Back Bay residents versus mass transit
Jimmy
cut back its shuttle service. See http://tech.mit.edu/V129/N46/shuttles.html
.
The Boston East route is no longer allowed to travel east of Mass Ave,
where 6 MIT fraternities are located. And the Boston West route has
to use a smaller bus, which often fills up, especially since some
drivers enforce a no-standees rule.
If I lived in those neighborhoods, I would really appreciate a free
shuttle service with late-night hours that provides a one-seat ride to
Cambridge.
Jimmy
David Z Maze
> Some influential Back Bay residents have gotten Boston to force MIT to
> cut back its shuttle service. See http://tech.mit.edu/V129/N46/shuttles.html
> [...]
> If I lived in those neighborhoods, I would really appreciate a free
> shuttle service with late-night hours that provides a one-seat ride to
> Cambridge.
To be at least slightly fair, Safe Ride *is* nominally a private
shuttle, and back when Boston West was one of my primary transportation
methods they would occasionally check students' IDs. I wouldn't
necessarily describe this as a "vs. mass transit" situation.
But in the past decade MIT, BU, and Harvard have all added significant
shuttles on and near their campuses, and the MIT Safe Ride shuttles the
Tech article talks about have physically grown twice. There's also
other private shuttles in the area (LMA and EZRide come to mind) that
are somewhat more available to the general public. I think these *are*
part of the overall regional transportation arena, and deserve at least
a little consideration.
(Really, though, MIT should negotiate with the T to make the #1 bus
free-with-MIT-ID between 77/84 Mass Ave Cambridge and Mass Ave and
Beacon in Boston.)
--dzm
andrew m. boardman
>And the Boston West route has to use a smaller bus, which often fills
>up, especially since some drivers enforce a no-standees rule.
At least sometimes that was mostly due to:
>If I lived in those neighborhoods, I would really appreciate a free
>shuttle service with late-night hours that provides a one-seat ride to
>Cambridge.
When I was riding Boston West on a near-daily basis, it was very much
known of and used by the BU community as well. There were a couple of
attempts at requiring MIT IDs for it, but followthrough was poor.
The new routing may be a bit faster, at least; Boston West at least has
never really been able to keep to its theoretic half-hour planned loop,
and the larger buses made it worse.
Jimmy
> When I was riding Boston West on a near-daily basis, it was very much
> known of and used by the BU community as well. There were a couple of
> attempts at requiring MIT IDs for it, but followthrough was poor.
I'd think the no-standees rule and Boston's requirement for smaller
buses would cause far more overcrowding than some non-MIT people.
They now have signs saying they'll make people who just want a ride
across the bridge wait for a Boston East bus (theoretically showing up
in 15 minutes) if Boston West is full. So these rules are really
screwing up the service, and making it carry fewer people for the
amount of money spent on it.
> The new routing may be a bit faster, at least; Boston West at least has
> never really been able to keep to its theoretic half-hour planned loop,
> and the larger buses made it worse.
Don't those larger buses only have one small door? That's what would
really slow things down.
Jimmy
Jimmy
> There's also
> other private shuttles in the area (LMA and EZRide come to mind) that
> are somewhat more available to the general public. I think these *are*
> part of the overall regional transportation arena, and deserve at least
> a little consideration.
I assume you're referring to the MASCO M2 Harvard-Longwood Medical
Area Shuttle. It's technically open to the public, but I doubt anyone
has ever made the trek to one of the few ticket offices to buy a
ticket for $2.30. The MASCO shuttles to remote parking lots are only
open to people with MASCO parking permits, and the others are only
open to MASCO affiliates, except possibly the short shuttle to the
Landmark Center.
And Cambridge didn't give the M2 shuttle much consideration when they
made them get a jitney license, and put strict limits on the number of
trips which can go through Cambridgeport.
Jimmy