Adventures in Boston Travel
Jan. 31st, 2008 09:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gnomiOn my way home last night, I was planning to go to Trader Joe's in Coolidge Corner (for yummy dark-chocolate-covered blueberries and soy milk), so instead of taking the Red line to Harvard and then the 66 bus, I took the Red line to the Green line. Easy, right? No problem. I left work at 5, walked to the Kendall Square station, and went down into the station. I'd just missed a train, but I got lucky -- another train (toward Braintree, but I was only going a couple of stops) was coming right away. Great, I thought. I was running early, but that was good because mabfan and I were planning, after dinner, to visit our friend S who just had a baby on Monday.
I got to Park St. at 5:15 and go upstairs. Within about two minutes, a Green Line C (the train I needed, headed to Cleveland Circle) pulled into Park St. I got on the train (at the back car, even though by then I'd spoken tomabfan and found out I didn't need to stop at Trader Joe's), got a seat, and pulled out my knitting. The train filled up (very full; I'm not sure where all these people came from based on the population on the platform before the train pulled in), the doors closed, the train started to pull out of Park St., and about a minute after the back of the back train cleared the station, we stopped. There was no immediate communication from the train crew, but since it was rush hour and the T tends to be quite congested at that time, we all figured we were caught behind other trains ahead of us trying to get into and out of Boylston as fast as they could.
So we sat. And sat. And sat. After about ten minutes, the conductor came on the intercom and said, "We're going to be slightly delayed, but we'll be moving soon." The people around me shuffled their feet but looked resigned. About five minutes later, the conductor came on the air again. "We're still delayed, but we should be moving soon." At that point it was about 5:30, so I pulled out my phone and, surprised to find signal, I calledmabfan to tell him I was delayed until who knows when. As I was talking to him, there was another announcement: We were going to be delayed, but there was an official on-scene, so things should be moving shortly. Knowing that "moving shortly" could mean "We'll be sitting here for another 45 minutes," I told mabfan I'd call when I got to St. Mary's (the first stop on the C outside the tunnel), and we hung up.
There was a garbled message from the conductor that said something about "evacuating," causing all the people around me to look at each other confusedly, but at that point I put my knitting away. A couple of minutes later, there was moving at the back-back door of the car, and people started moving. We were being evacuated back to Park St. (about a 1/2 block walk through the tunnel), where there was another C train waiting for us. That train ended up even more crowded than the original C, but we eventually all got on and were moving through the other side of the tunnel (we passed the stuck train, and we saw that the people on the front car had not been evacuated and were still waiting).
It was 6:00 when we got to Kenmore. We stopped briefly at Kenmore and then continued toward St. Mary's. And then we stopped. Apparently, there was traffic in front of us, so we sat in the tunnel for another ten minutes. When we eventually got above ground, I calledmabfan and said that if we were delayed any further I was going to just get off and walk home.
Thankfully, the rest of my trip home was uneventful, and we were able to go out and visit S with little trouble.
Some of my travel-stress-payment got refunded, however, on our way home from the hospital. We'd decided to see if we could flag a cab along Brookline Ave. (the main street in front of the hospital), and I spotted one traveling along the opposite side of the street from us. On a whim, I stuck out my hand to hail him. The driver saw me, made an immediate U-turn (in local parlance, "banged a u-ey"), and picked us up. To thank him, we gave him a generous tip. :-)
mabfan and I were planning, after dinner, to visit our friend S who just had a baby on Monday.I got to Park St. at 5:15 and go upstairs. Within about two minutes, a Green Line C (the train I needed, headed to Cleveland Circle) pulled into Park St. I got on the train (at the back car, even though by then I'd spoken to
mabfan and found out I didn't need to stop at Trader Joe's), got a seat, and pulled out my knitting. The train filled up (very full; I'm not sure where all these people came from based on the population on the platform before the train pulled in), the doors closed, the train started to pull out of Park St., and about a minute after the back of the back train cleared the station, we stopped. There was no immediate communication from the train crew, but since it was rush hour and the T tends to be quite congested at that time, we all figured we were caught behind other trains ahead of us trying to get into and out of Boylston as fast as they could.So we sat. And sat. And sat. After about ten minutes, the conductor came on the intercom and said, "We're going to be slightly delayed, but we'll be moving soon." The people around me shuffled their feet but looked resigned. About five minutes later, the conductor came on the air again. "We're still delayed, but we should be moving soon." At that point it was about 5:30, so I pulled out my phone and, surprised to find signal, I called
mabfan to tell him I was delayed until who knows when. As I was talking to him, there was another announcement: We were going to be delayed, but there was an official on-scene, so things should be moving shortly. Knowing that "moving shortly" could mean "We'll be sitting here for another 45 minutes," I told mabfan I'd call when I got to St. Mary's (the first stop on the C outside the tunnel), and we hung up. There was a garbled message from the conductor that said something about "evacuating," causing all the people around me to look at each other confusedly, but at that point I put my knitting away. A couple of minutes later, there was moving at the back-back door of the car, and people started moving. We were being evacuated back to Park St. (about a 1/2 block walk through the tunnel), where there was another C train waiting for us. That train ended up even more crowded than the original C, but we eventually all got on and were moving through the other side of the tunnel (we passed the stuck train, and we saw that the people on the front car had not been evacuated and were still waiting).
It was 6:00 when we got to Kenmore. We stopped briefly at Kenmore and then continued toward St. Mary's. And then we stopped. Apparently, there was traffic in front of us, so we sat in the tunnel for another ten minutes. When we eventually got above ground, I called
mabfan and said that if we were delayed any further I was going to just get off and walk home.Thankfully, the rest of my trip home was uneventful, and we were able to go out and visit S with little trouble.
Some of my travel-stress-payment got refunded, however, on our way home from the hospital. We'd decided to see if we could flag a cab along Brookline Ave. (the main street in front of the hospital), and I spotted one traveling along the opposite side of the street from us. On a whim, I stuck out my hand to hail him. The driver saw me, made an immediate U-turn (in local parlance, "banged a u-ey"), and picked us up. To thank him, we gave him a generous tip. :-)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-02-11 08:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-11 09:01 pm (UTC)But be patient about how long it takes. The Green Line brokedown the morning I arrived from Westercon (red-eye flight.) I submitted the form and didn't get the refund until sometime in November. And another refund arrived within days, I don't even remember the failure case for that one!
no subject
Date: 2008-02-11 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-11 09:08 pm (UTC)I was hoping that they would apply the credit to my Charlie Card. (I gave the ID when I filled out the form.) That way it was worth a little more and I didn't have to worry about the extra tickets. But I guess there could be complaints if people lost their Card in the mean time.
But I figure that I'll have the tickets to give to people who may need it during Boskone.