Hey, there! Log in / Register
Logan visitor not a big Silver Line fan
By adamg on Tue, 06/02/2009 - 2:01pm
Josh Stevens ranks various airports on their ground transportation and declares Logan "most bewildering" because of the Silver Line:
If a camel is a horse designed by committee, then Boston's Silver Line BRT (with scant emphasis on the "R") is a transit line designed by a committee of camels. In the course of a 20-minute trip to South Station, the Silver Line seems to pass through every stage of man and a few states of matter to boot. ...
Via Robert David Sullivan, who wonders if Stevens would have appreciated the Silver Line more if he'd also tried either a cab or the shuttle bus/Blue Line.
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
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.
Comments
I've used all three, and I'm
I've used all three, and I'm bewildered by Sullivan's suggestion that the Silver Line is superior. Of the three, the only fast and direct route out of the airport is the cab--unfortunately, it's also outrageously expensive. Both MBTA options have major problems, and the advantages will depend on a user's destination. For me, a shuttle bus ride to the Blue Line is far superior to the Silver Line's frustrating, meandering course through the dead waterfront, which takes twice as long as it (or an "rapid transit") should. It has been embarrassing to bring in out-of-town friends who live in car-culture cities and put them on either of the T's airport options; in several cases, they've politely declined to use the T further on their visits.
The Silver Line is precisely the hybrid joke the blogger said it is; the Blue Line stupidly has an "airport" station that is not actually near the airport, and also does not directly connect (anymore) to another major subway line.
Roads for cars, of course, go straight into and out of the airport.
silver bus
The silver bus should be discontinued until it returns as a rail line. It gives the (false) impression that in Boston a 'line' can be a bus that crawls through traffic. While the T has its issues, a trip from downtown to cambridge on the red line or JP on the Orange line is fast, but since a new visitor to Boston may have only tried the silver joke, they may be inclined to give up on the whole system. The T should call it a bus while they work to change it to rail.
Also, the T needs to make the silver bus and blue line connect so people from East Boston can get to the south boston waterfront and this Superstation should not require a shuttle bus to terminals. Either a people mover should be added or move the tracks so their is a central airport T stop like the central airport parking lot, walkable to the terminals. I just was in Atlanta and could walk from baggage claim to MARTA, and in 20 minutes be downtown... We have the closest airport to downtown yet it takes 20 minutes in the shuttle bus to just get to the airport T (or to ride the silver shuttle around to all the terminals before it actually leaves the airport).
It gives the (false)
Or a tunnel. It still boggles my mind that the Silver Line averages a faster speed on surface streets (15 mph) than it does in the tunnel that cost many hundreds of millions of dollars to build (12 mph). What does it say about a transit line that moves at a lower rate of speed in a space absolutely 100% dedicated to it than it does when competing with Boston traffic?
"Logan 2000"
The original plans included a people-mover that connected all terminals, the garage, and the T station. That was the first thing removed, IIRC.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3734/is_19...
"The first phase of the AITC will utilize buses and existing surface roadways. The second phase of the system calls for the construction of an elevated guideway to be constructed at Logan to separate the buses from the roadway traffic. In the third phase buses will be replaced by a fully automated system."
And how is discontinuing the
And how is discontinuing the service going to improve anything?
Anybody who actually rides the SL will note that its popular.
Also, when you find a way to connect south station to logan with rail directly for cheap, give the feds a call because as far as anyone else knows, its impossible (go ahead and recomend rail running on a highway, see what reply you get)
Ive actually ridden the
Ive actually ridden the silver bus and I thought it was miserable. As far as connecting south station to logan, there are tunnels for emergency vehicles in the ted williams tunnels that the MBTA, when I went to early meetings about the silver bus, claimed they were going to use to avoid tunnel traffic. Those could be used for the rail link. And as far as cheap, the 1 mile tunnel that was built for the silver sloth cost $700 million, and the buses actually go slower there than above ground! So its not so much as doing it cheap, as doing it well/intelligently.
My main point is to stop calling it a "line" when it is a bus, since when people visit from out of town they cant believe that the T calls buses 'lines' and have no way to know that the other lines arent just 12mph buses too.
agreed
While I haven't ridden the SL to Logan, I've used it around town. To me, it's just like any other bus and I like it enough. The tunnel speed though is ridiculous. I'd rather it be rail but who knows if/when that will happen.
Re: the blue line, aren't they extending it to Charles? That would alleviate some green line congestion and make the blue line generally more useful.
From Cambridge
I prefer the new Red to Silver Line commute to the old Red to Green to Blue Line to shuttle bus commute. One change of train/bus is better than three changes when carrying bags - despite the Silver sloth. With this said, the drive through the relatively new big dig Ted William's Tunnel takes me ten-fifteen minutes from my Cambridge door to the Logan parking spot. Both public transport routes take almost an hour from my Cambridge door to the Logan terminal gate. The trip pushes (from memory) $2-one-way by subway, $15-round by car, and $30-one-way by cab. So we go.
hmm
The only thing that bothers me about the Blue Line is the incredibly long waits for the next train 90% of the time I use it. Even off peak, it should run at least every 15 minutes (I've waited at times 45-1hr).
That said, I haven't used it for Logan; I travel infrequently enough that I can usually scrape someone together to drive me to and fro. However, I don't need to use it to know that it's incredibly idiotic to build an airport subway station away from the actual airport and without direct transportation (I'm assuming the free bus system stops at each terminal - right?). I lived 1 stop away from Reagan Int'l Airport in the DC area not too long ago and it was amazingly convenient to get to the airport. It took you right to the main terminal.