Harvard station around 8:40 a.m. Photo by Anachronistique.
UPDATE: Now there are problems on the Orange Line, where somebody managed to get his foot stuck between a train and the platform at North Station.
It's Dead Train Day on the Red Line. And it's so bad, the MBTA has broken out a rare "severe" delay warning.
Among those affected: Alexandra Elizabeth, who sent out a tweet for help around 8:30:
Hoooray. The MBTA train I'm on to Harvard has, of course, broken down. I'm in a tunnel with a bunch of strangers. Get. Me. Out.
Meanwhile, at the other end, a truck crashed into a traffic light right outside Broadway station.
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Comments
aaaaaaaand apparently a dead
By anon
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 8:58am
aaaaaaaand apparently a dead Green Line train at Park Street too.
Does that Somerville extension still seem like a reasonable plan?
The green line extension is a
By anon
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 9:44am
The green line extension is a good idea. The MBTA should shelve the extremely expensive commuter rail extensions to nowhere to pay for it and improve maintenance of the central subway.
Commuter rails
By Kathode
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 10:06am
lines go to somewhere, and there are people who need to get into the city.
That's nice
By 413
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 12:37pm
But the far greater numbers of people who take the Green and Orange Line, both of which are in dire need of repair and new rolling stock are more important than the 10 people who will take the train from Fall River/New Bedford to Boston. It is like a different state down there, why they need a train to Boston is beyond me.
I know, buncha loozahs,
By Scratchie
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 12:56pm
I know, buncha loozahs, amirite?
If you build a whole lot of
By b
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 1:15pm
If you build a whole lot of new commuter rails to get people into the city without repairing and upgrading the central subway system, all those people come into the city just to get stuck in the local subway tunnels.
C'mon, Blue Line! Can we go
By Scratchie
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 9:46am
C'mon, Blue Line! Can we go for a homer?
So I haven't passed a budget
By Harry Reid
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 9:06am
So I haven't passed a budget in 6 years. What you want federal funding for new Red line cars? Pshaw, I have more important line items like Cowboy Poetry slams to take care of. Go ask the crybaby with a tan to get some money out of the house.
Oh...
By anon
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 9:18am
So it's Boehner's fault because he's a Republican, right?
Reading is...
By anon
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 9:41am
fun-for-mentals, smarty.
I just
By anon
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 9:48am
surprised Adam didn't blame Bush!
And ...
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 10:20am
If Pelosi had organized Democrats to do this over the tax cuts for the wealthy and the insane war expenditures back when the Democrats held the house, but not the Senate or the Presidency, can you imagine the shrieking about "communists holding the country hostage"?
Not hard to imagine it (and, yes, sore losers are reprehensible regardless).
http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speech...
She was very obstructionist
By Selective memor...
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 11:23am
She was very obstructionist on many things. The biggest bit of legislation was the blocking of social security reform. Remember that during Bush's tenure congress was passing actual constitutionally obligated budgets. Not these half ass continuing resolutions that Obama keeps allowing Harry Reid to get away with.
"Reform"?
By Scratchie
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 12:15pm
You mean a massive government payout to investment banks? Yeah, it's a shame that didn't go through.
Liberal mentality....
By anon
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 1:23pm
Bush Stimulus = Evil 1%
Obama Stimulus = The Messiah do the work of the people, praise be to Obama!
PS whose Vineyard house did the Obama's stay in this year, David Schulte?
The cornfield called
By Scratchie
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 1:33pm
They want their strawman back.
Strawman?
By anon
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 9:01pm
Is that what you call it when someone bring up a valid point to you bs post.
When you bring up a valid point
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 9:38pm
We will take you seriously.
It's not like we weren't
By Wall Street Bankers
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 1:50pm
It's not like we weren't appointed to cabinet and other senior leadership positions in this administration.
Corrected Memories
By anon
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 3:09pm
Social Security Reform under Bush was to turn the funds into a massive stock market investment. That would have created a stock bubble that Bush and family, the Kock brothers, et al. could use to sell suddenly inflated stock values to reap a huge profit. Then following a massive stock dump the market values would plummet leaving the value in the Social Security system a fraction before the "investment."
Continuing Resolutions begin in the House, as all money bills begin in the House. If the House passes a budget bill, instead of a CR, then the Senate and President can act on the budget bill. So who starts the CRs? Since the House has been controlled by Republicans for the past few years it would be Republicans who are playing the game of Continuing Resolutions.
Well building the Southcoast
By kvn
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 9:23am
Well building the Southcoast rail extension wont help any. The T needs more money , raise fares , or raise taxes ! Let the hornets swarm.
wellington to state...
By amusings
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 9:44am
i took a month long contract in the seaport area, so my commute from newburyport has been interesting. my husband drives into cambridge 2x a week, sometimes 3, so this morning he dumped me at wellington. things were swell for a while. then we got underground.
i ended up bailing at state street and walking -- it's a gorgeous day. thank jebus.
hopefully my husband will drive over here and pick me up tonight. if this stays silly, my south station to harvard ride won't be fun. so.
in theory... my husband's office is only 3.6 miles from here. who knows. i could hit the 100 miles walked mark that i set for myself at the beginning of the year ... earlier than december.
Your husband drives from
By Scratchie
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 10:04am
Your husband drives from Newburyport to Cambridge? I'm shocked and astonished that he doesn't take advantage of our world-class public transit system for such a simple commute, he said with extreme sarcasm.
So when is GM Beverly Scott's
By anon
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 10:52am
So when is GM Beverly Scott's head going to roll over all these breakdowns? Grabuskas got canned over less.
MBTA GM
By deadheadtyler
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 2:15pm
Come to think of it, haven't heard or seen much of her recently. You know who I would vote for in an instant for any elected office? Richard Davey.
