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Commuters from Wonderland south feeling kind of down in the mouth
By adamg on Tue, 05/18/2021 - 9:08am
The T is blaming "power problems" for the cessation of the Blue Line and the need to bus passengers between Airport and Maverick this morning, although one commuter reports:
A shuttle was promised when we found out at airport station, it has been 10 minutes and no shuttle in sight.
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Comments
Maybe not so bad...
Compared to the month-long Orange Line debacle experienced in March and April. As if that wasn't enough, the MBTA followed up with various weekends of busing.
But then again, all of these breakdowns are pitiful and unacceptable. There needs to be some recognition of the decades of underinvestment by Massachusetts politicians -- after all, the Wellington switches were more than 100 years old and weren't replaced when they were 80 or 90 years old...
Please..
Don’t ever run out of MBTA rhymes, Adam!
The 82nd Airborne Has The Day Off And Can't Drop In A Bus To You
I know the T can really suck sometimes, but do people actually believe there is some kind of Rapid Deployment Force waiting at Cabot, Lynn, Albany and Medford with bus drivers waiting in full gear to deal with a power issue on the Blue Line?
It is not like a bell goes off and drivers slide down a pole and into waiting buses prepped by Formula 1 pit crews and then go through a hyperloop to guide your ass into town by passing all other road traffic.
It takes time and effort to rearrange things. Welcome to life.
Sorry this guy (who pays $100 a month, not that anyone else does) had to wait for his ride.
Agreed...
There's also a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" element to subway diversions: if the T repeatedly takes buses from the "wrong" bus lines, such as the 28, 111, 116, and 117, there will be backlash from advocates about being insensitive to the needs of low-income minority communities. If the T doesn't take buses from those high-frequency routes, then people complain about slow response times.
Thank You
Thank you John. Someone else has said it
This is exactly it, people forget that once you're dumped off a train waiting for a shuttle bus... they gotta come from elsewhere to run. Often they are coming off other routes & need to complete their trip, then head to the shuttle bus. This can take time.
If you're a 77 or 57, you're coming to Eastie from the other side of the city. It's going to take a bit. Even some 111's, which get pulled for these, still have a 20 min ride over. (pending if they have to finish their trip or not).
And keep in mind, you get 3-4 buses to show up fast, they fill up fast and drive away. Now you're waiting for the rest to show up.
I get people are angry that they are late, but let's focus the anger where its warranted. Plus if you don't want this to happen support a gas tax hike or more tax dollars going to the T. But no, people hate to the T and rather complain when it breaks down instead of funding it so it doesn't.
And here we are.
... do people actually
Are you sure about all of that?
I agree that that Blue Line operations (or any of the other rapid transit branches or CR) probably doesn't have buses/drivers sitting ready - but I'd be dumbfounded if Bus Operations didn't have some excess vehicles/operators built into their daily ready-availability roster for reserve capacity (including rail, not just bus routes).
I definitely agree that it takes a while to get reserves/alts into place, even if they're in a "ready room" at the nearest depot.
I also wouldn't be surprised if you told me on-hand reserve capacity frequently gets used up just by bus breakdowns.
I’d hop on the Silver Line.
I’d hop on the Silver Line.
Really?
Have you ever taken the Silver Line from Airport to South Station? It's the ride from hell and takes hours and hours (in normal traffic). And first you have to get a shuttle from the T stop to Terminal A to access the Silver Line. The the real fun begins. You have to get back out of the airport and through a maze of tunnels to downtown Boston. A few years back when I made the mistake of getting on the Silver Line when the Blue Line failed I witnessed a woman, obviously from another country, who kept running to the door with all her luggage every time the bus made a traffic stop because we had been on the bus so long she assumed it just had to be time to get off. People had to keep telling the poor woman it wasn't time yet. If I wasn't so frustrated myself it would have been comical.
Or
If you are a Blue Line commuter, you could have gotten off at Airport and taken the SL3 from the busway by the outbound side to South Station.
That said, the SL1 change is troublesome. I wasn't like that a few years ago. I say that the Logan Express to Back Bay is a good option, but it looks like that is suspended. They'll be back, though.
Cute story.
But yes, I’ve taken the Silver Line many times.
Unless you have a mobility impairment
Or the weather is just horrendous (which it isn't today) waiting for a shuttle bus between Airport and Maverick is idiotic. The walk is 15 minutes (or less, if you walk fast) along the East Boston Greenway.