Wednesday, February 11, 2009

February 11



In Boston, at almost any employer, a commuter running late has a built-in excuse if he uses public transportation. The commuter rail lines share rails with freight railroads, and some lines (like the Worcester line) have monumental delays because of unscheduled track work. The subway lines usually run well enough, except when they don't, and their cleanliness is at best unexceptional, at worst abyssmal. We have many new buses, but their schedules are at the mercy of Boston's notoriously bad traffic.

New Yorkers have their comprehensive, wide-ranging, 24-hour-a-day subway system that, while not perfect, was built with capacity and expansion in mind. Residents of other large cities in the world have similarly-efficient, if not necessarily pretty, systems. Boston has the T.

When I saw this clock tower at Forest Hills Station on the Orange Line while driving to work, I realized that it's not all the MBTA's fault. How can they be expected to keep the trains on time when they don't even know what the correct time is?

42/365 - Posted by Picasa