Charlie's Mailbag - February 28th new LED signs at Park and another T map option

from the mailbag at charlieonthembta@gmail.com

Ben noticed a new addition at Park Street

Charlie,
Not sure if anyone has told about this but this morning when I got
off the D Line at Park St. (heading inbound) I noticed a taped off
portion to the left of the exit. Right above it was what appeared to
be a brand-new electronic signboard that looks like it would support
2 lines of text. Perhaps the T is going to give us signboards for
when the next train will arrive? Now it was near the entrance to the
Red Line stairs so maybe its for that.
I'll try to snap a picture on my way home, assuming I don't get
arrested for it!

We can only hope. The T can not be oblivious to the positive coverage NYC Transit has been getting as they slowly introduce arrival boards in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Riders WANT that information even if Daniel Grabauskas doesn't think we need the info as he told the Globe last May.

As he outlined the new, $35 million system in comments at Back Bay station, the announcements for inbound and outbound trains were coming in loud and clear on the platforms and in the upstairs lobby, giving about 1 minute advance notice on inbound trains and 2 minutes on outbound train.

That should help riders rushing to catch a train from a lobby and passengers who have been waiting for more than several minutes, T officials said.

The system can count down the minutes until a train arrives, but Grabauskas said that isn't necessary.

''You don't need 15 minutes lead time for a rapid transit train," he said. ''If you know you have enough time to get down the stairs, that may be all the information our customers need."

But then in October of 2006 Grabauskas said the following during a chat on Boston.com

Daniel_Grabauskas: Similar to the activity in subway to update the sound system and add sign boards we are working to make the commuter rail sign boards give better information. The new system which we are working on will make next train announcements and count down for the next train as well as delay information. I share your frustration that the old system gives very limited information and sometimes not accurate. This project to upgrade is out for public bid right now and should be constructed within the next two years.

So maybe he has changed his mind and does plan to offer this info in the subway. In that chat he offered an email address for riders to write into him.

please contact me directly at gm@mbta.com

Perhaps if enough of us write into him asking about real time announcements in the subway will will get an answer.

Lou passes on another map option for T riders and it is pretty good.

I saw the mention of Google beginning to include T stations on their maps on your blog and figured I would pass this along.

Sometime my freshman year of school at Northeastern, I went searching for a map of the T system that was laid out on an actual street map, because while I was getting accustomed to Boston itself, I found the T’s maps to be of very little use. Also, I am a bit of a map enthusiast in general. I found one especially good candidate for use and it proved to be very helpful in my exploration of the city:

This is laid out on a google maps image anyway and retains the total functionality, as well as listing station info when you click on a stop:
http://www.thrall.net/maps/mbta.html

I don’t know if you knew about that map or even if you have posted about it previously, but I take every chance I get to let those who know surprisingly little about the T in relation to Boston street layout know about this.

Thanks for the tip and if we haven't mentioned this link before we are happy to do so now.

Where is my train......(updated)

A few weeks ago I posted a long entry on WHERE IS MY TRAIN? and in the article T management is quoted as saying riders don't need this kind of information.

The Saturday New York Times looks at NYC Transit which is working very hard to provide this information in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Subways future and subways past seemed to collide on a recent morning at the Jefferson Street station on the L line in Bushwick, Brooklyn. New electronic signs on the platforms showed how many minutes a person would have to wait until the next train: at this moment it was eight minutes for a Canarsie-bound train and four minutes for a Manhattan-bound train.

But the recorded female voice on the public address system that was supposed to work in tandem with the signs was showing signs of a breakdown: “Ladies and gentlemen, the next L, the next L ——,” it said over and over, like a scratchy recording.

I am bothered by the fact the T has the ability to do this but flat out refuses to implement it in Boston.

T police arrest 5 graffiti artists in Braintree

from WCVB

Five Alleged Graffiti Artists Arrested

Graffiti vandals may be planning to gather in Boston during the weekend to target Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority trains, officials said.NewsCenter 5's Todd Kazakiewich reported that five alleged taggers were arrested and faced charges in Quincy District Court Friday, accused of planning to spray paint MBTA property. They pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to tag."There was an MBTA officer who saw them coming from an access road that is typically used by people who spread graffiti on trains and train property," a prosecutor said.

Where is my train?

