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By adamg - 2/11/07 - 10:10 pm

For further proof that the Green Line would run so much better without those annoying passengers, we turn tonight to Single Girl in the City, who reports her trolley simply blew by the Sutherland Road stop despite at least 10 people in her car who wanted to get out there:

By adamg - 2/11/07 - 8:07 am

Another day, another tale of Green Line passengers left in the freezing cold.

By adamg - 2/10/07 - 1:40 pm

I'm with John Keith: How the heck did Jewel get from the Green Line to South Station? Did she transfer to the Red Line at Park Street? Walk through downtown? Jump in a limo? Strap on a jetpack and blast off from the Common?

Does Boston have any reporters who know the city well enough to know people would be asking this?

In the Globe, Meredith Goldstein writes:

By adamg - 2/10/07 - 12:20 pm

The Herald reports on those alleged outlander graffiti artists arrested at a Red Line yard yesterday before they could mark up trains and attend a naked-dancer soiree at a secret Fort Point location (oh, OK: 327 Summer St., but don't let anybody know) tonight. The Globe explores the possibility that one of our favorite LiteBriters was slated to attend the party.

One of the people arrested is Marius Schmieling of Dortmund, Germany. Schmieling, 25, he started tagging when he was 12 (in German, translated at Babelfish).

Germans apparently have a different attitude toward graffiti than we do. Rather than try to eliminate it entirely, some German cities hire taggers to take care of individual subway/monorail stations (hmm, actually, anybody remember when Cambridge-Lee Industries let people tag up their wall near the Allston turnpike entrance - as long as they stayed within the silohuettes of people?). Dortmund hired Schmieling to "arrange" one station.

Last year, he participated in a project to spray paint 66 fiberglass winged rhinos. Here's his.

Portrait of the artist as a young rhino designer:

Moo!
By adamg - 2/10/07 - 11:44 am

The Outraged Liberal gets fed up with the T:

... Attempting to board the B Line outbound at BU Central tonight, I was told I needed to go the front door by a "customer service agent" without any validation equipment while people next to me were allowed to get on the train.

By adamg - 2/9/07 - 10:55 pm

Johnsu01 did not become a big Jewel fan tonight:

I'm not sure who decided it was a good idea to have a Jewel concert in South Station start at the tail end of rush hour.

It wasn't a good idea.

I just goofed up and deleted the excellent crowd picture I took while shoving (literally) my way through the crowd of mothers, daughters, and generally confused people in an attempt to get to my train, so you'll have to imagine it. ...

By adamg - 2/9/07 - 2:34 pm

Graffiti artists race to Boston to run amok:

... This morning officers arrested five men at the Braintree subway train yard who authorities allege had 39 cans of spray paint outfitted with nozzles to create complex graffiti mosaics. Two of the suspects came from Germany, one from Switzerland, another had an address listed in Wisconsin, and the fifth hailed from North Carolina. ...

By adamg - 2/9/07 - 10:26 am

One inconveniences commuters with its ads.

The other inconveniences commuters with its ads, but gets permission from the MBTA to do so. So, hey, who's going to the free Jewel concert at the tail end of rush hour at South Station tonight?

By adamg - 2/9/07 - 9:06 am

Update: The T has pulled down the story/press release, but you can read the original here, the rather different slant in the Herald story and your basic dyspeptic BadTransit report on Mac Daniel here.

By adamg - 2/8/07 - 7:24 pm

Tim McIntire reports he saw the guy he knocked into two days in a row at the Malden T stop this morning - taking care to use a different set of stairs.

By adamg - 2/8/07 - 6:30 pm

Boston Police report a gang of black and white teens has been mugging people coming out of the JFK and Shawmut T stops in the evening.

By adamg - 2/8/07 - 12:27 pm

Took the Orange Line to Chinatown this morning to renew my license. Adding value to my CharlieCard was a snap, there weren't any crazy people (or fetid pools of vomit) on the train, the Registry people were pleasant and I was probably in and out in 20 minutes.

I know: Shocking!

By adamg - 2/7/07 - 1:13 pm

Yesterday, Tim McIntire bumped into some guy with his large gym bag on the stairs at the Malden T stop. This morning, he did it again - and this time words such as "Buddy" and "RELAX" were exchanged:

... A very New England exchange. Not only did I never used to call people "buddy" (or "pal" or "Sully"), but I've learned the hard way that "relax!" is generally what a New Englander yells when he's trying to stop himself from punching you in the face. ...

By adamg - 2/7/07 - 12:19 pm

BadTransit considers the $510-million (and counting) Greenbush commuter line, which will serve perhaps 1,800 daily commuters. What if they'd instead spent all that on extending the Green Line to Somerville (or rather, if they'd started doing that 10 years ago) or the Blue Line to Lynn? Think that would have been a better investment?

By adamg - 2/6/07 - 7:51 pm

Yesterday morning, Chip got to wait 20 minutes in the cold for an 80 bus in Ball Square (two out-of-service buses lumbered by in place of the 7:40 bus that never showed up). Then in the afternoon, he had to wait 30 minutes for a D trolley at Fenway before some T employee finally bothered to tell the shivering masses the trolleys weren't running because of a downed power line at Reservoir.

By adamg - 2/6/07 - 12:58 pm

Mike Mennonno ponders them as he observes a gaggle of young black guys on the Red Line, all bitch this and dawg that as the train hurtles toward Somerville from Park Street:

By adamg - 2/6/07 - 10:05 am

A couple weeks ago, the Globe's Mac Daniel all but called Ron Newman a liar for saying there was gold in them thar tossed-aside CharlieTickets.

HAH! We said then DON'T DOUBT THE NEWMAN. Official proof comes in today's Metro (the CharlieTicket of local newspapers: you find them lying around all over the place): As of late last week, the Somerville resident had 30 tickets worth $55.

By adamg - 2/5/07 - 10:51 pm

Ryan McGee gives his initial impressions of the finally-renovated North Station: The shiny things are great; the commuters are more out of shape than ever.

By adamg - 2/5/07 - 2:28 pm

Up to an hour this morning - must've been fun - Cindy and Jeff report:

...As expected, we saw our share of cold weather-related "brrr-eakdowns" today. ...

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