Boston Fire Department is on scene for a trolley fire on the outbound side. Pantograph fire is out, the train is dead, expect delays.
What a pigeon flying high over the Public Garden would see.
Developer Ron Druker has hired a new architect, who's made changes to the exterior design of his proposed nine-story, $120-million building at Boylston and Arlington streets, but the structure still has the same basic dimensions and doesn't really look all that much different, so it doesn't need to go through a new city review process, members of the Boston Civic Design Commission told nearby residents and preservationists tonight. Read more
Was in Arlington station this weekend and saw the T work continuing. One phase of lighting is in place - the suspended lighting that runs above the "yellow line" close to the track. I was surprised to see this lighting uses yellow light bulbs. While yellow may be fine for your home, they make still-under-construction station look old and dingy before the work is even done. (Add to this the fact that lighting is going up, and the ceiling remains unrepaired, so, like Kenmore, looks like they'll just paint over the cracks and holes in the old ceiling. nice...)
Please Pardon Our Appearance would make a good title for a post-Apocalyptic movie involving zombies living in old subway stations:
Brad Kayal recently descended into the bowels of Arlington Street station to scout out locations.
Copyright Brad Kayal.
An eastbound Green Line trolley rear-ended another one between Arlington and Boylston stations around 8:50 this morning, injuring three or four seven people.
Boston.com story
Railroad.net discussion
LiveJournal discussion, reporting that passengers on the colliding trains had to walk in the subway tunnel to get to Boylston station
Fire in the hole, on the tracks between Boylston and Arlington Friday afternoon:
... FD had a hard time verifying that the power to the trains was turned off before they could go into the tunnels: lots of conflicting reports about whether or not the T had turned it off. ...
A Green Line rider, who requested anonymity, wonders just what the hell was going on at Arlington station yesterday afternoon. He writes:
Yesterday at rush hour at Arlington T stop, there was a huge commotion---at the end of the tunnel, just before you can split off to go inbound or Outbound, there was a backed up crowd of people and, for the first time I'd ever seen, both doors were closed. People were trying to open the door, but it was incredibly difficult (it was almost like trying to open a door during a windstorm).
As I edged closer, I realized the reason for the backup: shattered glass everywhere. The right-hand door, it appeared, was broken. Glass all along the floor. Incredibly, people were just walking through, albeit not terribly quickly. Rounding the corner, I came across a second reason for the delay: a woman with blood running down her legs, being treated by a man while her friend looked on in panic. Her friend had a cell phone, but kept saying it wouldn't work. Well, of course not, we were all underground. People kept passing this scene, because hey, "not my problem". Disgusting. So I volunteered to go back and get help. As I went back to get a signal through the long tunnel, T officials ran past me. (The broken glass must have happened literally minutes beforehand.) Soon after that, before I got a signal, a cop was on the scene.
And yet, I've heard NOTHING about this anywhere...have you heard anything? Did the door just spontaneously break? Was this woman pushed through?
Dernier is glad the T is rebuilding the Arlington Street station, but wishes they'd do something about the ditch there filling up with gross water and about the fact that there are no hot construction workers there.
Anali marvels at the current reconstruction of Arlington Street station (and takes photos, to boot):
... There is a really long corridor that you have to walk through now. When I first walked through it, it reminded me of The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy and friends are walking down that long corridor to see the Wizard. ...
On Commuterrant, Ellen McCoullough wishes the T could come up with a different way to tell people in the third car that their train is too long for Arlington Street station and they need to head to the front of the car to get off:
... I ask you: how am I supposed to know if I am on the third car or not? My geospatial skills are not that refined, but it did become obvious when the train pulled into the station and I saw only the darkness of the tunnel outside the mid-car exit. It was then that I used my powers of deductive reasoning to determine that, indeed, I was on the dreaded third car. ...
Marley Gibson reports that a jerk on a cellphone racing up the stairs at Arlington station knocked into her yesterday, sending her flying and breaking her foot - and of course he never stopped to see if she was OK. Naturally, it gets even worse:
... As I'm bent over trying to figure out what to do and how to walk this (are you ready for this?) panhandler comes over and asks me for change!
I said, "I'm just in a little bit of pain here..."
Tool.
GOD...I love this city! Only in Boston would get friggin' panhandled as you're doubled over in pain. ...
Arlington Street
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