T response to increased ridership?

[Dreamstalker]

Remove seats to cram more people in.

http://wbztv.com/local/red.line.seats.2.879661.html There will be only four seats available for seniors and disabled riders, on the most heavily traveled outbound branch of the Red Line. Luckily it's in the early pilot stages, so only two train cars total are outfitted as such.

Somehow, I can't see this ending well if it spreads systemwide. The T claims they can get 27 more riders per car...great, but I don't see more handholds. Say hello to more injuries with a leadfooted driver. The new Green Line cars suck in a similar vein...more standing room, but no handholds within easy reach.

IMO, this is not the correct response to increased ridership.

[PepperElf]

well it depends... if you cram the trains to about 300% capacity you don't have to worry about falling over... the mass of bodies will keep you standing up nicely, even if you fall asleep.

hey it works for Japan.

[Dreamstalker]

Were the trains originally designed with few/no seats though?

Someone mentioned that in the article comments, but the problem there would be the transition from plenty of seats to zero seats (look at the new Green Line trains as an example how it doesn't work--major issues with few reachable handholds when the car is supercrowded and people thinking that more standing room=let's bring the strollerzillas on board during rush hour). What you get then is people thinking the emergency brake is a nice handhold, resulting in a human domino effect if it actually gets pulled (which it will).

Adding to the problem is that this pilot program is on the longest and most heavily traveled outbound branch of the Red Line. The logical solution would be to simply add more trains on that branch and remove some of the 5 zillion trains on the other one that are always empty.

[MannersMakethMan]

This reminds me of the story not so long ago that because so many trains in the UK were getting overcrowded, they just changed the definition of overcrowding. Makes you wonder why you bother using them doesn't it?

[Dreamstalker]

Yeah...I'm somewhat tempted to try and hop one of the new cars and see what it's like. If people bitched about students with backpacks before, it's only going to increase. At least if you're seated you could put bags/backpacks on your lap.

[Mr Slugger]

I liked the front page of the herald the other day with a bunch of cattle hanging out the windows of the train cars.

Say hello to more injuries with a leadfooted driver.

I may be mistaken but aren't the red line trains nowadays controlled by a computer at the central location? I seem to recall a tv show about that recently and that the peope in the train are really just there to make sure the doors don't close on people, tell the train to move onto the next station and deal with emergencies.

[Dreamstalker]

I think you're correct, I recall a screwup with central dispatch last summer (that's another thing, if a train is stopped for an hour or more due to routing errors, people will be dropping like flies especially in the hot weather).

My leadfooted-drivers comment was targeted toward the present situation on the Green Line to illustrate that particular issue (and what might happen if red line cars have to be shuffled manually, or stopped suddenly in general).

Although the centrally-controlled theory is at times challenged due to unreasonable wait times some days (30-45 minutes for an Alewife-bound train).

[Mr Slugger]

Yeah the green line is competely driver controlled and there was a number of times I used to remember having to suffer at the hands of a lead foot driver on them.

The big problem though is the just removing the seats theory. I recall once being in a all stand up train and they had a million grips hanging from the roof ( maybe a old green line train?) Now there's just the rails on the sides. Now there's just only a couple of places to hold on to.

[Hon'ya-chan]

Gee, and I thought those Mesh Grates across the Locomotive Engine window looked stupid....

[Dreamstalker]

Yeah the green line is competely driver controlled and there was a number of times I used to remember having to suffer at the hands of a lead foot driver on them.

The newer green line cars are worse. I don't know what it is, but the brakes are very, very stiff. At least with the older cars it's possible to have a reasonably gentle stop if the distance was there, now there could be all the stopping distance in the world and people can still go flying. I'm still not sure why the change was made. Some ill-thought-out ADA accommodation solution, I think.

One of the Herald comments mentions bars down the center of the roof with straps on them. That makes much more sense, and would take up almost no room.

I'm convinced that nobody at the T who makes policies actually rides the train daily.

[Dips]

I'm convinced that nobody at the T who makes policies actually rides the train daily.

That is something I've often pondered as well.

Here is the web page listing the CVs for the board of directors for the MBTA:

http://www.mbta.com/about_the_mbta/leadership/?id=1046

I can't picture *any* of these folks riding the T to their jobs, but you never know...