The End?

Perhaps you're wondering why I stopped posting here. Did the MBTA or MBCR suddenly make huge improvements in the Franklin line? Did I die, or flee the country?

No, no, and no. The explanation is much more mundane: I became a telecommuter. After thirteen years in the office, and eight or nine of those years commuting four hours a day from Rhode Island to Boston (round trip), my employer gave me the option to work from home. Deeply as I have always loved the city of Boston, I have to admit that the daily commute was taking a real toll on me. So I agreed.

It's a different life. Instead of waking up to a tortuous alarm clock before the sun rises and forcing my family to get up so they can drive me to the train station, I sleep late and wake up with plenty of time to stroll down the hallway to my work area. I can have lunch with my wife, and see my son as soon as he comes home from school. It's a whole new life, and a better one. I only wish that more people had that option!

But I do take the T in to Boston once in a while for meetings. And on a recent late-night trip home, I took another look at the crumbling staircase at Ruggles. A couple of photos came out clearly enough:

The side of the staircase is deteriorating badly. In this shot, you can actually see through the inner wall all the way through the interior hollow and to the inside of the outer wall. The other side of the outer wall is bulging worse than ever.

On the other side of the staircase, the situation is equally desperate. It's literally falling to pieces, as you can see here. Now, I actually led a T representative physically to this staircase last year and showed him what was going on, and he seemed to realize that there was a real danger. So I can't say why nothing has been done to rectify the situation, although I'd bet a shortage of funds will be blamed.

Other than that, I'm sorry to see that the T's thirty-minute money-back policy is apparently going to be discontinued, if it hasn't been ended already. This is nothing but an encouragement for even worse service.

So...am I glad to be off that train? Well, yes. I'd be dishonest if I didn't admit it. But I'll admit that I miss Boston, and once in a while I miss taking the train. I even miss the comic misadventures, lousy service, and rude conductors (noting, as always, that most conductors are not rude).

I'll continue to keep an eye on things on my rare trips to town, so this isn't the final post. But realistically, there certainly won't be as many posts as I used to make. I just don't have the material any more!

Slow-motion crash

The stairs at Ruggles continue to decay. The morter is crumbling away.

As you can see above, the whole structure has shifted so much that the
internal holes in one of the bricks have been exposed.

The staircase is slowly spreading outward at the base; another effect of this slow-motion collapse has been to pull apart the railing on the left side, as you walk downstairs.

On the outer side of the staircase, you can see that the wall is visibly bowing outward. I can't imagine that this is a safe situation! Would any public safety inspector allow a staircase in this condition to be used by the public? I have to doubt it.

The weird thing, of course, is that those stairs were closed for at least two years for repairs, and only re-opened in August 2007. Will they make it to August 2010? I don't know. Will they be closed for another two years for repairs again? I couldn't say. Will the next set of repairs last longer than three years? I'd like to believe so - but see no reason for hope!

Crowding

The Franklin 1719 continues to have adequate seating, to my surprise. The same can't always be said of the Providence #811, departing South Station at 3:45 PM.

It's not always jammed, but in the past several months I've seen passengers jammed into the vestibules several times. Here are a couple of photos from a couple of months ago:

Once they crowded into the vestibule, that's pretty much where they had to stay. Every aisle was packed.

Strange morning, courtesy of the MBCR

Strange things were happening on the #708 train out of Franklin this morning. It was a double train, with an engine in the middle; I heard that the prior train had broken down, and was being pushed along.

I also saw my first "wrapped" coach, a double that had been turned into a huge advertisement for some bank. Here's a photo:

On the train, a woman had a large brown dog sitting on the seat next to her. It was some sort of hound, and was letting out a near-continuous high-pitched whine. I didn't see anything to indicate that it was a service dog. I couldn't tell if a ticket had been purchased for it, although it was using a full seat and it was VERY crowded on the train that morning. People were jammed in the aisles.

