Hey, there! Log in / Register
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
What happened here?
The signboard doesn't indicate any delays, announcing a train in 3 minutes in both directions.
Boston Calling?
It was probably everyone from Boston Calling arriving at the T all at once, not a delay of any train. Similar to Kenmore after a Sox game.
Boston calling, commencement,
Boston calling, commencement, and reunions all on one weekend in one place. Put about 100k people in the square all at once. Stupid stupid stupid planning.
Meh
It's a city. You can't expect one event to try and work around every other unrelated event. If you don't like crowds, don't come to town on weekend evenings. (Or weekday rush hours.)
The T needs more capacity but that's not a new problem.
Meh
Who says that? And can you let us know the number of times you've said it to someone outside your small circle of friends and family and not been punched in the face?
What's wrong with 'meh'?
It basically means 'whatever'. Why would you punch someone in the face for saying writing 'meh'?
Meh
Nobody cares that you hang around with psychopaths.
it really wasn't that bad
State Police did an excellent job with road closures and getting everyone over the bridge. The Harvard MBTA station had extra staff to deal with drunk kids trying to figure out the paper tickets. This picture was likely taken at the height of the crowd, and isn't too much different from any sox game or big event.
The planning for inside the venue itself did suck, though.
The Red Line used to have an special station for this purpose
Long ago, before the Red Line extension, the T had "Stadium Station", which was really just a place to load and unload passengers quickly in the old Eliot Yard, in or near what is today JFK Park. It was open only for Harvard football games and maybe some other large crowd-drawing events at the Stadium.
The storage yard is gone and the Red Line tracks no longer go this direction, so there is no way to reopen the station today.
Commencement/reunion
Commencement/reunion passengers would be a drop in the bucket at 11 pm.
Boston Calling....
Was an absolute shitshow today/tonight. Feels like they oversold the capacity but who knows. We heard estimated daily capacity was 40k people but seemed like at least double that.
it was horrible
They really didn't keep up with the growth or scale entry with the size of the venue. I don't remember any 15 minute port-a-john lines the last couple years when it was at city hall plaza.
Huh?
There were definitely 15min waits for bathrooms at City Hall Plaza.
Friday was pretty brutal
as everyone figured out the new venue -- an hour to get in, an hour in the food line. After that, I hit no lines at all the rest of the weekend. I ate before going in (although I did get Firefly's BBQ with no wait Sunday by the Red Stage.) My preferred beer vendors and bathrooms had no or very short lines. It was all about timing and observing. I even avoided the lines at Harvard Station and didn't wait more than five minutes for an inbound train all weekend. My biggest peeve was having to choose between 1975 and The xx. It was a great weekend overall, and the music was fantastic.
Welcome to the real world
Get huge crowds of people in a confined location....it gets really crowded in that location. I wouldn't blame this on the MBTA
Take a pic at Kenmore after an important Sox game or concert
I agree with anon, if you dump a ton of people into a train station all at once, there's likely to be overcrowding and discomfort. Memories of being jammed into a Green Line trolley for a Red Sox Game or a Red Line train during the Pope's visit. Couldn't even move, but somehow we made it through the rain.
The T should share some of the blame
For failure to staff the station judging by the photo. During these major events shoudn't there be extra police and fire of duty in case the station needs to be evacuated.
Don't worry, with Baker
Don't worry, with Baker promising another fare increase 2 years after the last one, and together with the service cuts and delays in promised expansion, many of the people in this picture will be turning to driving to work and events like this. The city of Boston and the state are adding 1,000s of parking spaces in government sponsored garages in the seaport and the airport to accommodate this influx.
Harvard Square smells like
curry and weed
That sounds
wonderful
Weed I don't mind,
curry, not so much.
Hi there!
Are youi that Liberal Hater Guy who marches around Harvard Square muttering about snowflakes and Trump and going WAHHHH all the time!
I didn't think that you'd be taking a break to work a computer.
Poor planning
Sure - Allston provide Boston Calling with 16 acres so a lot more space for the music fest but since the closest T is Harvard Square, that's the easiest way to go.
City Hall Plaza, while smaller, has the advantage of a multitude of lines crossing nearby plus North and South Station.
Next year they may want to set up some kind of shuttle bus service between Allston and someplace downtown so everyone doesn't need to get on the Red Line at Harvard.
