Questions I Have

Every day, I commute back and forth to work. Nothing too spectucular, I take the Commuter Rail in from Abington in the morning, and take a variety of routes (depending on a variety of factors) to get to the Northeastern University area where I work, and vice-versa in the evening.
My commute is usually one of the more eventful parts of my day, whether it be late trains, or colorful characters, or even a suprisingly quick trip… every day seems to be a little different… and that leads me to post in this blog.

I guess I’ll start out with a few observations/questions I have, specifically about my route. Areas that could substantially improve my commute (my evening commute gets me to South Station usually around 6:13 PM, for a 6:15 PM commuter rail train… so… it’s 50/50 if I’ll actually get there on time or not, and if not, it’s an hour and 15 minute wait.):

1) Why do the southbound Park Street trains enter the station at a snail’s pace? No, I’m not being metaphorical here, I can outwalk the red line trains entering southbound in the evening. They must be going about 3 MPH.

2) Why is there room for 2 trains to deboard at the Park Street inbound (towards Lechmere) platform, but only one train will deboard at a time? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve missed a Red Line connection because the Green Line train I’m on sits and waits for the train in front of it to exit the station, while it’s completely able to deboard behind the first train.

3) Will 2 train deboarding happen at the new Copley and Arlington stations, as they seem long enough, and 2 trains deboarding at the same time would definitely reduce congestion between Copley and Park Street.

4) Why are there still 1-trolley trains running on the E-Line? It’s a rare occurance but an annoying one.

5) Finally, why are E line trains run so sparingly. I know the E line is significantly shorter than the B, C, and D lines, but the E line is consistently either the most or second most (along with the B line) train every single morning. Additionally, why is the E line the only train that runs to Lechmere? It seems to be compounding the problem. Why not run the C line to Lechmere… you know… since the 5 people who take it won’t mind.

All and all, my commute isn’t that bad, but often times these 5 things are what make a difference for me making my 615 commuter rail train or having to wait until 729, which is a pretty significant wait.
I’d love to hear comments from any of you who have some answers to these, some commentary, or even some other complaints about your daily T commute that you think could be fixed quickly.

~ by Wow on November 7, 2008.