Saturday, February 02, 2008

Welcome to Whatthef*ckachusetts

I KNOW I am not the first person to comment on the complete buffoonery of the MBTA, but fo'shizz until it happens to you, you really can't believe it.

So tonight I am heading to see Rhett Miller at the Paradise.

*sighhh* Rhett Miller, he's so dreamy...

Anyway, since I want to have a few beverages of the alcoholic variety I am leaving the Shampagne Supernova home (drinking & driving is wrong and avoidable!).

I live in the 'bury so I figure I will take the T.

My experience tells me to take the #1 down Mass Ave and pick up the B Line at Hynes.

However, according to the boneheads at the MBTA, from my door to the Paradise at first spat out an itinerary that would take 181 minutes. That's THREE HOURS in minutes!

Something was clearly amiss.

I re-typed in my whole address with the zip code and everything and another itinerary was generated. This involved taking a bus to the Boston Common area, then hopping on a Newton Express bus, and then catching some other bus from Watertown Yard, shaving off about 100 minutes, bringing the total travel time to 80 minutes.

What? So I moved the starting point to the nearest major intersection for me: Mass Ave & Tremont Street, hoping that MBTA.com would finally agree with me that the #1 to the Green Line was the best option.

But no. This time I was instructed to take the #1 to Harvard Station, then take another bus to Watertown Yard, and then some other bus.

I lost track because all I could see was that it was going to take 87 minutes. That's one hour and twenty-seven minutes for those of you who are bad at math. Seven more minutes that the 2nd trip!

And what the F*CK is with Watertown Yard? Does every trip have to go through there?

Not only that, but every variation of the trip cost $4.50.

My version should theoretically only cost about $1.70. But um that remains to be seen...

(click on the picture to see the nasty details)


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Commonwealth Avenue passes through a few cities. You found 969 in Newton and not Boston. If you actually use the correct address for the Paradise (967 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA 02215), then you will get the #1 to the B line at Hynes as expected.

Sometimes the problem isn't with the MBTA, it's with the user.

Annabelle B. said...

I would say that if there are multiple addresses that meet the requested address, there should be a drop down box asking me to pick the one.

When I typed in my address in the first box that is what I got - a drop down box asking me which X Street I was looking for. And even though I picked the X Street in Roxbury, it still mapped from X Street in Newton.

And I should definitely have noticed that the destination on the map was Newton.

However I think that the rate of user error is increased when using something that is user unfriendly.