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Red Line riders lend a hand
By adamg on Mon, 02/15/2016 - 10:44am
For a holiday morning, one Red Line train seemed a bit crowded this morning, Charles Cherney reports.
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Comments
Commuter rail is on a
Commuter rail is on a Saturday schedule, For me, the first train was at 7:10 train then only a 9:10 train. So there's only one train for people that have to be in by 9am. The conductors closed off half the cars too. It was insane just trying squeeze in the aisles. Commuter rail management, if you're reading, not all offices close on Presidents Day, this is not Thanksgiving.
Weekend schedules
They tried to move MLK day to weekend schedules last year and people were not pleased, and they backtracked that at that last minute. Presidents Day is the only non-Big Six holiday (NYD, Mem, Jul4, Labor, TGiv, Xmas) that doesn't run full weekday schedules.
Weekend schedules are terrible: it's very hard to work a full day on some lines and there's only one rush hour-ish train. So they're useless, as we see on a day like today.
But here's an idea: the T now has Severe Weather schedules for Commuter Rail service, which drop about 1/3 of the rush hour service but provide a lot more than the weekend service. Rebrand those as "severe weather / reduced holiday" schedules and run them on Presidents Day. And MLK Day, Patriots Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and perhaps the entire week between Christmas and New Years. This would save A LOT of money in operations, and wouldn't drastically inconvenience people by more than 20 minutes or so in most cases. On days like Columbus Day and Presidents Day you don't need the capacity of a regular schedule, but you do need a train that arrives in Boston before 8:30 a.m.
This would save roughly 100 trips on each of these days, or $300,000 per day; $3 million per year if you run it through the week between Xmas and NY. This would make way too much sense, and the T is much more concerned in doing things like cutting late night service (which *does* inconvenience people) instead.
harumph
I realize I'm a cranky old jerk, but I would be intensely annoyed if this happened on my train when I was trying to go to work in the morning.
Unsafe
This just looks so unsafe to do. Imagine if that train did a quick stop.......
Yeah!
That would be hysterical!
Ha
The red line would have to be actually moving for this to be a possibility...
Perhaps ...
That's why they did it on a holiday?
So many of these riders are
So many of these riders are just ridding the T for fun on their "holiday"?
Yes
Amazing but true: Different people have different ideas of fun. If this was the November Project, this is also the same group that runs up and down the steps of Harvard Stadium and has shoveled out people's sidewalks on a snowy Brookline hill. And they like it.
Once again you completly are
Once again you completly are missing the point. Get a clue for crying out loud
Missing the point?
Well, I'm missing it too. Instead of telling me to "get a clue for crying out loud", since I've clearly demonstrated that I can't, why don't you just tell us all what "the point" was? Honestly, I don't think you stated it clearly, or perhaps at all.
So many of these riders are
So many of these riders are just ridding the T for fun on their "holiday"? Perhaps they still have to work on a Monday?
undoubtedly
There were surely fewer 9-5 workers riding today, but when I was a miserably underpaid retail worker - who could rely on all of two holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas Day) as non-working days - I would have had to ride into work on Presidents Day. And I would have been steaming if this had happened then.
Uh oh!
I think somebody wants to crowd surf too!
We were only on for one stop
So, two minutes, give or take. Go with the flow, man.
Looks like a blast! Nice to
Looks like a blast! Nice to see a little bit of levity on a Monday morning.
neon colors, all over social media....yep, NP
How do you know someone is in Nov Proj?
You'll know because they won't shut up about it.
You talk to NP members?
You know this for a fact?
I used to.
I had to unfriend them from facebook and stopped talking to them at gatherings because my facebook feed would be full of the same goddam photos of them running up the same goddamn steps/hill...and at gatherings all they'd talk about was This One Time At Nov. Proj.
Facebook has "Unfollow"
which is much less drastic than Unfriend, and allows you to remain friends while not seeing their status updates unless you go looking for them. I've been tempted to unfollow a few friends who are flooding my feed with stridently partisan pro-Hillary and pro-Bernie links.
Unfollow
It's not much of a friendship then is it?
Why not?
Some friendships do better for having a little distance in them, don't you think? You connect around the things you connect around, and as for the rest, understand that they're not into the same things you're into.
Unfollowing
I've rarely full-on unfollowed anyone, but I've changed friendship status from "Close Friend" to "Acquaintance" for a handful of people whose entire FB activity is to like and/or share dozens of articles at a time on a near-daily basis, filling my feed with a spew of cat rescue stories, inspirational memes, quotes NOT actually written by Oscar Wilde, and political articles. I'm always eager to see original posts from all of my FB friends, but the relentless barrage of random content gets wearisome and drowns out actual news from my other friends.
a lot of people
seem to be mad about groups of friends having harmless fun
Many people on a crowded train
would find them pretty irritating. Not everyone is in the same 'fun' mood as this group of friends. They remind of the kinds of people who huddle together in the middle of a sidewalk or train, or by train exits, and lack the civility or commonsense to find a spot that won't unnecessarily inconvenience others.
Just saying.
It was a holiday morning
So there likely weren't all that many people on that train.
Just sayin'.