Davey vs Scott
By Matthew
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 2:29pm
Why do people blame Scott for this when she just got here and has little control over the funding that is needed to fix the problems?
Meanwhile, Davey is still in charge of the T, just at a higher level. The T is part of MassDOT. Arguably he has a better position to fix problems, although he is also at the mercy of the legislature. But there's no calls for his head to roll. Interesting difference.
I say this as someone who is a fan of Davey and I'm also willing to give Scott a chance. The problems with the T are embedded in the broken funding setup which the legislature put together. Only they can fix it.
I can only speak for myself,
By deadheadtyler
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 2:36pm
I can only speak for myself, but I'm not blaming Scott for anything. Merely commenting on her visibility, that's all.
Funding issues are the responsibility of Beacon Hill, sure. That's not to say that the GM of the MBTA can't be a change agent.
Beverly Scott is welcome to join me on my commute any day
By Nancy
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 6:08pm
My Red Line commute from Quincy to downtown has become almost an hour long because of delays and not being able to get on packed trains. I think it would be wonderful if she'd ride along with the average T rider some morning and see what we deal with when we're just trying to get to work.
I managed to hit gold today though - had to be at work at 8am and totally missed the fiasco. The battery on my phone would have blown out from the nasty tweets to @mbta
Crazy overcrowding
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 9:37pm
I've started taking buses to Wellington or biking to Davis (or just taking the express bus) on the days that I take the T to work downtown, because any closer-in stops like Sullivan mean platform crowding and trains that are too crowded to get onto.
Quite nuts when you can't get onto a train only three or four stops down the line. I remember when it was no problem finding a seat getting on at Sullivan, and trains didn't fill up on the Red Line until they got to Harvard.
I also had to be in early this morning and biked in before the system fail happened. I'm just thankful that I have a lot of options for getting to work - these days my choice of mode often gets down to a combination of "what's the weather report" and "where is the disaster today?".
Orange Line crowding
By anon99
Wed, 10/02/2013 - 10:16am
How much worse is the crowding going to get when they open the Assembly Square station?
Toss up..
By BostonUrbEx
Wed, 10/02/2013 - 11:22am
Assembly Square will not have bus lines pouring in as the rest of the stations north of Community College do. It's likely not to pick up I-93 traffic, which Sullivan doesn't pick up very much of either. Wellington already has 16 and 28 covered very well. I imagine a majority of Assembly Square passengers will be people going to work who live in Boston/other parts of the MBTA. Assembly Square will be very office-heavy, compared to residential. The real problem is the slow downs. The [relatively] few people who are cramming in won't have any room to board, as trains are jammed after Wellington. So they'll take a few minutes to pack themselves in.
It might help the overcrowding
By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 10/02/2013 - 11:25am
If people are getting off at Assembly Square instead of Sullivan (which has buses to Assembly Square), that will reduce some of the crowding.
It will ultimately depend on how much north side service is expanded as the area is built out, however.
Orange Line is capable of more
By Matthew
Wed, 10/02/2013 - 12:07pm
If, as BostonUrbEx and Swirly say, Assembly Square will be a reverse commute destination then it won't add much to existing crowding and will use some underutilized capacity going the other way.
But either way, the Orange Line has a relatively easy path to capacity upgrades. It's already capable of and signaled for better frequency. It just needs more vehicles, and ones that aren't falling to pieces.
Money from the Transportation bill is supposed to be going towards that purpose...
Speaking of hearing from GM Scott
By Matthew
Wed, 10/02/2013 - 12:16pm
Just spotted this event:
http://www.umb.edu/news_events_media/events/transp...
over crowding
By anon
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 1:43pm
Why does the T do nothing at all to reduce platform crowding during times of extended delays? I'm sure, just like every other establishment, there must be a specific capacity for the stations, even more so considering the narrow platforms abutting electrified pits which have a tendency to catch on fire. Pictures like these from Harvard, Park, DTX, and South Station give me the chills because they look like recipes for disaster especially when anger, panic, and crowd mentality are looming possibilities.
Better passenger flow
By Matthew
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 2:34pm
The T needs to handle crowds like this on a regular basis, even when everything is operating normally, because of heavy usage. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any knowledge of proper passenger flow and egress design at hand when it comes to station architecture. Some of the stations are old and constrained by surroundings, but oftentimes the newer stations perform worse.
The T would rather have a hundred people trapped in small corridors than allow the possibility that one person might avoid paying a fare. The TSA/airport security mentality, now infiltrating transit systems, is even worse.
Bingo!
By BostonUrbEx
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 2:52pm
Exhibit A:
Millenium Partners: Yo, MBTA, we'll open up this former egress/entry at Chinatown for free, complete with renovations and everything! Think about, more accessibility and better passenger flow?
MBTA: Nah.
Millenium Partners: But-
MBTA: NO.
express
By Katia
Wed, 10/02/2013 - 9:48am
What I don't understand is why they don't run express trains after delays. If you ran an express to North Quincy from Park (or even South Station), you're going to reduce the annoying thing that keeps happening where everyone is trying desperately to get on the overcrowded train and they can't get the doors shut, adding another several minutes per stop to the delays.
Why does the T do nothing at
By Scratchie
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 3:23pm
What do you mean, "nothing"? They apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused.
Speaking of platform
By Katia
Wed, 10/02/2013 - 3:38pm
Speaking of platform congestion, I'm still shocked that Quincy Center basically has only one exit.
I mean, it's also located under a condemned parking structure, so 2 for 1 bad news I guess.
So, how long before
By roadman
Tue, 10/01/2013 - 5:03pm
we start hearing "Mind the Gap" type messages in the subway. The robovoice announcements on MBCR already broadcast them for Lowell and Anderson Stations, which have high level platforms.
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