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Solving Logan's 30-minute taxi waits

With nothing else to do as he slowly inches to the front of a taxi line at Terminal B, Paul Levy analyses the taxi dispatching problem and comes up with a possible solution to the long lines caused, he said, not by demand, but by the way taxis are dispatched from the central cab parking area.

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Comments

This guy is a meatball, take the 5 minute walk to the next terminal where a line of vacant taxis will be waiting.

I fly out of logan every month, sometime two to three times, and never have had to wait longer than the walk between terminals.

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Why is he "a meatball"?

Why should the passenger have to walk to the next terminal instead of asking Massport to simply do its job well?

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A person who has to wait for a cab is a "victim"? I'm starting to think that "blaming the victim" is like the Goodwin's Law of uHub

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where the other terminal is and how many cabs are there, how? At 11pm?

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... everyone who uses Logan Armpit just *knows* how the *system* works.

Not that anybody would ever arrive at an international airport from out of town or anything like that ...

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It seems like there has to a better answer than "walk to the next terminal."

While your advice is probably good in practice under the current circumstances, there's nothing to prevent Logan from managing their taxi queue more effectively, other than the "this is the way we've always done it" mentality.

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- wait is seldom that long for a cab in my experience.

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This seems so very Boston: poorly thought out and inconvenient for no apparent reason other than "we've always done it this way."

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Massport instituted the change several (10?) years back in response to a pedestrian fatality. Of course, whether or not a safety record of one pedestrian fatality when you have millions of people per year transiting the airport is a problem, or whether it is a bad enough problem to cost passengers hundreds of thousands of hours out of their lives every year, is another question.

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I must be missing something here. What does cab dispatch practice have to do with pedestrian safety?

Why would sending for a few more cabs create additional pedestrian danger?

Sorry if I'm being dense here, but I simply don't see the connection between the two issues at hand.

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You used to have to step out and actually flag a cab as it went by. That meant that people would come to the curb and wave, or, more likely, wade through the double parked pickup and dropoff area to the second or third lane and wave, and cabs would swoop in to grab fares. Sounds like somebody got killed doing that. I don't know the details.

Now there is a line of taxis, and, theoretically, a line of fares. The problem is that only one cab can board at a time, and of course there is no room to stand on the sidewalk with your luggage and 200 of your closest friends wanting to get a cab, too, and their luggage ... so it gets really slow and crazy. If they made some extra space for a line of people hauling luggage and then boarded 4 or 5 fares into 4 or 5 cabs at a time, it would move much more quickly.

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It used to be, there were a bunch of spaces; the dispatcher positioned a waiting passenger at each space; cabs pulled into available spaces as they arrived and left as they filled.

Now, all of the passengers must wait behind the chain until all the cabs pull in, stop their engines, and remove keys from ignition. Only then are the passengers allowed to walk to their space and board their cab. No cab is allowed to start its engine until all of the cabs have loaded. Repeat cycle.

The argument is safety: keep pedestrians away from cabs that are running. The cost is an enormous amount of time.

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...into the city, to be run over by another taxicab going through a traffic light.

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Had a problem with the wait.

Always had a problem with $20 to take the 1.5 mile trip downtown and $35-40 anywhere else. It's highway robbery.

That is if they even know where they're bringing you...

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That's been my experience as well, I've never had to wait for a cab at Logan. The cost is what annoys me.

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Especially late night, when the T is finished. I've arrived on delayed flights and waited insane amounts of time. If I lived on the same side of the harbor, I would have walked home...

And yes, the cost is awful too. Perhaps even more awful since we have no choice about theawful delays. THIS kind of thing can make Boston frustrating for visitors.

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around $100.00 to bring people from Logan to downtown and you know what I hear more than anything about the cost?

"It's better than waiting in that awful cab line."

This despite the fact that Massport places limo services a couple of notches below those Dyson hand dryers in terms of importance to the traveling public.

BTW, the second thing I hear all of the time comes from West Coasters; "Why can't you meet me inside? Why do I have to get my luggage downstairs and then come upstairs to meet you? This isn't the way they do things at LAX!!"

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... why do we have to first hunt around for the shuttle bus to the train?(signage sucks and the bus "numbers" are very confusing) Why can't we just catch the train right in the terminal?

Alternately "why can't we pay for our transit ticket before we get on the Silver bus?"

I think the answer is that Massport has the same attitude of any insider hack agency: if you don't know your way around, you don't belong here - who cares if it is an international airport!

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Agree 100% on the train inside the terminal, but we know that's a pipe dream.

I think there are CharlieCard machines in the baggage claim areas now.

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Taxi wait for you!

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There are 6 shuttle busses: 11, 22, 33, 55, 66 and 88. And 4 terminals: A, B, C, and E.

How could that possibly be confusing?

I think we just have low expectations for ourselves--we know that the typical international visitor is bright enough to figure out the transportation system on their own, but Joe Schmoe from Billerica can't possibly be expected to comprehend that a terminal might change names from E to D, even if D became C five years ago.