Bostonians who have visited Washington, London, Tokyo and San Francisco have marveled at signs on the subway platform that announce when the next train will arrive. Now word comes from New York that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has rolled out train-arrival message screens at 14 stations along the L line and expects to have all stations on the numbered lines installed by the end of 2009. The New York project has had major problems being implemented and long time Boston transit observers will nod their heads at the reason. The MTA awarded the contract to Siemens in 2003 to install the screens at 157 stations on the numbered lines at a cost of $160.6 million but technical difficulties held up the project. The NY Post wrote a few days ago that Siemens has solved the problem. Now perhaps Siemens can focus on all the problem they currently have with the MBTA which we wrote about last month.

So now New York will soon join the modern transit age so why not Boston?

The General Manager of the MBTA, Daniel A. Grabauskas doesn't think it is necessary.
In May of 2006 Mac Daniel wrote in the Boston Globe

The system can count down the minutes until a train arrives, but Grabauskas said that isn't necessary.

''You don't need 15 minutes lead time for a rapid transit train," he said. ''If you know you have enough time to get down the stairs, that may be all the information our customers need."

The T is in the process of spending $35 million dollars to upgrade the PA system in the subway including $3 million for new signs that at present simply say "Train Arriving" when they work at all. So the T has the ability to show real time announcements on the Red and Orange lines but won't because Grabauskas doesn't think we need the information.

We can't blame Grabauskas for the Breda streetcars, the phantom Siemens Blue Line cars or even the choice of Scheidt & Bachmann to install the new fare equipment as those decisions happened before he came to the T but we can call him on this. I would think most passengers would be delighted to know how long they have to wait on the platform. If you know it will be a few minutes you might decide to sit down and take out a book. This is not a case that they would have to go out and spend money to implement it, they already can but just won't do it. I also take issue with the way the signs are being installed. As you can see they face the platform instead of being on the platform overhead. The problem with doing it this way is unless you happen to be on the platform directly in front of the sign you can not see it. Overhead signs like the example in New York lets everybody on the platform see them.


The irony here is Grabauskas when he ran the Registry of Motor Vehicles touted the improvements in customer service including a service that you could check on the web to see what the wait time is at any branch and signs at the branches giving the same information. So why did he think Registry patrons needed the information but not provide the same for the T?

Even on the low tech Blue Line there is one station that offers train status information now. When you enter at Maverick there is a sign hanging overhead that shows the location of every train between Orient Heights and Bowdoin and it has been there for decades. A passenger can see quickly where the next train is and if it is moving. That low tech solution could easily be converted to a sign that could simply say "Next Train in 5 minutes or less" based on what signal has been tripped. With the new signal systems on the Red Line and being installed on the Orange Line the information can be more precise.

For riders on the Green Line however there won't be any kind of messages giving train status anytime soon. The T can tell you when the next train is arriving at a station but not where it is going. A major overhaul to the signal system would be needed to implement that and in the T's current project list that indicates what they plan to spend money on through 2011, the Green Line signals are not on the list. The T is probably wise in waiting to do this as recent trolley signal upgrades in San Francisco and Philadelphia proved to be very difficult to implement. San Francisco trolley riders now get real time updates on signs in the subway stations and it can also be seen on the web as seen below.


Since last spring the T has had computer generated messages informing us that "The next train to wherever is now arriving" as part of the $35 million dollar overhaul. Since the new system began riders have been getting less information about train status. The T used to have live PA announcements that would say "train approaching Kendall, Park St and Broadway" so you had some sense what was going on but those announcements now are few and far between.
What information you do get from the computer announcements is no more than the low tech system the T has had at several stations for decades. Riders at Park St waiting to go towards Alewife can simply glance at the track light on the left side of the tunnel looking towards Downtown Crossing. When the light blinks off it means there is a train at Downtown Crossing and should be at Park in 2 minutes or less. Riders at JFK/UMass have the indicators that tell you if the next train is Braintree or Ashmont. There are others in the system.

It really is simple. Riders may grumble if they know the next train is 10 or more minutes but will appreciate the information. The T says they can do it now so there is no excuse not to do so.

What about the Commuter Rail?

Well back in May the T told the Globe

Daniel A. Grabauskas, general manager of the MBTA, said a similar system at commuter rail stations could be in place in from eight months to a year.