The train was due in at Ruggles at 7:50 AM, but didn't arrive until 8:24. So accordingly I put in for the on-time guarantee. I guess that will make up for the $8.75 I was charged for forgetting to change my pass on the 1st!

The stairway at Ruggles continues to deteriorate. Intriguing deep holes are opening up in the sides of it:

A week ago I saw that the afternoon Providence train (stopping at Ruggles on the outbound trip at roughly 3:56 PM) was incredibly crowded. People were jammed into the vestibule areas, between coaches - the areas with signs that say "PASSENGERS ARE NOT PERMITTED TO RIDE IN THE VESTIBULE". I counted at least ten people in one vestibule, and more than that in two others.

I also had an interesting ride home last week; when I got on the coach, it was pitch black inside. I mean really black; the only light came from a laptop that some guy was using down at the other end of the coach.

It was eerie! The power came back after about fifteen minutes, though.

Mysterious Thing

It's boring, waiting for the train at Ruggles in the evening, so once again I was looking at the stairs. The disintegration continues, but today I saw something new:

What IS that thing? It looks like a heavy cable, almost like a motorcycle lock, clamped around the base of the stair railing - and the other end goes into the concrete. Where the insulation doesn't cover it, it's clearly a multiple-wire cable. It can't be electrical. It doesn't look as if it has any structural purpose - how could it be holding anything in place? It's not tightly attached! Why does it go into the cement? Does anyone know?

There's another cable just like it on the other side of the stairs, by the way.

You might have noticed that there are bricks missing at the left-hand bottom side of the base of the stairs now. Here's a better shot:

Could the cable be some sort of temporary thing, like a clamp to hold things in place? It really doesn't look like it to me.

Crumbling stairs

Last December I wrote about the crumbling stairs to the commuter rail platform at Ruggles.

Here's what they look like today, Thursday July 30th. Click on the photos to enlarge them:

As you can see, the stairs are falling apart. And here's a view of the wall on the other side of the stairs; the damage isn't as obvious, but if you take a close look, I think you'll see signs that the wall is starting to bulge outwards...

That can't be good!

A Late Morning

The Franklin line was particularly bad this morning; the #706 inbound train was cancelled, and the #708 train arrived at Ruggles at 8:52, over a full hour late. That's the third time so far this year that I've had the chance to file an On-Time Guarantee claim.

Every time it happens I find people on the train who didn't know about the guarantee, and didn't know that they could cash those tickets in. I should make up cards with instructions and pass them out whenever there's a 30+ minute delay.

Trouble With A Capital T

Things haven't changed much on the Franklin commuter line.

There've been some late trains, and I've collected a few free tickets. The stairs at the Ruggles station are still crumbling. In the last couple of months there have been several times on the outbound #717 train (departing South Station at 4:20 PM) when no doors were opened on either side of two adjacent cars; twice I saw passengers who weren't able to get off the train at their stops, and ended up being carried along to the next station unwillingly. I tried to help one of them by opening the door and stairs myself, but by the time I'd noticed her plight and gotten the door open, the train was already in motion. There was, of course, no conductor around.

Today was pretty special, though. The morning #708 train was going very slowly. There were a couple of announcements; the #704 was disabled, and the #706 was joining up with it to push it out of the way. We were supposed to arrive at Ruggles at 7:50 AM, but we got there at 8:25 instead.

When we got there, people lined up to get out. But the lines didn't move in my coach. The doors were shut, and the passengers who were trying to open the doors...couldn't. They said they were stuck. I was far back in the line myself, or I would have given it a try. Needless to say, there was no conductor in sight.

We all turned around and started rushing down the coach to the next set of doors. But we hadn't reached them before we all realized that the train was moving, picking up speed. There was a univeral groan.

