I wasn't sure if we'd need another this week after last week, but since there's at least one post on the front page about T woes I think we could probably keep going with this.
How have your commutes been this week, folks? Any good photos? ;)
Posted Jun 11, 2015, 4:30 PM UTC
Monday brought "Steve" out again to Davis Square looking for the 96. If you don't know steve, he likes to berate all the drivers for being late and then when on the bus he likes to talk about how it would be great if the bus crashed. The driver we had stopped the bus and yelled "Do you want to get off the bus, Stephen" He then pulled his usual apologies and shut up.
I had to yell at him one time on the redline because he was spewing some racist shit out of his mouth. Obviously he has mental problems and usually if you yell at him he apologizes and stops.
Someone should politely punch Steve in the face.
Yeah I have thought about it but it would be like hitting a child. He is obviously mentally handicapped and Most of the bus drivers in the area know about him and know how to handle him. He does say some pretty rude things to the drivers. I don't know how they haven't hit him yet.
Is Steve an older white dude, paunchy, balding and wears glasses? Very clearly has some mental issues? If so he takes the 59 in the afternoon and then gets on the 71. The other day a box truck took out some of the overheard wires on Mt Auburn, we were sitting at Watertown Sq waiting for it to be fixed or a diesal bus. He tells a supervisor "the T is terrible, always problems. They should get rid of the wires. I hope someone bombs the T. Then it will get fixed. This is all because a N***** is president." The supervisor just basically told him not to talk. And then just continued to shush him. Of course our bus driver was then black.
Yup thats him... He just loves to say stupid stuff and obviously he has mental issues.
Overheard just now:
Woman: "Wet dogs smell like turkey to me"
Man: "Do you like turkey?"
Woman: "I do but not in a wet format."
Well, ok then.
Someone should have told her how dog feet smell like Fritos
They do. I think that's why I'm not a huge Fritos fan.
My husband told me that and now I can't eat them anymore.
I saw this precious adorable pup on Tuesday morning, if anyone needs some positive T therapy!
AWW
Was the owner a bald white man with glasses? Was this the green line and if so did he get off at Copley?
Nah, maybe a 40something lady. But yes, green line inbound!
2.5 hours to get home last night, so not so much.
Delay at Charles MGH, which was labelled "fire department action", about 30 minutes.
Mattapan Trolley died outright halfway through the turnaround at Ashmont, stuck there for about 20 minutes before they told us to get off, walk back up the tracks, and find another way home.
I just said fuck it and called an Uber.
The alert on the trolley delay said "police action", so I know those reasons for delays are horseshit now too.
I actually feel bad about my incident this morning. I'm always late for work, so today I jogged to the train from my house. Like 2 blocks but I'm in office attire. So I see the sign say train's coming so I go into a dead sprint for the last like 100 yards. I grab my wallet, slap the pass on the thing, and as I'm running through, this little kid decides he wants to exit through my gate. So I pretty much just plowed through him and kept running. I heard this feeble "I'm sorry!" as i ran onto the train, and everyone looked at me like I was some sort of monster. But c'mon man don't use my gate!
I'd just like some rhyme or reason behind where the commuter rail stops in relation to the platform sometimes. Sometimes it pulls way the hell forward and they only let you in the very last car, sometimes it stops short so most of the train trails behind the end of the platform. I don't get it.
Oh man, this reminds me of the subway in Budapest. Outside of being horrible in literally every way, they always stopped short or past the platform, and had to slowly come into the correct position.
The T can be shit, but it is just 10000000x better than Budapest.
There's a really great movie called Kontroll which is a sort of parody (or perhaps accurate account) of the Budapest metro. In one scene the drunk operator misses the station and backs up. But mostly it's about the nitwit ticket collectors and their adventures.
It's sort of like a cross between Clerks and Donnie Darko.
I think this varies by line/time/driver. At my current stop I can stand in a certain spot every morning and the door is usually right in front of me, if not 4 feet off. But when I lived on a different line I'd often have to go back a car to get off because it overshot the platform.
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On the Silver Line there was a coffee cup full of a yellow liquid on the floor by the rear door. I was just waiting for it to spill over and splash on everyone's feet but it stayed impressively upright.
There's something weirdly satisfying about watching a bottle roll around on the floor of the T without hitting anyone.
I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE.
It's like some awesome zen trash version of pong.
Ooh, one time I was waiting for the commuter rail at Back Bay and there was some nasty old Dunkin Donuts cup on the ground. Clear plastic kind for the cold drinks. All the ice had melted so it was just murky water. There's a (homeless?) guy who always chills on the platform, always talking/yelling to himself. He comes up to the cup and out of nowhere kicks it as hard as he can towards people waiting on the platform. I mean, absolutely smashes the cup, splattering the nasty water and god knows what else all over everyone. Then he just sort of wandered away.
I loved the ridiculous barricades they put up at Forest Hills to keep people from trying to get to the subway platform (shuttle buses were running from FH to Ruggles both days). I felt bad for some dude who clearly had no idea about the bustitution--he was trying to get to the Symphony--and didn't find out until he was practically to the fare gates. Heaven forbid they actually put signage downstairs in addition to the signs upstairs...
Waiting for an outbound B at Park Street when it's hot and stuffy sucks. Add in a Red Sox home game and it's sardine city.
I usually hop on at Arlington, but I've started walking to Kenmore if it's nice out and catching a train there when there's a Red Sox game. It's about a 20 minute walk which probably isn't much longer than I usually end up waiting for a non sardine train. Plus, it's a nice walk.