Commuter Rail riders are probably laughing at this after dealing with the $5 million dollar system the T installed on the Commuter Rail 5 years ago that has never worked and now it appears they are scrapping. If the T really wants to find a system that works we are happy to point them to California where Amtrak runs commuter service between San Jose and Sacramento that passes through Oakland with connections to San Francisco. This is how their system works.

About the Passenger Information Display Signs (PIDS)
Most of our stations are equipped with electronic message boards (PIDS), which display the date and time, provide much-needed up-to-date train status information, as well as other service-related messages. The signs provide real time train information status via electronic message boards. The system retrieves the trains location from an on-board GPS system, installed on each dining car, and transmits the data automatically to software programs that in turn send the status directly to the message boards. Starting 30 minutes prior to a trains scheduled arrival at a station, ADA-compliant visual displays provide waiting passengers with train status information every 5 minutes, with audio announcements at the station provided every 10 minutes.

Please bear with us, there may still be some lingering "bugs", and if that is the case, please let us know! We'd love to hear how the signs are working - please tell us what you see and hear. Call us at 1-877-9-RIDECC or E-mail us at info@capitolcorridor.org.

They admit there are still some bugs but when I was in the Bay Area last spring it worked perfectly at the Oakland Coliseum station. I hope that whatever system the T buys this time they will only install it on the new Greenbush Line that opens this summer and see if it actually works before installing it system wide. Look my $100 cell phone can find me within 100 feet, the T should be able to find a locomotive.

Really all I want to know is where my train is. Is that asking too much???

A look at the T's ridership numbers

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.

The numbers on the left are from 2003 and it shows at a glance that 65% of the ridership of the bus-subway system relies on the 4 major subway lines. Ridership has actually increased from these numbers as was cited by the Globe's Keith O'Brien when he rode the Orange Line for an entire day one year ago to get the pulse of the people who ride the T. The Boston ridership profile is the complete opposite of Chicago where two-thirds of the ridership take buses instead of the L system.

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 where are all these passengers coming from?

Click here for a map of typical weekday station entrances.

Some of the numbers are surprising to me as for example I was surprised to see that Davis Square (10,891) handles more passengers than Alewife (9,567). I doubt this was anticipated by the Northwest Extension planners back in the 1970's who were forced by political pressure from Somerville to bend the route to include Somerville. The transformation that has occurred in the Davis area since the subway's opening in 1984 is stunning. The former Mayor of Somerville, Eugene Brune recalls that even the Chamber of Commerce didn’t want a subway stop in Davis Square. The planners of the Red Line wanted to build the line into Arlington Center but residents of the town did not want the subway and it finally terminated at Alewife.

How the Red Line Extension was designed and built

The high number of boardings at Forest Hills (12,584) show that the Orange Line should have been extended further south to perhaps Rte 128 Station in Westwood. The opportunity existed 30 years ago when the Southwest Expressway was scrapped after the right of way had been cleared but like Arlington the residents of Hyde Park and West Roxbury wanted no part of subway service fearing it would bring changes to the area so the relocated Orange Line continued to terminate at Forest Hills.

On the Blue Line the high number of boardings at Wonderland (6,071) indicate that the line should be extended to at least Lynn and perhaps Salem as well, but that has been talked about for fifty years since the line was extended to Revere. Maverick is by far the heaviest used station with 10,015 boardings because of the number of bus passengers who transfer there after coming from East Boston and Chelsea.

The Green Line numbers also are a surprise to me. Harvard and Commonwealth on the B Line is the heaviest used stop (the numbers listed are from 1995) outside the subway followed by Coolidge Corner and Brookline Village. As any B Line rider would suspect it is the heaviest used of the trolley lines, followed by D, E and C.

Bus ridership as of September 2005

The above link breaks down every bus route in the system and it dramatically shows how dependent Roxbury, Dorchester and Jamaica Plain are with their buses. The #39 Forest Hills-Copley bus is the systems busiest with the #1,#23,#28, and #66 all have over 10,000 passengers a day. Other workhorse routes are the #57 and #111. The T has been working hard to modernize the bus fleet with more on the way. There was the unfortunate misstep of ordering buses from NeoplanUSA and it remains to be seen how much of a problem getting parts for the Neoplans will become as the company closed down while filling a T order. The Neoplan buses include the 60 foot buses used on the Silver Line-Washington Street, the #32 and #39, Silver Line-Waterfront-Airport, trackless trolleys serving Cambridge-Watertown-Belmont and heavy use in the Quincy division.