Fortunately someone reached a conductor, and the train finally stopped. We were well down the long Ruggles platform by then; all but two coaches were past the barrier that blocks off the crumbling, unused half of the platform (I'll get a photo of that soon, if I can - update: got it). We stepped out onto a continuous sheet of thick ice. Since it was an off-limits area, it had never been salted or sanded. We had to squeeze carefully around the wooden barrier, with no more than a few feet of clearance between the barrier and the train. It was a tight fit for some! And it may have been worse for the people on the other side, since if they slipped they wouldn't have the train as a backstop - they'd have ended up falling straight down onto the tracks. Luckily, no one slipped.

Here's a shot that I took of the closed platform that afternoon. It had been a relatively warm day, and the sun had melted some of the ice since that morning. But even so, there was a lot left! By the way, that half of the platform has been closed for as long as I can remember - years, at least. It's crumbling badly.

It could have been worse, of course - we could have been forced to get off at Back Bay instead, and been even more late. As it was, I got into work 40 minutes late. I later heard that people on the #704 train had had a two-hour delay!

P.S. - I've been told a great story that I hope to be able to post soon. The T apparently mailed out some duplicate letters and tickets for their On-Time Guarantee, and they're handling the issue remarkably poorly - even for the T. One suggestion: check your O-TG letters for duplicate numbers. If you find some, don't try to cash in duplicates at the same time. More on this later, I hope!

The stairs, they are a-crumblin'

There have been the usual problems on the Franklin line in past months, including quite a few 30+ minute delays. These have become so routine that they're hardly worth an entry here.

But there's a much more interesting problem that has come to light at Ruggles recently.

The commuter rail station at Ruggles has two long stairways. One is entirely covered by the Ruggles roof, although water leaks copiously through that roof in many places and the stairs are often soaked on rainy days (even inside the main area of the station itself, it's often like a rain storm indoors on wet days).

The bottom of the other stairway extends out under the open sky. Here's a current photo from the top of the stairs:

That would be quite a fall, wouldn't it?

Now, that stairway was closed for two or three years straight because it was unsafe. Finally in August 2007 it was repaired and reopened. But in the sixteen or so months since it reopened, it has already decayed badly and it again seems very unsafe - an accident waiting to happen.

At least eight stairs are loose, partially detached from the underlying cement. Here's a video of one of them:

If you look closely, you'll see the surface of the stair pop upwards as it's stepped on by the passing commuter, and then fall back down again. You can hear it click as it moves.

It seems that T personnel may not have actually repaired the stairs; I may be wrong, but it looks as if instead they just covered them with new non-skid surfaces. That might be a perfectly adequate replacement (I don't know, I'm not a safety expert) except for one small problem: the nails (or possibly screws) that they used to attach those new surfaces to the underlying, possibly crumbling cement steps are melting. Whatever they're made of, they're fast rusting away to featureless spikes - some are completely gone. And many of the stairs are half-loose from the underlying surface as a result.

Perhaps that rusting process will suddenly stop. But I don't think so. You can't help but wonder about the competence of an organization that would use fasteners liable to rust on an outdoor repair job! Suddenly, the many problems of the Big Dig seem less surprising.

I suspect that the stairway is going to be closed again for repairs, soon. How many years might that process take this time? In 2005-2007, the economy was relatively healthy and the T's budget situation might not have been quite as bad as it is now. So how long will commuters at Ruggles have to put up with either dangerous stairs, or only a single usable stairway?

Apart from the loose stair surfaces, there are a number of steps that have a curious bounce to them when stepped on. It almost feels as if the rubbery surfaces are unsupported; as if the concrete which is supposed to underlie them simply isn't there. The mortar-like substance that was used on the sides of the steps has broken and crumbled away in many cases. But at the very bottom stair, the cement of the underlying step can be seen - and it's not a pretty picture.

Or video, in this case:

What the heck; here's a picture, too.

Notice the rust, and the badly decayed condition of the step. How do the other steps look, I wonder, under their non-skid covering?

