Boston Seventh Strangest City in U.S.
Sunday Happenings
Sports Redux: B's, Bergeron Get 2 More From Road
Gordon Willis, the Man Who Plays Peekaboo
Today most of the MBTA system will be running on a Saturday schedule anticipating lighter rider-ship on the Martin Luther King holiday. Of course there's to "advisory" posted on the website, it's just a press release. The Saturday Schedule might be better for a T rider looking to get to Jamaica Plain than, say, a Friday Schedule. A tip to the blog Charlie on the MBTA indicates that the T’s Trip Planning website is having some issues recognizing the Orange Line on Fridays. They prove the point with a request to go from Central Square in Cambridge to Green Street in Jamaica Plain. The Trip Planner spits out a route taking the #1 and #42 buses, avoiding the rail lines all together. In a coincidence, the trip also takes 23 hours because of another glitch in the system that doesn’t handle “midnight” correctly and gets confused when one day becomes the next. Oh, Charlie, why do you keep boarding the M[B]TA trying to get to Jamaica Plain – by now you should know that you’ll never return.
In disbelief, Bostonist browsed over to the MBTA website and planned our own trip from the Sam Adams Brewery on Germania St. in Jamaica Plain to the Harpoon Brewery on Northern Ave. in South Boston. Generally when we’re doing a brewery crawl it’s easy to hop on at Stony Brook, transfer to the Red Line at Downtown Crossing (or walk to South Station) and then to Silver at South Station (a regular fare of $2). The Orange Line won’t come up as an option for a Friday adventure – truth be told the options they give for Saturday using the Orange Line and routing us through the Commuter Rail at Back Bay aren’t much better (a fare of $5.70 for a trip to get free beer). The suggested route the trip planner provides routes us on a bus to Ashmont where we’ll have to take the Red Line up to South Station to board the Silver Line. All this and neither the Northern Ave/Harbor St. nor the Northern Ave. stops on the SL2 or SL3 are selectable destinations on the trip planner. We just settled Silver Line Way as the destination.
We’ve come to the conclusion that the trip planner needs to fix the glitches, and a few more options would be appreciated. Currently you can “minimize transfers,” “minimize time,” or “minimize walking.” With bus, commuter rail, and subway coming up for some of the trips which can be done all on one subway fare perhaps a “minimize fare” option would be prudent? Especially for us thrifty New England folks looking to drink free beer at local breweries. In addition the three options for type of service are “bus only,” “rail only,” and “use all services.” Since the LinkPass doesn’t work on the local zones of the commuter rail like the subway pass used to, we’d like to be able to exclude it in our trip planning.
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I'm not 100% sure that the LinkPass doesn't work in the local zones of the commuter rail. If you go to the commuter rail fares page then travel to 1A zones appears to be the same price per ride and monthly as the LinkPass. Admittedly, it is called something different on that page, a Zone 1A Pass, but in all other respects it is identical to a a LinkPass.
Zones 1A and 1B are now just Zone 1A, in case you were wondering. In many respects this looks like the same policy for local commuter rail travel as before.
The main difference is that if you have a CharlieCard, it is going to be impossible to convince the conductors it has the proper pass on it, since the CharlieCard does not work on the commuter rail. Thus, a CharlieCard LinkPass is not the same as a Zone 1A Pass, despite all the similarities. If commuter rail travel is important to you, you'll have to keep buying the plastic passes every month.
I used to travel a fair bit on the local commuter rail, because it was comfortable, and always on time. I haven't done it at all in 2007, and now I guess I won't be doing it anymore, because I am not willing to give up the tap-and-go CharlieCard just to get somewhere on the commuter rail that I can reach on the subway anyway.
Will is correct; the only reason the LinkPass on a CharlieCard doesn't work in Zone 1A is that the collectors can't tell it's a pass. That will change when they get handheld validators in mid 2007. In the meantime the Zone 1A Pass on a CharlieTicket costs the same amount of money as the LinkPass.
However, in the trip planner's defense, a ride from Back Bay to South Station on any Commuter Rail train is officially free, and is advertised as such on buses (though I couldn't find info on the T's web site). I'm not certain, but I believe that with a stored-value CharlieCard you could tap in at Stony Brook, and tap in again at South Station within two hours without paying a second fare. Of course, with a LinkPass (or a Zone 1A pass) this is a non-issue.
I'd like to exclude the bus forever until it improves. Or at least can actually stick to the schedules that they release.