This all transpired at around 8:30 am. Many of the people on the crowded commuter rail platform had been waiting since before 8, since the 7:53 train elected not to show up.
Woman (on cell phone): “The train still isn’t here. I’ve been here for like 40 minutes standing around doing nothing. So I’ll see you sometime today, I guess.”
Man (to a friend on the platform, as a commuter rail train blows by us): “Yeah, that’s about the third train I’ve seen go by without stopping, so I’m not holding out much hope for the next one.”
Second Man (to a friend on the platform): “Grabauskas, man. I want to find that guy and kill him.”
Memo to the T: People really, really hate it when trains don’t show up. It makes people late for work and late for meetings, it costs them and their employers valuable time that could have been spent productively instead of standing around on a cold concrete platform, and it makes them really not feel like supporting a fare increase.
Memo to Gov.-elect Patrick: Of the various steaming piles of doo-doo that Gov. Romney is handing you on his way out the door, the T is surely among the stinkiest.
folks waiting on the platform should have up to the minute estimates on when the next train stopping at the platform will arrive, what time it will reach its final destination, and any pertinent additional information.
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Obviously the train should be on schedule and have seats available… but barring that, at the very least give people an honest, timely, and accurate assessment of what is happening so that they can make real-time alternate plans to make up for the T’s shortcomings on that particular day.
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A 21st century government provides its people with timely, accurate, and standards compliant data in as many formats and locations as possible. Let the people make good decisions with the available data.
Berlin goes one further by telling you the time of the next connection (i.e. if you’re on the orange line and about to walk over to say the red , they give you the number of minutes until the next red line train.
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But almost every other subway I’ve been on gives you at least some information. Berlin, Budapest, Prague, Paris, London, New York, Chicago, San Francsico, …
True, what you say makes great sense. Oh, to know when it is better to walk, grab a cab, go back home…
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But wouldn’t you miss the announcement: “WFDEqdaa EEZYlpw jjkUVjk KaKaLUUMM Ank RU” Which someone on the platform once interpreted for me: “Help, I have the microphone caught in my throat.”
i’ve heard reports over the loudspeakers at porter sq. saying where the train was delayed and when the delayed train was expected to show. at least, i think that’s what was being said over a p.a. system that was so lousy, all i got was the hint of a voice behind a mountain of static. pathetic.
I had a horrible bus experience last week, and just-for-the-hell-of-it wrote to the T manager using their online form.
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I got a detailed, lengthy, responsive reply from the manager about 4 hours later. That helped my mood considerably.
T employees should be trained to the idea that communication is part of the service they provide. Transportation may be their major service but it is not their only one.
a fare increase a few years ago that was supposed to be accompanied by improved communication. and for a while, most bus drivers really did call out all the stops. however, the fare increase evidently did not go into making a workable p.a. system. and most of the drivers eventually got tired of announcing the stops. (an aside: regardless of the above criticisms, i do have great respect for the T bus drivers. boston is a tough town to work in.)
Employees of the Commonwealth and its Authorities are our employees. They deserve our respect.
… have GPS auto-announcing. So if you ride the interminable 70 bus, it announces most stops a block ahead.
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You’ll know the announcements don’t work on the new busses if the bus has a “NO BELL” sign taped up by the driver. At which point you can ask if they’ll be sure to stop there. Though good luck during rush hour.