And how much could the MBTA and the state be sued for, if (when?) one of those steps gives way, and one or more people are catapulted down that long flight of stairs? How much of the upcoming rate increase would a multi-million dollar settlement eat up?

Lastly, what would it take to get a professional repair job done? I can't imagine it would be more expensive than the liability that the T seems to be courting with their incredibly poorly-maintained facility at Ruggles.

Time

This morning the Franklin #708 train was exactly one-half hour late.

It's unusual for the train to be that late. But it's even more unusual for the train ever to be actually on time.

For the past few weeks I have been tracking the performance of the Franklin #715 train. I board it at Ruggles at 4:19 in the afternoon, and in theory it should arrive at Franklin/Dean College (the next-to-last stop on the line) at 5:10 PM. But here's the actual performance:

Sorry it's an image instead of a table, but Blogger doesn't seem to like my tables. A few notes of interest:

1. All arrival times were taken from my cell phone, which is set to automatically synchronize and update. The time was taken at the moment the train made a full and complete stop at the station.

2. Sorry that the data isn't more complete; I broke my elbow hiking the the White Mountains about three weeks ago, and as a result I haven't been taking the train every single day. It's also a lot harder to check arrival times when you're trying to wrestle a backpack and the train door with one arm.

3. The first column is mislabeled; it shouldn't be called "Late", but rather "Date". Freudian slip, sorry. This data reflects every day that I rode the Franklin #715 and was able to record the time (nine times out of ten, at least), and I have not eliminated ANY data. I wouldn't want anyone to think that I had left out data that improved the results (from the T's point of view), because I haven't.

Nonetheless, the average time late is six and two-thirds of a minute, so far. Multiply that time by the number of passengers on the train, and you're talking about hundreds of wasted person-hours per week. And that's just for that one train! Unless it's the only regularly-late train in the fleet (something that I doubt very much), that means that system-wide many thousands of person-hours are being wasted on a regular basis.

Now, six minutes might not seem like a big deal. And it isn't. But what I find remarkably startling is this: on every day that I recorded an arrival time, the train never ONCE met its official 5:10 PM arrival time.

Not once. Isn't that strange?

Trouble on the Stoughton Line

I chat with a lot of people about the commuter rail. Inevitably, many of them tell me about problems. Yesterday a woman told me about a memorable Tuesday on the Stoughton line.

The morning train (shortly before 8 AM) simply skipped the Ruggles stop completely. Track work, I presume, but apparently they didn't announce it until after the previous stop.

Then that evening the train (at around 5 PM) kept stopping to let other trains go by. When it reached Canton Junction it simply stopped...and then everyone was told to get off and wait for the next train.

So apparently the Franklin line isn't the only one that has problems. But then, we already knew that - didn't we?

A surprising series of screw-ups, part 2

Arriving at South Station 31 minutes late didn't exactly help our schedule. The Cambridge River Festival ran from noon to 6 PM, and it was already well after 2. We headed towards the subway station. A quick trip on the Red line would get us into Harvard Square before 3 PM.

But at the entrance to the subway station (which is part of South Statio, of course) we were waved back by T employees. "The station's closed!" one of them shouted. "Go up those stairs, there will be buses!"

What the hell?

Up the stairs and out on the street, we ran into a scene of budding chaos. There were fire engines, emergency vehicles, and firemen everywhere. The crowd wasn't yet overwhelming, but it was large and growing quickly.

And there wasn't a single damned bus in sight!

Whatever had happened in the subway station - and we heard several rumors, most of them being that there had been a fire (although we hadn't smelled any smoke at the station entrance) - it must have happened pretty recently. Either that, or the T was even more screwed up than usual, because it took a surprisingly long time for any buses to show up.

