September 16, 2008
All My BusRydas, Meet Me Outside
Knowing when your bus is scheduled to come doesn't always help, as many routes are all too often hopelessly off the mark. Just this Sunday evening we saw two #1 buses tailgating each other around Harvard, from where they were supposed to leave 20 minutes apart. Sigh. But for those of you who retain hope that buses may occasionally arrive when they're intended to, the new service BusRyda has come up with easy mobile alerts that are better than the MBTA's.
Just point your iPhone or other web-equipped phone to boston.busryda.com, choose your route (inbound/outbound) and day (weekday, Saturday, or Sunday), and you'll find out the next hour or so of bus arrivals. This doesn't guarantee that the bus is actually running on schedule, but it does arm you with indignation should the bus be late. Created by Emerson alum Eric D. Fields, the service is not affiliated with the MBTA (you can tell that because it actually works!) and is best viewed on our friend the iPhone.
If nothing else, BusRyda has inspired us to propose a new MBTA slogan: "Y'all gon' make me lose my mind, up in here, up in here." Because nothing makes us crazy like waiting for the bus.
Image from BusRyda
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Props on the DMX reference.. pop rap was so much better circa-2000
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The back-to-back bus thing is a pretty regular occurrence in Allston with the #57. I think it might be a planned move during rush hour?
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Another useful site is me2bus.com.
http://www.me2bus.com/boston/
It lets you choose a route, inbound/outbound, and a stop, and tells you how far from now the next bus will be arriving (it also tells you if there was a recent one and when the following ones will be). It's a little bit easier to use and provides a little more into than busryda.com.