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How perfect: Park Street fire erupts just in time to ruin evening commute
By adamg on Fri, 10/05/2007 - 7:07pm
A small trash fire at Park Street that a single MBTA employee put out by himself managed to screw up the evening commute for thousands of people: The Red Line was shut between Harvard and JFK and Green Line trains didn't stop at Park Street.
Rob Sama is fuming:
I walked all the way from South Station to Harvard Sq, was turned down by one shuttle bus for being "too full" and lied to by another cop about trains running, only to get to Charles MGH and find trains NOT running, only go get to Harvard SQ and find a load of people getting off a train. WTF? ...
But at least Rob got some exercise. Marcy Dewey gets steamed at an MBTA flack who proclaimed the disruption "brief:"
I got on the Red Line train at South Station at 5:00. We did not start moving down the track until 6:15!! That is not BRIEF! Especially on a Friday!!! Especially when you are underground, without cell phone reception, and - worst of all - CLAUSTROPHOBIC. ...
Mwbworld reports she got stuck on the Orange Line in the morning (remember that?) and the Red Line in the evening - and finally got home to JP to find out her power was out:
... So why do I live in Boston? It's not the "cheap" rents. It's not the convenient and dependable public transportation. ...
Oh, driving was no walk in the park this afternoon, either: At one point, the turnpike westbound was jammed from Westborough 20 miles back to 93; the turnpike eastbound from Rte. 9 in Framingham to at least Weston (for my own sake, thank goodness for Rte. 9). The Expressway was a mess, all in all, just not a good day to try to get anywhere in the Boston area. Or as Sonia puts it: Another crappy commuter day.
Free tagging:
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Comments
Always learn alternate routes to your destination
It is always a good idea to know alternate ways to take any trip that you do frequently.
For instance, if you're in downtown Boston, and there is a problem with the Red Line going towards Cambridge, take the Green Line to Lechmere and get a 69 bus to Harvard Square, or an 87 to Porter Square, or an 88 to Davis Square. The commuter rail can be another good alternative.
Commuter Rail
A coworker was planning to take a Fitchburg train to Porter, and then switch to get to Alewife.
Rerouting pays - so long as the bus drivers aren't trying to stop you from boarding like the jerk this morning on the 93 bus from Sullivan to Downtown ...
Gremlins hit the MBTA
I tried to avoid the Red Line mess this evening by taking the Route 1 bus from Harvard, but they were not around (and I didn't want to take the 69 or the 86). Thus I ended up waiting for the Red Line to South Station.
This morning, however, I was lucky: I got off the Commuter Rail at Back Bay, noticed the shuttle buses were outside, so I took the 503 into Brighton Center and picked up the Route 57 bus to Watertown. The only fly in the ointment was that the trackless trolleys from Watertown to Harvard were also backed up, as noted by the six-to-seven deep morass of people on the little bus island; I went across the street to CVS and came back, and lo and behold, three trackless trolleys arrived.
For whatever reason, it looked like Stripe and his merry band of MBTA gremlins hit with wild abandon.
The announcer on my (stuck)
The announcer on my (stuck) red line train said there was a hold up because people had jumped off a train near the bridge.
Add this debacle to the "we're towing your car if it's at Alewife after 7pm" and you get: one COMPLETELY ruined evening. That's not even counting the woman who puked right next to my shoes as we finally dragged into Porter 1.25 hours later.
Redline messed up for hours after!
I heard about the small fire and large dissruption caused by it on both the green and the red lines. I began my journey for a night out on the green line around 9pm, got to park street and then switched to the red line heading towards alewife. it got to the bridge crossing the charles and the train stopped dead for 15 minutes. There were no announcements made as to why we were being delayed. Finally it began to lurch across the remainder of the bridge, we get to harvard and the make an announcement that the train was going out of service, everyone gets off, we wait another 10 minutes for the next train only to be told it was running express to Alewife. Finally another train comes... this added up to a 45 minute delay in my travels, which is sometimes unavoidable... im just upset there were no explainations as to why they ocurred...