The breakdown for the Commuter Rail stations shows some problems on several lines with ridership. The Framingham/Worcester line dropped from 9,990 inbound passengers a day in 2003 to 8,248 a year ago. This is no doubt because of the major delays on that line as the T fights with the CSX Railroad over train slots. Major drops can be seen on the Newburyport/Rockport line and Franklin lines but the network also saw increases on the Lowell and Fitchburg lines. The Providence line is the most heavily traveled and that will only increase with all trains now going to Rhode Island and expansion to the Providence Airport slated to open in 2 years.

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.

Hopefully this forum will help make it better.

from Charlie's mailbag - Jan 18th

Some commuter feedback this morning in the mailbag at charlieonthembta@gmail.com

Kevin writes

I am writing in about the Charlie card/ticket system, and the lack of information posted about fares.

I had a Charlie ticket, which did not have enough money to enter the subway. I wanted to add enough money to ride the subway, but not have any left over. This is because I wanted to switch over to the new Charlie card.

I went to the machine, and put my ticket in, and added value to the card. I couldn't remember how much the fare was. I knew it had just been increased on Jan 1, but not how much. So I added some value. Tried my ticket, and got an error message. I then went to add more money to the card, this time I asked someone else using the machine-they said try $1.70. So I increased the ticket to $1.70. I tried again. Again it did not work. I went back and asked someone else. They thought it was $1.90. So I added 20 cents.

I tried again…still no luck. I then saw a call box, and pushed the button for information, but no one answered. I asked someone else using the fare machine, they said it was $2.00.

I added my change, and finally the gate worked.

Unfortunately I missed two trains during this period. It would have been nice if they just posted the fares somewhere easy to see, or if they added the info to their user interface. The user interface on the ticket machines is just about as poor as you can get. The other sad fact is that there were no employees around to answer my questions, and the only people I could ask were others using the machines.

Do you know if they plan on updating the user interface on these machines. It is clunky, and very slow.

I certainly hope they are working to redo the user interface that was introduced on December 15th. As it stands now these machines are not user friendly which is detailed in this entry. The best comment about the machines came from a visitor from Chicago which I will quote from again in the hope that somebody at the T reads it.

as just in Boston, where I am originally from, and my first experience with the Charlie Card was not pretty. I felt like I was from a foreign country trying to figure out what I was supposed to do when I got to the machine.

The Budapest system was easier to figure out, and I don't even speak Hungarian.

We actually had a helpful CSA (it was the Wonderland stop in Revere) who patiently walked us and three Japanese visitors through the whole thing. We missed two trains in the process, but there is no instruction on the machine or in the station (that we saw) that tells you to go and get a Charlie Card from a CSA before you start, so we kept trying to buy a card at the machine itself. I felt like a maroon. The only good thing about it is that it takes credit cards.

The solution is simple, design the first screen with buttons that say BUS, SUBWAY, COMMUTER RAIL, FERRY. Then at the next screen have a button that asks how many rides you want. The way it is now a rider has to guess how much his ride will cost as the machines do not tell you that. What is even more puzzling is the lack of signage near the machines telling passengers what the cost of a ride is. At Harvard Station a Customer Service Agent took it upon herself to print up the information on her home computer and taped them to the machines because she was being asked the same questions over and over. The picture on the left was taken this morning 18 days after the new fare schedule was introduced. My gut tells me the person that designed the interface has never ridden a subway in their life.


Fred asks about the Monthy Passes

don't know if this has been asked/answered before... but back before the days of this wonderful Charlie Card... I used to be able to log online and order passes for the next month, often for three members of my household. Are there any plans to be able to log on and add value using your serial # on the card somehow to add to the passes?
Old way: 3 people use their current pass, enjoy the delightful service of the MBTA, each month new passes are ordered and delivered by mail with no lapse in service.
New Charlie Way: Somehow manage to round up passes from other two people in house on a day they won't be using them, go to South Station where I never used to have to go, load passes on all three cards and bring back hoping no one needed to use a pass for the day.