Great idea
Because if there's one thing that can move huge numbers of people in a hurry, it's a shuttle bus.
/s
Remember Bustitution?
During weekend bustitution from Harvard to Alewife, it was like this all the time. Everyone had to get off the outbound trains, and buses were bringing people to get on the inbound. It would be packed.
One Saturday I was coming through and I noticed a blind gentleman pondering his fate, so I asked him if he wanted assistance. He took my arm and I led him across the scrum to his bus. I can't imagine how difficult that would be without a guide. Humans everywhere!
I've never seen anything like
I've never seen anything like this during Harvard-Alewife bustitutions, including the one 2 weeks ago.
If it was this bad, why didn't pics like this appear here and in the news? Of course that's not proof of anything, but neither is your assertion. If you see that level of crowding again, take a picture and post it here.
Somebody wasn't living here in 2011
Obviously. That's when they shut the line at the busiest part of the year because the tracks were dangerous.
It was this bad every Saturday afternoon from before Thanksgiving to Christmas because it was the Christmas season - events, shopping, people travelling.
Any delay in inbound service or bus pick up would fill the station. I experienced both situations, and they were equally bad. But Boston Calling is only one weekend, and classes are out.
You can do your own picture search, but good luck with that. Anyone who tried to get pictures would be harassed back then.
World class city
World class city
Remember when New York hosted the Super Bowl
World class indeed.
When was that?
I recall one in New Jersey but not in New York.
Same difference
It was over the river, and even though NJTransit built a station at the stadium for events like this, it was overwhelmed.
The hosts were the New York Giants.
Secaucus
The crowds at Secaucus were caused not by train capacity issues but because of a show of security theater.
http://www.nj.com/super-bowl/index.ssf/2014/02/super_bowl_train_passenge...
The TSA had checkpoints before boarding trains to the Meadowlands, checkpoints which caused crowds that would have been a dream of anyone actually intending to cause harm.
Still
If the main football stadium that serves as home to the team that represents what is considered to be the epitome of a "world class" city couldn't get their train station cleared at said stadium in a decent time period, how could?
This worked as it was supposed to
Per the T's not-public-enough-to-share data feed (I've been sworn to secrecy!), the Red Line is scheduled to run a train every 6:45 at Harvard in each direction at this time of night, or 9 trains per hour. In actuality, on Saturday night, when this photo was taken, between 9 and 11, the T ran at least 10 trains per hour in each direction.
Given that a Red Line train has capacity for about 1200 people, this means that the trains could carry 24000 people out of the Harvard station per hour. There was probably a spike of passengers right when the concert let out, but it was probably quite quickly cleared by the trains. In fact, the 10 minute walk from the venue probably served to mete out the crowds a bit. I doubt anyone had to wait more than one or two trains, and for most people the issue was probably just getting through the fare gates. (Friday and Sunday nights had similar service levels. And it would be great to see how many taps there were at fare gates between 10 and midnight at Harvard this weekend.)
I bet the smart ones went up to Church Street anyway.
Now, before you say "everyone should have taken an Uber, right" remember that a lane of highway traffic can only carry about 2000 cars at absolute maximum, so you would have needed two eight-lane highways to move 24,000 people in and out of Harvard Square in an hour.
commuter rail
The commuter rail, on the other hand, did not fare so well.
https://twitter.com/MBTA_CR/status/868866433643622401
Looks like the Worcester train most convenient to the Sox and Boston Calling was overwhelmed. I'm guessing there were two conductors yet they had to open extra cars because of crowds, yet all those crowds had to funnel through one or two doors at each stop.
One line at a time, they
One line at a time, they should install full-length high platforms. Then they can open all doors, all cars, with just one conductor. Like modern railroads have been doing since the 1920s.
Are full-length high platforms compatible with freight trains?
I thought this was the main obstacle to installing them, because freight trains also use some of our commuter lines.
It's complicated.
It's complicated.
There are multiple different loading gauges for freight cars, some of which fit inside the passenger gauge, some of which don't. Thus some routes need to be preserved as "high and wide" routes, if there is a customer that requires large cars. On the commuter rail, this includes Worcester (west of Framingham), Lowell, and parts of the Haverhill and Franklin lines. The only way those lines will ever get high platforms is if either a freight bypass track is built (a la Woburn), a gauntlet track is built (unlikely - expensive and complicated), or the customers requiring oversize loads are somehow gotten rid of, and the freight railroads bought off to drop the restriction. The only way they can get away with mini-highs is because they have retractable edges, which a railroad employee has to physically retract before a wide freight car can pass.