I was riding hte 57 on Tuesday at the same time some loud woman on the phone was. She yelled at a guy for standing in front of her and blocking her view of the window. She then proceeded to tell the person who she was on the phone with that if you have to stand on the bus then you should get a car. Also she had placed her bag and coat on the seat next to her. I simply cannot understand the hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness.
she had placed her bag and coat on the seat next to her
I swear that one day I will get fed up enough to sit on someone's bag. I just need to plan some good comebacks for the inevitable complaints first.
"Did your bags have a rough day?"
Fart on their bag to assert your dominance.
Better yet, find the pee cup and dump it on.
I'm kidding, don't do that.
An easy but mild one is: "I didn't realize your coat/bag needed its own seat."
Got followed off the green line in broad daylight on Tuesday. "Hey, beautiful, where ya headed off to?" I had to run but I eventually lost him. Creepy as fuck
Holy crap that is scary.
Can't tell if sarcasm or...?
Davis station. I see this guy regularly. He's usually loitering around with the other townies in the square. Today he rode in on a bike to one of the stop signs. He switches out the bike with a single crutch which he had chained up. He practices a fake limp (poorly) and pretends to be handicapped so he gets a free seat on the train. He smells like booze so usually people give him a wide berth, but with the crowded commute today he flipped out when a seat wasn't presented to him.
LOVE IT. The locked up crutch is fucking perfect.
Saw a guy on the red line yesterday morning manually shove another guy's backpack out of the way, as it was partially blocking the doorway. Followed by a "Yeah, yeah, fuck off."
The same guy (door blocker) had nearly prevented me from getting on that train in the first place as he refused to budge even though there was definitely space to push in, so it felt rather poetic.
Yesterday at South Station, a woman stood in the doorway of people exiting the train. She just stood there, in the middle of the two doors with her back to the rest of the car completely ignoring everyone who was trying to leave.
This absolute monster of a man. Like 6'6", 450lbs, yelled out "GET OUT OF THE FUCKING DOOR WAY SO WE CAN GET OFF THE TRAIN!"
People like that piss me off. Take off your bags and put them at your feet.
It's not so bad on the commuter rail but if you're sitting on the bus and some asshat next to you is standing with a FULL backpack that keeps hitting you...ugh.
I lean into it - backpacks and giant purses with hard corners that jam into my ribs alike.
I will never understand why people don't adhere to the "walk left, stand right" principle on MBTA escalators.
Unfortunately, situational awareness is not as common as you would want it to be.
Uneventful. I witnessed a T operator being berated ("fuck you, clown") for no good reason. Say thanks to your T operator, people.
Not exactly T related, but very large machines with fantastic claws began tearing down the large steel beams of the casey overpass today (Forest Hills). Glorious to watch.
I don't get why people hate that bridge... the amount of traffic that it alleviated was awesome, now it's just a giant cluster fuck with how many years ahead before it's done?
My commute home goes Bus -> Green Line -> Orange Line. It feels like I'm traveling backwards through time.
Edit: And just when I start to think the MBTA isn't that bad, it takes me 2 1/2 hours to get to work today (usually 1.5). I need to buy a damn car.
Last week, but still laughing about it. Middle aged turd on the North Shore commuter rail vocally ranting about how the wifi sucks. Apparently baffled that he couldn't Skype. He is sitting at the tables in a double decker raving loudly to fellow passengers. When no one engaged he pretends to call a friend and continue his rant, but adds that he is on a slave train with a bunch of slaves loud enough for the rest of the car to tell him to STFU. At Manchester people getting off the train complained to the conductor. Dude was bounced by the conductor, all the while claiming that he worked for local fox news doing investigative reporting on MBTA issues. Total choad.
I watched a bus driver put the bus in park and kick a plastic water bottle out the front door, onto the grass, one stop away from Malden Center. I didn't say anything, but I kind of wish I had.
This week actually wasn't too bad in terms of the operational efficiency of the T.
However, I still think people playing their music off their phones with absolutely no ear-pieces in are scum bags. It's gotten to be a bit more prevalent than before, I think. I think we should all start playing music off our phones when it does happen. People like that are counting on the rest of us not to so that they can just listen to their shitty music loudly and obnoxiously.
Just blast TV snow noise from your phone and act like you're vibing to it.
plays Seinfeld
That's snow, not show :) but you should loop the Seinfeld bass riff anyway.
Oh.
^^^Shit ^^^This ^^^Is ^^^Awkward.
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Bowbadowdow
Honestly, how many times has anyone actually said something to people who do this? I'll admit out of the multiple times I've experienced it I've only said something once, but the guy turned his music off
I have said something once. He "turned it down" in the sense that Volume level 10 is higher than volume level 9. Glad you had better luck with that than I had.
However, people should get some damned self-awareness and not even do that in the first place. It's incredibly obnoxious.
I say something most of the time, especially if I can't drown it out with my own headphones. I'm not rude about it, just a quick "hey, could you turn that down?" Nobody's ever gotten defensive, so I figure if you're nice about it they usually are too.
People talking too loudly on the phone, however, tend to be a lot douchier when asked to lower their voices. I don't get it.
Because the fact that you said something to them about their PRIVATE phone conversation means that you must have been eavesdropping into the PRIVATE! conversation. How very dare you. /s
I never said anything, but once a guy who was blasting incredibly obnoxious music on his phone started to sit next to me on the commuter rail. I think the look of horror on my face must have registered with him because he immediately backed away and sat a few benches down from me instead.
I go to trade shows pretty often for work and at least one company gives out shitty pairs of branded earbuds. I've started collecting them to hand out to people who do this. "Doesn't it suck when you forget your headphones? Here, I have an extra pair!"
Perfect situation to play Shaggy's "Go F*** Yourself" out loud. Unless there are children within earshot of course.
*disclaimer: I hate Shaggy...but damn that song is catchy.
An old man on the red line today was blasting hall & oates on his phone. I wasn't even mad
I can go for that