Here's the scene:

When buses finally started to appear they were all destined for JKF/UMASS, and therefore completely useless for us. In the meantime the crowd had become enormous, spilling onto the streets and greatly slowing traffic. There were several points where buses were pulling in, but it wasn't clear if there were particular locations for specific destinations. Many of the signs on the buses simply said "OUT OF SERVICE", and people had to shout and ask the drivers where they were going. It was, simply, chaos; nobody seemed able to organize the situation and let people know what had happened or where they should go. Parts of the crowd ran back and forth from loading-point to loading-point, trying to find buses to take them where they wanted to go.

Eventually a bus headed for Charles/MGH showed up. We ran like mad and managed to get on. It was jam-packed, of course. Traffic in the city seemed unusually heavy, and it took quite a while for the bus to reach Charles. By the time we reached Cambridge, it was well after 4 PM.

Sebastian was pretty worn out by this point. He's only six years old, after all! We stopped and had some lunch, but after that the walk to the River Festival was simply too much for him. So after all that we had to give up and turn back towards the T. We never got to see the River Festival after all.

But our weekend wasn't over yet. I'd hoped that the Red line was fully back in service, but of course that wasn't realistic. At Kendall/MIT the train stopped and everyone had to get off. So it was back on the bus for the trip back to Park Station. From there the subway trip to South Station was, thank goodness, relatively uneventful.

We took the Franklin train to Norfolk. Sebastian fell asleep on the way, but I was able to wake him (with difficulty) before we got there. The light was failing, but the sun hadn't yet completely set; and to my surprise I was able to navigate my way back home without a single wrong turn. We arrived home late and tired, but okay.

But that was just Saturday. The T had one more surprise in store for us that weekend...

It was a relatively minor one, but still annoying. We had to take the commuter rail in to Boston again the next day. And just minutes before we would have arrived at our destination, Ruggles station, there was an announcement: due to problems with the tracks, the train would not be stopping at Ruggles. Anyone headed for Ruggles would need to go one stop further, to Back Bay, and take the Orange line back to Ruggles. I imagine that would be particularly irritating for passengers who didn't have T passes, since that would mean they'd have to pay an extra subway fare.

I was pretty annoyed too, since my father was waiting in his car at Ruggles to pick us up. He didn't have his cell phone, so I couldn't call him and tell him that we'd be late. Fortunately he was still there when we finally arrived, but it was one last little screwup from the MBTA.

What a weekend!

An Unexpected Turn of Events (Problem Solved?)

The vestibules had been packed for weeks. So on Friday I brought my digital camera; it was time to get video proving that people were being forced to ride in the vestibules and being packed in the aisle, a massive safety hazard for hundreds of paying passengers every day.

I don't believe in fate. But I have to admit that it's pretty ironic that on Friday, for the first time in quite a while, the Franklin #715 train wasn't just five single-level coaches; it was several double-level coaches, as well as at least one or two single-level ones.

There were still quite a few standees, but no one had to ride in the vestibules that I saw. And the aisle were relatively uncrowded. So I had nothing to photograph.

On Monday, same story. Double-level coaches, and adequate seating capacity. I'd brought my camera, but had no call to use it.

On Tuesday afternoon, I received an email from the MBCR. It said, in part:

I have spoken with the manager responsible for train consists and understand that your train has finally been returned to its proper number of coaches.

This confused me a bit; "proper" number of coaches? "Returned"? I've been riding the #715 for years now, and it has never had double-level coaches on a regular basis before! We had them perhaps three times a year, on average, and it always meant that the regular train had broken down.

Being perplexed, I wrote back:

Thank you. I am a bit confused by your response, however.

For the several days leading up to Thursday, April 24, the #715 consisted of five single-level coaches - one less than usual. On Friday the 25th and Monday the 28th the #715 included at least three double-level coaches, as well as at least two single-level ones (if memory serves). Is this the new status quo? We have not seen this many coaches on the #715 on a regular basis for the past three years at least.

There are still many people who have to stand, even with the double-level coaches - but at least we don't have to ride in the vestibule. At this point, however, many of the regular riders on the #715 don't know what to expect. Will the expanded seat capacity which has been provided over the past two weekdays continue?

