Photo of bent ramp by TPD.
Transit Police report no injuries yesterday when a bus driver extended his bus's wheelchair ramp to let a passenger off at Tufts Medical Center yesterday and an impatient SUV driver who had been parked at the bus stop couldn't wait and drove over it just as the passenger was about to get off. Read more.
Huntington Avenue between Brigham Circle and Gainsborough Street and Boylston Street in Copley Square will keep their dedicated bus lanes, city officials announced today. Read more.
Transit Police report a man was just vibing in the middle of Washington Street at West Concord Street in the South End shortly after midnight when a Silver Line bus driver beeped the horn "to move him along." The man took exception to that, police say: Read more.
Tim Walsh snapped an SL3 bus at 5:40 a.m. on Friday:
Can you add additional SL3 buses to south station in the early commute? The 540am bus looks like the red line for a Redsox championship parade.
MassDOT said today it will experiment next week with letting Silver Line buses use a ramp from the South Boston Haul Road to I-90 that, if nothing bad happens, could lead to shorter rush-hour rides between downtown and Logan Airport and Chelsea on Silver Line bus routes. Read more.
The MBTA reports delays of up to 30 minutes on the SL1, SL2 and SL3 lines due to "a power problem" in the South Boston transitway, you know, where they run via overhead wires, or at least they do when there's no power problem.
Just ugh. See April. Photo by Michael Doyle.
If we had a dime for every T delay, we'd be rich. Here are the ones we rhymed in 2018. It's far from a complete list of delays - we missed a few and didn't do rhymes for delays caused by deaths or that involved people being forced to walk through tunnels to escape from dead trains. Read more.
The Chelsea Record reports MBTA and Massport officials now acknowledge the constant raising of the Chelsea Bridge for ships even during rush hour is screwing up Silver Line and other bus service and commuters and that they are hoping to convince the Coast Guard to go along with a pilot plan to bar most maritime traffic - but not oil tankers - under the bridge for two hours in the morning and again in the late afternoon.
Something went south on a Silver Line bus coming into South Station this afternoon and that jammed everything up.
Gavin Schoch, who took the photo, reports he and other passengers on his inbound Silver Line bus just sat there for 20 minutes until a T inspector "evacuated" them via the walkway to South Station.
Photo by Cybah
Shortly after 5 a.m., the first of the new SL3 buses left Chelsea for South Station by way of Airport, and running in part on a dedicated road atop an old rail line. Read more.
State officials shut the Silver Line tunnel in the waterfront area today after "loose pieces of concrete" fell from the ceiling at the World Trade Center station onto the inbound platform. MassDOT blames "ongoing construction activity on Congress Street" right near the station. Read more.
The Chelsea Record reports the MBTA has sprung for money to buy some software that will let the operator of the Chelsea Street Bridge give the T a head's up when the bridge is about to be lifted to let boats through - so the T can re-route the new Silver Line buses on detour routes, rather than just sitting waiting for the bridge to come down.
The T plans to start up the Silver Line extension between Chelsea and Logan Airport on April 21. The route mostly uses a recycled railroad right of way - but includes travel over the bridge, the center section of which is lifted for the tankers that traverse Chelsea Creek.
Cybah reports the T was testing out Silver Line buses at the new Chelsea station, as it gets ready to extend the bus line from Logan into Chelsea via a dedicated route next month.
What do you call a Silver Line tunnel with a dead bus in it? A mess. The MBTA reports "moderate" delays on the SL1 and SL2 due to a bus that died between Courthouse and South Station.
UPDATE: The delays were increased to the dreaded "severe" and the T is now running the buses on the street.
Cybah has posted his latest batch of photos showing progress on the project to extend the Silver Line through East Boston into Chelsea by way of an old rail line. He took them around 5 a.m. today.
Silverline was supposed to go through Chelsea in 2017. What's the status of the implementation. Promises!
Near Box District Station (See it larger)
Some of you may not know but I take photographs of the construction of the Silver Line Gateway Project in Chelsea. I've been doing this every month or so since the construction started in April 2015.
However, since I don't want to trespass, my photos are usually taken from public ways and sidewalks. But last Thursday (4/20), I was finally able to get a walking tour of the project with a MassDOT engineer and learn some things about the project. (Read More)
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