Zolok, who experienced the Moscow subway during the 1980s, gets off the Red Line at Alewife last night and says The T could learn a thing or two about subway operation:
I could've gotten to Alewife faster if the MBTA had the foresight to hitch up our train to a team of oxen.
No joke, I was a young man when I boarded that train full of naive' hopes about overcoming "switching problems in Davis Square", decades later we limped into Alewife liked the starved survivors of Stalin's GULAG. ...
Russ Stein wishes the tall Metro hawker at Green Street would just go away:
... He's like seven feet tall and runs from one end of the station to the other shouting shit like, "Aw yeah, I've got your Metro!" and "It's a great day for a Metro!" while getting in the way of people trying to catch the train. I've also heard him muttering some ex-junkie Jesus bullshit when dodging him. ...
Charlie on the MBTA reports that nothing makes you appreciate the T like two days on Chicago's CTA.
Mac Daniel reports MBTA officials have identified the trolley driver - and he hears from the off-duty New Hampshire police officer who watched after the girl until she was re-united with her mother.
If we never hear from Teddy Kokoros again, it's probably because some men in black have wiped his brain clean for having photographed the mysterious bus tunnnel at Harvard station.
This video will either make you want to see more videos of Little Doggie on the T or make you take a hammer to your monitor:
It's one thing for somebody in her own car to get distracted by her cell phone; quite another when she's a driver on the 137 bus out of Oak Grove.
One of Charlie on the MBTA's field correspondents reports from Newton Center, where Riverside service was halted thanks to a newish bridge raining concrete on the tracks. She reports T employees not only handled the shuttle-bus service well but even looked out for the comfort of inconvenienced riders, offering to let them warm up on waiting buses.
No big surprise to Green Line regulars, but still, Charlie on the MBTA gets the goods on a state auditor's report on those Breda trolley cars.
Mike Mennonno writes that the T map on at least one Red Line car indicates which Red Line stops to get off at for "cute boyz."
Charles Bandes wonders if the woman with the heart drawn on her forehead on the Red Line last night is in love or just lost a bet.
Adam Rosi-Kessel reports on two days of fun at the Roslindale commuter-rail stop: Yesterday, the sign kept flashing the 8 a.m. train was 20 minutes late. In fact, it never showed up - the next train was the 8:23 train, itself 10 minutes late and sardine-can full. Then, this morning, he got on the 8 a.m. train, which had no lights at all on:
Talonvaki was at the Porter Square T stop last night heading inbound when the announcement came on that service was suspended in both directions because of a "medical emergency" at Harvard, and that riders should go upstairs for shuttle buses:
... So I get up to the surface along with everyone else and there's lots of shuttle buses going to Alewife. But Harvard and points south? Not so much. Some people took the 77 bus, but then one of the drivers said it wasn't a shuttle and was making people pay again. ...
Talonvaki uses her CharlieCard to help a lady out - right in front of a T worker, who could have done the same thing.
The driver on the 426 pulled up in front of an ice-covered stop instead of where the waiting passengers could avoid the ice. Hilarity ensued.
Globe: Teen Critical After Orange Line Stabbing.
On CharlieBlog, Mike writes it's time to end the feuding between state and MBTA police over a merger:
Boston requires property owners to clear the sidewalks in front of their property. Naturally, the law doesn't apply to public authorities, such as the MBTA, which maybe is why one entire side of Belgrade Avenue in Roslindale Square (from South Street to Corinth Street) is covered in ice - it's next to the T's Roslindale Village commuter-rail stop. They couldn't even be bothered to clear away the ice at the bus stop where seven different lines are supposed to pick up and discharge passengers (that's the retaining wall for the train station parking lot next to the sidewalk). Picture taken Sunday afternoon, several days after the nor'icester.
Well, only at Wellington station on the Orange Line for testing. But see what they look like.
The Metro has a nice write-up of Charlie on the MBTA today.
The reporter also, indirectly, gets an answer to Paul Levy's question about what T officials do with complaints posted daily on Boston-area blogs: Not a hell of a lot (then again, that's hardly a policy change at the T):
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