A Bad Week for Buses

Apparently there's not a cosmic law dictating that buses are allowed to have only one brush with disaster per week. Yesterday, an MBTA bus with over 40 passengers caught fire.

One rider told WHDH news that the incident started with a bang at the back of the bus: "It sounded like a huge gunshot. We initially thought it was just a blowout of the tire." (Given the Fung Wah loose-wheel episode, that's hardly surprising.)

Unfortunately, WHDH didn't give all the gritty details, such as which bus line it was. The image they displayed shows that the bus number was 0476, and someone at Universal Hub said her fiancé was on the bus, and he told her it was Express Bus 276.

Bad Transit is already on the case. He takes aim at the MBTA brass whose job it is to prevent those problems, and he points to a previous WHDH report from 2005 declaring that 9 out of 10 T buses failed inspection.

This little incident makes Fung Wah look good. At least it's cheap.

Image of bus with metaphorical flames from Flickr user Daquella Manera.