charlie!
Thanks for the blog! I've been riding the T for years and recently started to wonder more about how it operates, the history, etc. Your blog came along at exactly the right time for me!
Thanks for providing such a wealth of information and shedding light on a fairly in-transparent system.
I have not been able to find an "about" section on the blog however and I'm wondering who you are and how you come to be interested in, so knowledgeable about, and seemingly plugged into the T's workings, present and past. Does it somehow overlap with your job?
I'm also wondering if you have had feedback/contact from the MBTA about the blog.
Thanks again,
Sam
One thing that always needs to be remembered when comparing the T to other cities is the age of the system downtown where the core tunnels are now 100 years old. Yes we can marvel at subways in Montreal, Oakland-San Francisco, Washington and Atlanta but they were built in the 60's and 70's and learned from the problems cities like Boston and Philadelphia had. It is better to compare the T to similar systems in Philadelphia and Chicago and Boston overall looks pretty good compared to those 2 cities. Chicago and Philadelphia let their subway stations deteriorate in a fashion that never happened here and only now is Chicago undergoing a major station renovation program. One Loop station in particular stood out as being horrific, the one at Grand and State which is heavily used by passengers going to Navy Pier. It is not uncommon to be waiting for a train with a rat sniffing at your feet. There was a joke in Chicago among passengers when the CTA converted all trains to automated announcements in 2000 and the computer voice ( known as Mr. Happy CTA guy by the locals ) would happily announce "This is Grand" as the train chugged into the dungeon of a station. The CTA this past summer finally changed the announcement to say "This is Grand and State"We have two of them, in a shed. An unheated shed.I don't know if it is a problem or not. I am sure part of the reason the Blue Line was selected to get the machines first was to test them in outdoor conditions and to see if there were problems. I know the morning I really had a problem with my card at Harvard the station was very, very cold.
When they get cold, they get very stupid and unresponsive.
The T employee who was there a week or so ago, to demonstrate how to
charge up a CharlieCard, told me that the machines at Lechmere
Station were badly affected by the rather mild cold weather at the
time.
As the temperature the last two nights was in the very low two digit
range, I'm wondering how the Mattapan, Lechmere, and other exposed to
the weather/semi-exposed machines fared.
I've noticed that a lot of people here in Mattapan who use the #30
and #31 buses are using the CharlieCard, by about 2 to 1 vs. the
CharlieTicket. With some poor souls still feeding dollar bills and/or
coins into the farebox.
I'm sure part of it is the pass on a card option, however, given the
slowness of the Ticket reader vs. the speed of the Card reader, I
suspect that is a major selling point. You get on the bus so much
quicker with a CharlieCard.
--
Chris
Hey Charlie --Good question and hopefully somebody will post the answer.
Love your web site. I live in Newton Corner and both my wife and I ride the express buses into Boston every day. She takes the 502 into Copley, and I take the 504. I love having the express bus in Newton Corner, because it's great to leave our car at home, and the presence of the buses was a major factor in our decision to move to Newton Corner.
For the past few weeks, though, I have noticed that the MBTA has stopped running the "accordion-style" buses that bend in the middle. Those buses are obviously far larger than the smaller buses, and the 502/504 routes certainly need the larger buses. Every day for the past two weeks, the bus has been packed to the gills, standing-room only. All of the seats fill up at the first stop - passengers that board after the first stop have to stop, uncomfortably, for the entire 10 minute trek into Boston. With the heat on at full blast, I often emerge from a crowded bus, angry and sweaty. A great way to start the day.
Do you know why the MBTA has stopped running the larger buses on the express routes? I love that now my fares have gone up over 25% (from a $70 combo pass to an $89 inner express pass!), and service has deteriorated to the point where I never get a seat on the bus. It's enough to make me consider driving to work again.
Thanks,
Kevin
Newton MA
I'm in Florida for the month, reading about the problems with the T fareboxes, etc. I think you're doing a great job...keep it up.I just got confused reading that let alone trying to figure it out when driving, I will pass that on to the Massachusetts Highway Department who is in charge of signage.
One think I wrote to the Patriot Ledger about several months ago, but to my knowledge has never been addressed, is the lack of signage...and wrong signage...at the Quincy Adams station. If you drive up to the station, there is not one sign saying that the station is Quincy Adams. And there is no signage telling you that you can only enter the garage from Rt. 3! Also...half of the signs at that exit say "T Station Quincy Center" and the other half say "T Station Quincy Adams"! I think the ones that say "Quincy Center" are meant to direct you to the center of Quincy, but since there is also a T station by that name, one would assume that the T station they are directing you to is Quincy Center. Truly amazing.
The T is a huge operation and when you look at the ridership numbers you begin to grasp the enormous task it faces each morning getting people in, out and around Boston. The MBTA is the nation’s fifth-largest mass transit system measured in terms of ridership. It serves a daily ridership of 1.2 million passengers and covers a district made up of 175 communities in eastern Massachusetts. The Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization has made available the raw numbers (though some are a few years old) and I will try to present them in a concise way. To move this tremendous number of people the T operates 159 bus routes (8,600 bus stops), 3 subway lines, 2 trolley lines that splits into 5 branches), 1 bus rapid transit line (Silver Line), 4 trackless trolley lines, and 11 commuter rail lines. To operate these lines it uses (numbers approximate) 408 subway vehicles, 181 trolleys vehicles, 973 buses, 40 trackless trolleys, 80 commuter rail locomotives, 362 commuter rail coaches, and 421 RIDE (paratransit) vehicles. The T needs to maintain 785 miles of track, 19 miles of tunnel, 275 stations, 560 bridges, 100 elevators and 132 escalators. The T also claims to have 56,213 commuter parking spaces in the system though there are many on the South Shore who would question that number.
So now you at least have a better idea at the challenges the T faces every workday morning to shuttle hundreds of thousands of passengers all over Boston. It is not an easy task and while some commuting days can be a nightmare, the T by and large does a decent job.
Service will increase during the afternoon leading to rush-hour service levels from approximately 7:00pm through the conclusion of the event.
Evening trains will provide rush-hour levels of service and will run until approximately 2:00am.