There are also some places that won't get high platforms even if they aren't on a high and wide route because of the volume of freight traffic - sure, freight cars can pass high platforms, but they are a lot more subject to harmonic rocking and lateral motion in general, and the odds of them striking a platform are fairly high. This is not a problem for lines that see occasional freight (e.g. Eastern Route), but for lines that see multiple daily freight trains, that's too much risk of platform damage.
Freight does pass by high platforms daily (e.g. Lynn), but there are varying circumstances, many of which are out of the T's control, that make it unlikely we will ever have 100% high platforms.
What's the excuse for
What's the excuse for stations with high ridership, on lines that already have some high platforms? For example, most stations on the Providence line are low-platform, but I doubt there are any wide freights because of the high platforms at Providence and Route 128.
Providence line will
Providence line will eventually get high platforms.
The excuse for stations that aren't covered by my above freight explanation is mainly just lack of funding and/or political will. It's going to happen eventually, and should happen ASAP, but for some unknown reason just isn't a priority.
You are correct that the Providence line is not a high and wide route, though it does see regular freight traffic.
Like modern railroads have been doing since the 1920s?
Outside of the East Coast, passenger train stations have low level platforms. That includes new lines in Seattle, Utah, and Minneapolis. Denver might be an exception, but they are trying to pretend their new lines are heavy rail transit lines, not commuter rail lines.
Only because they've
Only because they've recognized out west that high and wide freight outnumbers passengers 10-1 virtually everywhere - the exact opposite scenario as in the northeast.
Thus they've settled with low platforms, and rolling stock designed for them - with doors on the lower level and stairs inside. Picture an MBTA bilevel, but instead of having the doors in the vestibules, they're in the middle of the lower level.
It's less ideal for accessibility, and boarding will always be less efficient than with high platforms, but none of those systems have anywhere near the ridership of a northeastern road, so it's not really a problem.
One final note though - high platforms aren't just an East Coast thing. Chicago has a mix (Metra Electric is high-level), Denver went with high-level, and California is going with high-level for HSR (and consequently Caltrain, plus I wouldn't be surprised if Metrolink or other operators eventually switch, at least partially, to ease the interface with CAHSR, and as they ramp up service levels and buy their own tracks).
It's more of a high ridership thing. If you look at commuter rail systems by ridership (or even better, ridership per mile), you'll notice the ones with the densest ridership are either high platform, or likely to soon transition to high platform. Denver is already #4 in the country, despite only opening last year, at 669 riders/mile. Only other ones in the top 10 that aren't high platform are Metra (which is only partial), Caltrain (which is converting to high platform), and TRE in Dallas, which is a bit of an outlier.
Just curious, did Boston
Just curious, did Boston Calling patrons use the new Boston Landing station?
Huh?
It's nowhere near where Boston Calling took place. It's a 35min walk.
But if not ...
why would Boston Calling traffic have affected the Worcester commuter line at all? (see earlier comment)
Also, Google says it's a 25 minute walk from Harvard Stadium to the new station, which may for some be an attractive alternative to going all the way in to South Station and back out on the Red Line to Harvard.
1.2 miles, which at a decent
1.2 miles, which at a decent walking pace (Google Maps assumes a slower 3mph) is under 20 minutes. That's only twice the distance from Harvard Square T. So, yes, if you're coming from the west, Boston Landing would be a convenient stop for Boston Calling.
why would Boston Calling
Because of people coming in from metrowest to attend.
It's common for Worcester line trains to experience delays before and after special events in Boston because of the high number of suburbanites taking it into the city for these events.
And the T's tendency to have
And the T's tendency to have two cars open on weekend trains (with staffing to only accommodate two cars' worth of passengers).
Do they really run trains
Do they really run trains with just one conductor (plus the engineer)? I thought there's always a conductor plus an assistant conductor, which should be enough for 4 cars -- each can open a pair of doors at the middle of a pair of cars.
People take the commuter rail
People take the commuter rail to South Station, and then the Red Line. How else would you get there from Wellesley, Framingham, etc without a car?