octr202 wrote:Any horror stories out there, or any good news about who it was handled?
Three words for you: Complete freakin mess.
I now live in Malden, and had to endure the detours three times. The first time was Wendsday afternoon. I boarded at Malden Center, on the outbound track. Very odd. This was going on during the entire time of the reroutings. I would be stunned if someone didn't screw up and find themselves heading the wrong way. At Wellington, I went upstairs to the busway to board a shuttle and found ONE bus with its door closed. Apparently the operator had to take a leak. One bus for a midday crowd. Needless to say, I now know what its like to be a sardine. This bus went through midday traffic, stopping at all Orange line stops from Wellington to North Station. The bus ride alone took about 40 minutes. When our single bus got to North Station, there was easily 500 people waiting to board it. Rather than deal with getting back on the Orange line, I decided to walk to my destination in Downtown Crossing.
At about 6pm I headed for home. Figuring that any problems had been fixed by then, I boarded the Orange Line at DTX where I heard the announcement over the PA system: "Nargle fargle bam foo woo blah yakdfdk sdkur 3.14 delays goo gah mommy inconvenience sevil natas cookies woof meow for riding the T." Yeah, those things work bloody great. After about 6-7 minutes, a train pulled in. The operator made the very complicated announcement about how to get to where you are going. Rockport riders to take blue line to wonderland, Orange line riders have to take the green line to Lechemere... It was just insane. Waaaaay too complicated. I pity the poor non-english speaking tourist. The train stopped several times in the tunnels before reaching Haymarket. And although I'm sure he was just being helpfull/doing what he was told, the operator kept making the very long announcement about how to get to where you are going until I wanted to punch my self in the head repeatedly.
At Haymarket, I switched to the Green Line and didn't even have to wait for a train. Apparently they extended the B & C lines up to Lechemere to accomidate us. Problem is, it caused a ridiculous ammount of traffic. It took about 20 minutes to go from Haymarket to Lechmere. At Lechmere the busway was a disaster. T officials were doing their best, but there was just too much foot and vehicular traffic to have any semblance of order. After shoving my way onto a bus, I had to sit in the busway for about 5 minutes waiting to get out. There should have been a cop directing traffic at the intersection to allow buses priority to get out.
The ordeal was not over yet though. Naturally, the bus was stuck in rush hour traffic. Just to make things better, none of the bus drivers knew how to get to Wellington! They all kept pulling up next to each other, asking who was going to lead the convoy! Funny, but scary!!! At Wellington, we did not use the bus ramp. Instead, the buses took a shortcut THROUGH THE WELLINGTON YARD!!! This seems dangerous to me, but I'm hoping there was a rule against anything moving in the yard during this time. We then unloaded next to the Wellington repair facility. This was by far the biggest mistake the T made. There is no elevator over on that side of the station. There is only a narrow stairway. On my bus alone were a disabled man, who clearly had trouble with the stairs, an elderly couple who seemed confused when the T officials said there was no elevator and offered no help to get over to the elevator on the other side, and a couple with a baby carriage. Then it was back on the Orange Line for 1 stop to Malden. Again, boarding on the wrong track.
This morning I again took the Orange Line (on the wrong side) 1 stop to Wellington for shuttle buses, which were this time bound for Haymarket. Much better idea since Haymarket at least has a busway. Even though I left a half hour earlier than normal I still wound up 15 minutes late for work. The buses took forever, were cramped (no surprise there), and turned away riders at all stops past Sullivan Sq. And yes, they made all the stops again.
All that said, I guess I can't really blame the T too much. They could have made things easier for rider with simpler plans, but they did have tons of staff everywhere directing people where to go. I would like to see better plans developed in advance for situations like these, but again, I can't really see how they could have done too much better this time around. The confusing plans were probably thought up in an attempt to get us home faster, it just didn't work perfectly.