I’ve Been Thinking Transit…

Why does the Mass Transit Authority, that runs public transit, have a fleet of new vehicles with ID numbers that run into the 900s? Don’t these people believe in mass transit?

Why are twenty or so of these cars parked on High Street in Boston every morning, in front of the operations center? Being used for commuting?

Why do conductors on my commuter rail trains fail to punch my ticket more than a third of the time?

Why did it take 30 minutes by subway one day last week, after rush hour, to travel the Green Line from Hynes Auditorium to Park Street (I think it is 3 miles, maybe less)?

When will life science and tech companies stop coming to Boston, where transportation is totally broken?

Don’t people see that broken transit encourages young high earners to live in the city, driving up rents and driving out the middle class?

Why did the city encourage this trend by allowing incredible density in the new Waterfront, spending money to increase the problems of both transit and wealth disparity?

Do you agree with me that a walk through the new Waterfront’s back streets gives one the creeps as the buildings seem to close in on you in dark menace?

Why are we seizing on bike lanes as a solution, allowing a very small number of people who bike, and only in good weather, to take up road space and thus constrict auto, commercial and bus traffic that involves delay for a vastly greater number of people? (Being “green” should not require ignoring unintended consequences. Btw, I love biking but the point here is not anti-biking, it is solving commutation issues.)

Why does Keolis do so much better a job running parts of the French transportation network than the Boston system?

Why can’t we drop a big pipe in the harbor and run a shuttle track between North and South Stations, like the NYC link between Times Square and Grand Central (they built that without even the benefit of an ocean route, right under the busiest streets in the world)?

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