Silver Line: Hell on earth
By adamg - 7/22/06 - 8:29 am
John Keith takes a Silver Line bus to the airport, says he won't be making that mistake again:
... You pick it up, under South Station (inexplicably, the bus stops twice, underground, once to pick up airport passengers, then, again, 15 feet forward ... to pick up World Trade Center passengers (WTF???).
Then, you go about 1000 feet, and drop off passengers, then wait at a traffic light (WTF???), then drop off more passengers (if there are any), then wait at a traffic light (WTF???), then make a circle, above ground, then wait at another traffic light (no, seriously, WTF???), all the while, you can see South Station, off in the distance. You're probably only about 600 feet from it, the whole time ...
Comments
WTF stands for Whiny Transit Fellow?
That's a whole lot of "WTF"s focusing on a lot of lame complaints that could also be made about the Red Line. Ever measured the distances between Park Street, Downtown Crossing and South Station? It's pretty comparable to the distances between stops on the Silver Line after South Station. Combine this with the fact that the Silver Line (a) only costs $1.25, (b) drops you off directly outside the airport terminal, and (c) is one of the few relatively hassle-free routes to the airport during the current tunnel insanity, these complaints are completely nitpicky. WTF, indeed.
perhaps it's because of the
perhaps it's because of the tunnel problems, but i've always found the silver line a much better way to get to the airport than the blue line, personally. especially when coming from south station.
think about it. to get to logan from south station by the T, you either take the silver line, which is direct if not express, or you take the red line to downtown crossing, the orange line to state, the blue line to airport, and then the shuttle.
Diesel and electric motors......and WTF
I'm going to wager a guess here but I think the two traffic lights and the circle have something to do with the change in noise that the engine makes....
Seems that the bus runs rather silently in the tunnel(must be some kind of underground noise regulation), but when they get out of the tunnel they get to turn on their diesel motors and really make some noise!
If I didn't know any better I'd wonder if those two stops at South Station weren't for some similar reason....maybe the bus is allowed to use noisy diesel motors until it gets to the tunnel but then when it pulls forward it has to turn them off and ?????
I do know though, that WTF stands for Why Think First.
Hmm...
Don't they run on catenary while underground? Takes a sec to switch over.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
The 2 stops at south station
The 2 stops at south station are not for any sort of electrical switch over. It's an effort to allow passengers with bags and luggage to get on first and then the rest of us who work on the waterfront get on after and squeeze into the remaining open crevices.
Why Can't They Make Good Things Good?
I agree with John Keith. The Silver Line *was* a great idea--make it so much easier to get from the Red Line/South Station to the airport. But these random, meaningless stops, combined with random waiting around, and I'm not sure if it's that much a better choice. It's more convenient for us living on the schmancy Red Line; but time-wise? Not so much.
I always wonder when given the chance to make a good thing... Why do we always then screw it up?
Remember its roots
I'm not sure when they decided to incorporate the Airport service too, but from my possibly flawed understanding, the Silver Line is largely based around the replacement for the Washington Street elevated, and that's been a backtrack from the start. The T has constantly tried to argue that buses are euqaivalent to or better than rail service, which must cause so much cognitive dissonance that I'm surprised Joe Pesaturo's head hasn't exploded. (Pesaturo is the T spokesman.)
One small note, Paul--the schmancy Red Line? Schmancy north of Park Street, perhaps, but it doesn't look so schmancy to us who board on the Ashmont branch.