It's just more inconvenience with this new system every day... at least the tap and go has sped up bus loading.

Fred
Faithful rider of the dreaded 7 Bus

Fred, I do know that you have 2 options to purchase a monthly pass without going downtown. You can either Buy Online from MBTA.com or call (877) 927-7277 before January 22nd and they will mail you the cards at no charge. The T has said they will have a program later in 2007 where you can register your CharlieCard and then reload it online or by phone. Chicago, Washington and London are 3 places where you can now do this. I don't know if they still mailing passes as CharlieTickets until the new system is running, best to call the T at the number above.

and finally Jill comments on bus drivers

I just came across your blog for the first time today, so I don't know how much you have discussed this in the past, but a lot of the bus drivers drive in a really dangerous manner. I can't count the times I have nearly been hit in my car or on foot by a bus.

And then, just last week, my sister's car was struck by an MBTA bus. The busdriver, while taking a turn, entered my sisters lane and seriously damaged her car.

All things considered, my sister was pretty polite and calm about the whole thing. She was shocked and upset, but she didn't yell or try to berate the driver. The driver, on the other hand, was incredibly rude to my sister, even though the driver had obviously caused the accident. They had to wait for the driver's supervisor to arrive, who was also rude to my sister and tried to imply that it was her fault. And neither the driver nor the supervisor ever asked if my sister was hurt.

I am sick of the MBTA seizing right of way by force. I know they are on a schedule and people are angry when they are late, but the drivers ought to remember that a bus can do serious or lethal damage to any car and every pedestrian on those streets. The dangers posed by MBTA buses cutting corners (literally and figuratively) while driver is huge and very real.

And my God, if you hit someone, at least have the decency to make sure they are not injured instead of being rude when you were the cause of the accident. This bus crushed the front of her VW, and I have seen the damage, it is bad enough that an injury was very conceivable.

Jill

Jill the sad reality is the T does have drivers that have no business driving a bus. Driving a bus in this city certainly has to be stressful and at time a thankless job but the operators are well compensated for their duties. I want to stress that the vast majority of drivers do a good job under very challenging conditions but Boston seems to have more bad apples than other major cities. In the past year I have spent time in San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia and Seattle and you just don't see the rudeness with drivers in those places as you do here in Boston. Part of the problem stems from the way the T is forced to hire drivers where they must hire from a list generated by a lottery that is held every few years. However it does not explain the lack of training these drivers are given before they hit the streets in revenue service. The amount of training given drivers varies by garage and in mandated in the contract the T has with the Carmen's Union. The union WANTS more training time and it has recently been increased to the following Arborway 8 days Cabot 10 days Bennett Street 7 days – bus/7 days – trackless trolley Charlestown 10 days Quincy 8 days Lynn 10 days Silver Line 1 day.

ONE day for the Silver Line?

The thing I notice the most about bus operators is their lack of customer relations and courtesy towards passengers and for that I blame the T. It really hit home when I visited Seattle a few months ago. Drivers are trained to say "Good Morning, Afternoon or Evening" when you board and to me a visitor were very friendly informing me of the quirks of the King County Metro fare system ( buses are FREE downtown) Drivers with the Chicago Transit Authority also are much friendlier and helpful than Boston. Read this blog entry from Chicago and ask yourself if you have ever seen it happen in Boston.

The T drivers give the impression they don't have to answer to anybody.

Thanks for the feedback and please offer suggestions on how to improve the blog. The mailbag can be reached at charlieonthembta@gmail.com

there was a time you could get there from here

Have you ever asked yourself why can't I get a bus to someplace in the Boston area? Chances are at one time you could but local bus service in the suburbs has deteriorated or vanished completely since the T took control of things over 40 years ago.

Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA District 1964-Present (PDF) by Jonathan Belcher details everything that has happened with transit in the Boston area since the MBTA took control and historical data from before. Any question you may have about Boston transit routes can be found in its 317 pages and is updated as of the end of 2006. It is important to note that is was not the MBTA that abolished 24 hour service on the system, that had been done in 1960 by the MTA. Until then you could go to Haymarket Station and catch buses all night to all sections of the city and as far away as Arlington and Belmont. The MTA was scrapped for money in those days and the owners of Boston's taxi companies had great influence. New England Telephone alone used to send hundreds of operators and other employees home by cab each night and many other companies did so as well. Not having all night public transportation made it impossible for the companies to abandon the practice and the cab companies made huge profits. Today, because of the current contract with the T's drivers union it would nearly impossible to run all night service at a manageable cost as the ill fated Night Owl experiment that ended in 2005 proved. Drivers were paid double time for trips starting after 2 AM which meant it was costing the T $7.53 on average to transport a Night Owl customer, compared with only $1.37 for a daytime bus rider. Late night service will not happen unless the wording in the contract with the drivers is changed. We can only hope.

When the MBTA was created in 1964 it merged the operations of several transit companies and railroads into one authority that was designed to move people in and out of Boston. It's creation was spawned by the fear that the railroads of the time, the Boston & Maine, New York Central and the New Haven would abolish all commuter rail service in and out of Boston. There was good reason to worry as the New Haven had shut down the Old Colony Lines in 1959 the day after the Southeast Expressway opened and the Boston & Albany division of the New York Central had closed the Highland Branch to Newton in 1958. The MBTA's predecessor the Metropolitan Transit Authority acted quickly and converted the Highland Branch into a streetcar line (D-Riverside) and reopened it one year later. The MTA itself had been formed in 1947 to take over the assets and debts of the Boston Elevated Railway which had been a public-private operation since 1917 when the Massachusetts Legislature passed the "Public Control Act" which guaranteed public transportation to the citizens of Boston. The MTA was limited to serving the citizens fo the original 14 cities and towns in Metropolitan Boston: Arlington, Belmont, Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Medford, Milton, Newton, Revere, Somerville, and Watertown. Under this system the commuter rail could not be saved unless the authority was expanded to include more cities and towns. The legislature went to work to solve the problem....


It was decided that the Greater Boston urban core mass transportation system be greatly expanded to reach out and to intergrate its mass transit services with those existing throughout the Greater Boston Massachusetts metropolitan area. The new MBTA or "T" would now serve 78 cities and towns in Eastern Massachusetts. The T would quickly enter into compacts with the railroads that would subsidize commuter rail operations and also absorbed 2 major surburban bus companies, the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway and the Middlesex and Boston Street Railway. The MBTA did not aquire the Boston & Worcester Street Railway which was taken over by a Boston sightseeing company Gray Line and today there is limited bus service along Route 9 because of this.

It didn't take long for the T to start slashing bus routes it took over and Mr. Belcher looks at this in great detail. Some cities (Lowell, Lawrence and Brockton) rebelled at the fees demanded to supply service and simply told the T they could do better themselves. One town Maynard demanded to be removed from the MBTA territory and was allowed to do so and the town has had virtually no public transportation since. Maynard had lost its direct bus service to Harvard Square in 1970 when the Town of Lincoln no longer wanted service by bus being content with commuter rail.
The T was able to abolish many bus lines it had taken over claiming low ridership but they had made the schedules on these lines so unreasonable that people stopped using them. One prime example had been the Commonwealth Avenue bus in Newton that connected Norumbega Park in Auburndale with the B Line at Boston College which the T took over in 1972 and abolished 4 years later. The T doomed the line by refusing to extend it to Riverside Station thus not providing an easy connection for Newton riders. There are many other examples of this slash and burn approach the T took 30 years ago towards buses as it strived to keep commuter rail afloat.

The T continues to look at bus service today as a necessary evil and does little to try and improve routing that could enhance service. A prime example of the T's attitude towards bus service can be found in the Town of Woburn. In 2001 the T opened the Anderson Regional Transportation Center just off Interstate-93 as an intermodal bus and commuter rail transfer station. Anderson provides rail service to Boston, Lowell and to New Hampshire and Maine on Amtrak's Downeaster service. From Anderson you can board buses that will take you to both Logan and the Manchester-Boston airports. In fact the Manchester Airport shuttle is FREE for ticketed passengers and also runs to the Sullivan T station in Charlestown and runs 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. (novel concept). So how do I get to Anderson by T bus?

You can't.