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I can figure it out - I've been here a while.

The maps are nearly useless. There are no clearly marked stops for the shuttles. Then you need to figure out if the one that is coming in and angling around that misplaced shuttle van to make the curb well beyond the "official" point (which is marked shuttle and not dedicated) is the bus you want.

Yeah. Simple. Or it might be simpler if the stops were clearly marked, if the information was clear, if the way to the stops was signed from the baggage area, and if the buses had something beyond a number on them (as the electronic signs don't always function).

These are things that other cities do, because they expect that tired visitors from other places will want and need it. This is the sort of thing that makes visitors label Boston as an unfriendly and unwelcoming place.

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A, B, B, C, and E.

I remember trying to meet a friend at "baggage carousel #2 in Terminal B" and discovering they were in the other Terminal B. (I forget the actual carousel number)

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...to realign the Blue Line away from the BRB&L right-of-way, added travel time for everyone east of Airport, and it still would require some kind of shuttle to get between terminals.

For example, SFO has BART nowadays (a whole mess, but that's another story). But you have to change to the elevated AirTrain to get around to your terminal. Speaking of cabs, it's like $80 to get anywhere from there. Shared ride vans are popular.

I did get lost at Logan though, plenty of times. I have bought Charlie Tickets though, from the vending machines. They're right inside by the double door exits, at least at Terminal C.

Actually, one small change that I think would be very helpful is if the Blue Line Shuttle buses actually unloaded you on the Boston-bound side of the tracks. I haven't studied it closely, but it seems like it should be possible to build an entrance there.

Being able to quickly walk in and hop on the train would be nice, instead of schlepping and waiting for two escalators to carry you and your bags up and down. Then the shuttles could drive around and pick up the waiting passengers separately.

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That's a new on on the T - it is impossible to navigate the shuttle bus platform while towing a bag if anybody is walking the other way. Makes getting to the bus - which is unloading people with bags - great fun.

There are also way too few wider width "turnstiles" to get into and out of the station - like one might expect at, you know, a place where people might be hauling luggage?

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I agree it would be nice if Logan and the T integrated like other places. It always amazes me to walk out of a terminal and straight onto a subway platform without feeling like I left the airport.

Unfortunately for Boston that train has left the station (arf arf). You could have rerouted the Blue Line under the North Service Area and gotten closer to the airport, but that would have been very expensive and disruptive. A sort of tram/monorail just running back and forth to the terminal might have been a pricey option, but it ain't happening now. We're stuck with buses. As far as having to go up the stairs to get over to the in-bound side, again, live with it. There is an access road to get to the Bremen Street/Inbound side of the station, but you have to be coming north on 1A/McClellan Highway from the Callahan Tunnel. No easy way to do it coming from the airport. They blew a lot of money on elevators and I haven't seen the one at Airport out of commission, so I'd say that's you best bet if you don't feel like lugging luggage up the escalator and over.

And you can also take the shuttle over to the Hyatt and take the Ferry across to downtown. Nice views.

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What's the big advantage of the tram vs the shuttle bus? Level boarding -- sure. But you could achieve that with a bus, if they tried. I'm surprised they haven't done it already, what with ADA requirements. The tram is more comfortable. No doubt. But it's a short ride anyway.

Maybe I will try the ferry next time.

For all our complaints, I think that Logan is way more accessible than any of the NYC airports. Mostly because it's close.

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Of course, if you had lite-brites and wires sewed into your outer garment, flashing, then you wouldn't even need a cab to get down town. The police would help you out right away.

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Couple of comments:

first - use Silver Line, get to a Boston destination then get cab from any of the Silver Line stops. No Logan surcharge (or bus fare cheaper than taxi surcharge)

second - the original design of the outdoor arrivals waiting areas at Terminals B and C has left too narrow a space to allow two queues, one for the main queue and a second for a "boarding area" queue, plus accommodate general pedestrian circulation. Not much could be done to widen that area save taking parking spaces from the parking deck on the same level.

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Ah, yes, a bus to a cab. That sounds like a wonderfully practical solution for someone coming off a plane with luggage.

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Has space for luggage.

But it's problem is the wait time and the frequent stops.

From Southie the public transportation option to and from Logan would take me between 1.5 to 2 hours. Bus to Red to Silver. It's horrible. That's also assuming it's NOT a early or late flight.

A cab would take about 15min (if they bothered to show on time) but it's also $20 from southie.

Ultimately the best option was a ride from a friend, but not everyone can always swing that.

The option for tourists and international travelers are absolutely disgusting. The people we say we want to attract and spend money in our city on the hill, then go about making sure their stay is horribly backwards and unpleasant so our politicians and city leaders can stuff their waistcoats with cash and patronage.

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Um. No.

Not only is the airport a place where people from far away disembark, it also operates 24 hours a day.

Come in later and you are stuck with a cab. It is, at such times, that the cab queues explode in size and congestion, since they have a veritable monopoly. Thus, taking the silver line doesn't solve the problem - unless said silver line started running 24 hour service to South Station.

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