I haven't received a response yet, but when the #715 pulled into Ruggles this afternoon, it consisted of four double-level coaches and one single-level one. And to my utter amazement, I got a seat - not at Norwood Central, nor even at Dedham/128, but at Ruggles itself! Some people were still standing, and I expect that I'll still have to stand more often than not - at least for part of the trip - but at least we won't have to ride in the "crumple zones".

Or so I hope. Of course, it could all change back again at any time, I suppose. And I can't help but wonder what other train or trains lost the double-sided coaches that have been put on the #715 run. But for now, it seems, the Franklin #715 train is no longer a large-scale accident waiting to happen.

Don't think for a minute that I plan to retire this blog or anything like that, though! I'm hopeful about the new added capacity, but after 20-odd years of dealing with the MBTA I'm sure that there will be new things to write about. Still, it's nice to see that the T finally did respond and fix
the problem. And it may be hubris on my part, but I'd like to think I might have played a small part in getting them to take action.

I never heard back from the Globe or the Herald, incidentally. And from what a friend has told me, they probably never will get back to me. My next step would have been to contact the Metro, the Boston Phoenix, and the Weekly Dig. Instead, I can relax and deal with other issues.

Oh, one more thing: it doesn't seem likely that the Franklin #715 train was the only one having problems. And I'm sure there will be hot cars aplenty, as well as lots of other problems; the sad truth is that the commuter rail system is under considerable strain, and will be for some time to come. So please, if you hear or see anything of interest, post a comment here - or email me.

Ride safe!

Ruggles: Signal Problems

On Friday March 7th, the Franklin #710 train (departing from Franklin/Forge Park at 7:45 AM) skipped the Ruggles stop. They announced it; apparently there was some sort of signal problem.

This morning, March 10th, the Franklin #708 train (departing from Franklin/Forge Park at 7:00 AM) also skipped the Ruggles stop. Again, it was announced on the train PA system.

I've put in for the on-time service guarantee on both days. Since the train never arrived at my destination, the MBTA can hardly claim that it was on time!

I called them just to see if this was going to be a regular occurrence. According to their customer service rep, they don't expect it to be - it's just a signal problem. Now that I think of it, that's a little disturbing - I wonder what other problems there might be? I'd hate to find out by having my train run into another one at full speed!

And why haven't they been able to fix that signal over the last four days? It could have been two different problems, I suppose, but that seems unlikely.

Bird Crap Story

The bird crap was still piling high on the evening of Tuesday, February 6th. The next evening I noticed that it had finally been cleaned.

I first posted about the guano-covered escalator on January 3rd, and of course the problem had been building up long before that. It took the T 35 days (or more) to get the escalator cleaned.

It took the birds far less time to cover it with crap again.

More of the same...

The escalator at Ruggles remains uncleaned. Bird crap is piling higher, and has been smeared all over the left inner side by unaware passengers. Yuck.

On the morning of Friday the 25th two Franklin trains were cancelled: #706 (6:35AM) and #708 (7:00AM). The next train was obscenely overcrowded, of course, and got into Ruggles 36 minutes late.

Fares are not being collected more than half of the time. The MBTA blew $55 million dollars trying to trade debts, according to the newspapers. They've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars - if not more - providing wifi access to certain coaches, but there still aren't enough seats. It's nice to see that they have their priorities in order!

Seriously, what will it take to get the system fixed? How much more will people take? Why isn't any public figure doing something about this?

Guano, Delays, and $$$

Guano: The escalator at Ruggles remains uncleaned, and the guano is piling up higher every day. It has been fourteen days since I posted the photo, if anyone is counting.

Delays, and $$$: The Franklin line has been running late quite often - in fact, it's more often late than on time, and that has been confirmed in the news. It's usually the worst-performing line in the entire system!