A quick glance at the T system map shows 3 routes that could have been extended to Anderson, the 134,136 and 137. It also may have been possible to adjust the 350 route from Alewife to connect with LRTA at Anderson instead of the Burlington/Billerica line. By routing buses to terminate at Anderson it would allow riders from Woburn, Reading, Stoneham, Winchester and other towns easy access to other transportation services. But no that makes too much sense. If you live in Woburn where the station is the only way you can get there is by cab or walk.

The problem is the T simply isn't flexible when it comes to adjusting bus routes some of which haven't changed from the streetcar lines they were 100 years ago. A prime example of this is the 99 route which runs from Wellington Station to the Boston Regional Medical Center in Stoneham. The hospital closed in 1999 yet the T continues to run buses 7 days a week to the front door where the line ends. While there are plans to develop the property it has been tied up for years but meanwhile the shuttered building gets bus service 7 days a week from 6AM to Midnight. Has it ever dawned on the T to perhaps terminate the line elsewhere in Stoneham or Melrose?

One more example on how the T just won't change to reflect changing patterns in commuter movement.15 years ago the Cambrigeside Galleria opened and ridership to Lechmere increased dramaticly but the T only routed one Green Line route to Lechmere, terminating another at North Station and 2 at Government Center. In 1997 the North Station turnaround was closed because of construction of the new Green Line station underground and the T then routed 2 lines to Lechmere. However when the new underground station opened the T went back to the way things were before the mall opened after riders were used to more frequent service. I suspect the reason they did so was to justify the expensive underground turnaround that they built under Causeway Street which was designed before the mall opened. Trains running to Lechmere now are usually overcrowded nights and especially weekends when the Science Museum gets heavy traffic. Routing 2 lines there is a no brainer but the T does as it pleases.

People change, the city changes but the T just doesn't adapt. We will never see bus service like it was in 1964 but we certainly can improve on what is offered now. The bus should come to the people, not the other way around. The taxpayers of Massachusetts have paid a huge price in restoring Commuter Rail to the South Shore (Greenbush alone is close to $500 million) for a service the T estimates will have 4200 passengers per weekday in 2010. I fully agree that Commuter Rail is needed but we need to see more funding for the unsexy bus too. The T has never understood that to take the train you have to get to the station. Parking lots fill up quickly and that forces many commuters to drive instead defeating the entire purpose. We need more feeder bus routes to the rail stations something that is done well by New Jersey Transit and Connecticut Transit.

Would love your comments on this.

T trains retire too early, start too late

The following appeared in the Sunday Boston Globe. (1/14) It was written by Norwell resident John Stilgoe who is the Orchard Professor in the History of Landscape at Harvard University.

Late-night MBTA commuter trains offer long-term benefits to municipalities far south of Boston. While a handful of trackside abutters always decry the momentary noise of any passing train, night trains benefit the entire regional population. Modern times demand a return to older schedules, and even older transport-system thinking.

Boston goes to bed early. Proper Bostonians expect the MBTA bus and subway operation to shut down around 12:30 a.m. Visitors from New York and European cities chuckle at the small-town, roll-up-the-sidewalks mentality. As large corporations move away from Boston, the city begins to lose its big-city reputation, and the T's early shutdown doesn't help the Hub's image problem to visitors.

Long before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's forerunner whose fare increase produced the song about Charlie who never returned) acquired the properties of the privately owned Boston Elevated Railway Co., so-called Night Owl streetcars and buses prowled Boston streets. Late-night service ran regularly, although not frequently, and enabled factory employees and other night-shift workers to get to work and repairmen to move from one job to another without hiring cabs. It brought night club revelers home safely, keeping them from driving automobiles. Perhaps most importantly, Night Owl service let people get to South Station for very-early-morning trains and get home from trains arriving late at night. While trains tended to arrive on time, even in bad weather, Night Owl service meant much to passengers debarking New England Steamship Co. coastal vessels delayed by fog.

In the past few years, the MBTA experimented with Night Owl buses rolling along sleeping subway routes, but the infrequent service stopped at 2:30 a.m. and proved so expensive to operate that the T ended it in 2005. Boston ranks last in national transit-authority hours-of-service surveys, and many tourists jeer at a part-time transit authority determined to raise fares.

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MBTA police conducting random searches Thursday

MBTA Police will be conducting random searches of bags on the subway Thursday as a demonstration of security for visiting officials from Scotland Yard in London.

Video from 7News