buses

MBTA increasing capacity on the Blue, Green and Red lines

adamg — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:48:04 -0400

The T announced today it's adding more cars to the three lines during rush hours - and making some service enhancements to some bus lines - starting this week.

The news comes as the T also announces continued record ridership: The T carried 34.7 million passengers in July, compared to 31.4 million the previous July.

The biggest jump will occur on the Blue Line - which saw a 25% jump in ridership - where six-car trains will begin regular rush-hour service the week of Sept. 15 (although they will not initially replace all of the four-car trains).

Some additional cars on the Green Line will mean at least 2.7% more passengers will be able to cram into trolleys at rush hour, while the Red Line is gaining three additional trains during the morning and afternoon commutes.

Bus changes:

'Charlie? This is God speaking.'

Brett — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 23:11:31 -0400

This evening, riding home on the bus, the most curious thing happened. A voice, not that of Mr. Baby Strollers Need To Share The Bus or his brother Stop Requested, filled the bus Real Genius Style, and announced to "all MBTA customers" that they're looking for a "little 11 year old girl".

The only detail provided: where they thought she might have jumped on a bus by herself. No name or physical description, because that would be, you know, helpful.

So, when did the MBTA gain this "voice of god in all the buses" capability? The mind boggles! They could inform riders when there are subway system problems, and even use it on the platforms themselves to give real-time announcements more descriptive than "attention customers on the ____ line, we are experiencing delays"! Or, Danny could personalize those security brainwashings: "Hi, this is Dan Grabaukas. Peekaboo, I seeeeee yoouuuuuu! Hey, is that a Suspicious Package? Made you look!" What do you think the MBTA should do with this marvelous technology?

Silver Line could lose a leg

adamg — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:10:09 -0400

MBTA planners say it's time to ditch the little used City Point branch of the Silver Line and instead beef up resources on the Marine Industrial Park leg. Also? Green Line riders? No relief for overcrowded trolleys for you, sorry.

The MBTA's recently released Draft 2008 Service Plan discusses conditions on every single T subway, trolley and bus route and makes recommendations for the T board of directors.

In addition to canning the SL3 route, planners also want to eliminate the 500 express bus from Riverside to downtown, the 6 bus from Haymarket to South Station, the 48 bus between the JP Monument and the Orange Line. But they also propose increasing service on the 1 line, extending the 4 line out of North Station to Tide Street in South Boston and the 225 bus that now ends at Weymouth Landing to South Weymouth.

In the subway section of the report, planners mark the Green Line with a failure stamp, saying that while it's getting better, it's still failing to meet MBTA criteria for on-time performance. Also? The trolleys tend to be overcrowded - except on the E branch and on the main trunk - but that there are no resources to deal with that.

Schedule of public hearings on the proposal - between Sept. 8 and 29.

Via archBoston.

MBTA guys warn photographer to stop taking photos on a public street

adamg — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 08:41:56 -0400

Mike reports on a little run-in with a couple of guys in an MBTA SUV outside a South Boston bus depot:

Recently I was in South Boston to take pictures of the Macallen condo building. Directly across the street is (what I think is) an MBTA bus depot, and I took a few photos in that direction to capture a rainbow that appeared after the rain. As I was leaving, an MBTA SUV pulled up with two people inside and asked me what newspaper I work for. I said the photos are for a photography class I'm taking. They responded quickly something about warning me that I wasn't allowed to take photos on or of MBTA property and drove off. ...

Earlier:
Further proof the MBTA's photo policy not worth the paper it's printed on (incident at South Station).

I'd point to the MBTA's own photo policy, but the MBTA Police Web site is now the Kenmore busway of Web sites: Yes, it's under construction (because apparently whoever's re-doing the site has never heard of using an internal test server while keeping the existing live site up instead of just displaying a large graphic of a guy shoveling manure). So here is a copy of a draft of the policy, which I recall was basically the same.

Those bike racks on buses aren't much good if the drivers won't let people with bikes use them

adamg — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:35:47 -0400

Today's only-in-T-land adventure comes from En Ki, who reports that when he got to Lechmere with his bike last night, the driver of the 80 bus closed the door and drove on without him rather than wait for him to put his bike on the rack. So he got on his bike, beat the bus to the next stop and the driver blew right past him. He then tried to catch up, found the bus coming back the other way, got to a bus stop - and the driver once again drove right by him.

... Next time I find myself in this situation, of course, I will ask myself "What Would Dan Grabauskas Do?"

The whistling buses of Forest Hills

adamg — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 10:02:37 -0400

A few years ago, the MBTA replaced all the stinky diesel buses running out of the Forest Hill yard with clean CNG buses. Yay! Only now a lot of them have developed this interesting characteristic: They whistle as they go. Really loudly. You can often tell when a bus is a few blocks away because you hear something that sounds like a tea kettle or an elephant, or maybe an elephant holding a tea kettle.

You get more with a Kenmore

adamg — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:19:33 -0400

More delays, more mess, more excuses.

Stephen Laniel adds this to a list of T construction and maintenance issues. And as somebody who moved back to Boston because he missed it so much, he gets frustrated:

... It all smells very much like politics: buried deep within the MBTA and the city government, someone has paid someone else off; or the union won't fix something because one of its members is pissed at Grabauskas; or there's a feud going between the Italian wing and the Irish wing of city government. Something. If someone knows the politics, I'm sure that's 99% of the story; I would love to hear it. And I would love for the Globe to dig down to this next level. When a bridge is effectively running at 25% capacity for a few months, I want my local media to explain the root cause, rather than constantly turning to "MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo."

What I want to know is: as someone who loves this city very deeply, what can I do to fix what's broken? I'm not leaving this place. I want to make it better.

MBTA bus vs. narrow street: Narrow street loses

adamg — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:17:11 -0400

It's rarely a good thing when an MBTA driver makes a wrong turn and winds up on a street too narrow for a bus (fun with fail fotos).

T bus info on an iPhone

adamg — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:37:48 -0400

Me2Bus Boston claims to let you know when the next bus will arrive at your stop - at least, based on published T schedules. They say it's for iPhones, but it works even on my laptop (albeit not with fancy finger whooshing).

The Urban Ring

adamg — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:05:27 -0400

It has its own Web site.