This morning, though, was special. The #708 is scheduled to arrive at the Franklin/Dean College station at 7:07 AM. It didn't arrive until 7:53 AM instead, effectively pushing it back to the next scheduled train slot. The passenger information marquees performed comically throughout; When the train was already 30 minutes late, the signs said it would be 20 minutes late, and when the delay reached 40 minutes the signs updated to tell us all that the delay might be as much as 30 minutes. Tremble at the technological savvy of the mighty MBTA!

Maybe they should go back to steam locomotives.

With two trains worth of people to cram into a single train, the overcrowding was all that you'd expect. The conductors announced that there had been mechanical problems at the "storage area". If a mechanical problem can cause that sort of havoc, I wonder what will happen if the threatened Amtrak strike takes out South Station starting on January 30th? The mind boggles.

Perhaps a class action lawsuit would be in order. God knows it's annoying enough to pay $223 per month*, $2,676 per year for the privilege of not having a seat on a crowded, swaying train. But if the ridership is subjected to the sheer chaos that seems likely if the strike goes forward...well, I've already heard rumors of legal action. And that's based on the current lousy service.

The #708 arrived at Ruggles at 8:55 AM instead of the scheduled 7:50 AM. I've already filed for my free ticket. It's a good thing that the T has plenty of money to throw away on complimentary fares! In fact, they must be rolling in dough. In the past nine trips I've taken on the Franklin #715 train, I've only seen fares collected four times.

There are stubs which show that a conductor went through the coach after it departed South Station, but well over a hundred people get on at Ruggles. If over 50% of them aren't being ticketed, and that rate obtains over the entire commuter rail system, I'd guess that the MBCR/MBTA is throwing away tens of thousands of dollars every day.

They're not losing anything on me, of course. I'm one of the poor bastards who buys a monthly pass. But people with tickets and punch-passes are getting a lot of free rides. I know one daily passenger who rode for an entire month on a single 12-Ride ticket!

Call me a pessimist, but the commuter rail system simply can't survive much longer under the current management. It's going to fall apart within ten years, I'd guess - just when people will need it most. It desperately needs to be properly funded and managed, but the odds are that none of that will happen until the system crashes to a standstill. Maybe the Amtrak strike will be the nudge that the legislature and management need...but I doubt it!

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* - And what do you bet that fares will shoot upward sooner than we expect? They're not supposed to go up again until 2010, but T General Manager Dan Grabauskas recently wrote in BostonNOW! that fares wouldn't go up in 2008; call me cynical, but I suspect that this is a hint that we'll get a 25% or higher fare increase in 2009.

Ruggles: For the Birds

Here's why you should always stay in the center of the escalator at Ruggles, and never, ever touch the handrails no matter what the safety signs say:

I had to take this from above and the view is limited, but basically a large area of the escalator (and of some of the staircases) is absolutely covered with bird crap every day. I suppose someone must be cleaning it up at least once in a while. But basically the area is always filthy.

Ruggles Station: Stairway to Hell?

Sometimes you miss something that's right under your nose. Or I do, anyway.

I was talking to one of the regular riders on the #715 Franklin train, and she pointed out something that jolted me: there's only one staircase and one elevator for the entire commuter rail platform at Ruggles.

There used to be a second staircase, but it started crumbling about three years ago and the T blocked it off. They locked and chained the upper doors, and put up a section of chain link fence to block the bottom of the stairs.

And then they sat back and let it crumble. It's just been decaying for the last three years. The chain link fence is partially broken in, but the whole staircase is clearly a hazard - it's literally falling apart. Chunks of masonry are falling off of it!

This is one of those stories where a picture would be worth more than a thousand words. So tomorrow I'll bring in my camera and take a photo of it to post here.

I wonder...are there any laws about adequate access to commuter rail platforms? If there's ever an emergency that requires passengers to get off the platform and up to the station quickly, that lone staircase would be quite a bottleneck. Which it is every morning, come to think of it.