Ever since they got rid of the trolleybusses the 71/73 lines have gone rapidly downhill.

Yup I’ve always heard Bostons airport being so close was a pro but it’s literally impossible to get to and from downtown during rush hour. The silver line being shit is a sunk cost and I feel like it’d be way better if they directed people with constant shuttles to the blue line. Chicago’s airport is an hour away from downtown but at least you can just plan accordingly and chill the entire time instead of running the gambit

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It’s not terrible if you have constant buses running to and from the terminals which is far more achievable than making the silver line have a dedicated bus lane, increase frequency, etc

And the audacity to call the stop "Airport".

There was a huge accident with a tractor trailer on 93S right around 2/3pm yesterday - it wouldn’t shock me if commuters decided to take 90 to 95S instead to get out of the city.

Agree with the sentiment, but I'm guessing you have your order reversed and they put the airport a mile from the blue line.

Thursday there was a bad accident on 93 South that caused major back ups into the city all afternoon to the evening.

There were tons of accidents and t shutdowns yesterday

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Yup, it shouldn’t be hidden tribal knowledge how to get downtown. When the silver line is 25 minutes away and you need the transit app to even determine when it’s gonna come next it’s a total shitshow

To save money on Uber take the silver line one stop from the airport and then call it

I frequent, back and forth between Boston and Chicago, every week. Staying in the South Loop. Never had I had too much of any sort of delay on the blue line. I generally give myself an hour.

Also, I am getting used to all the smoking of cigarettes and weed on the L. No one gives any fucks.

Yeah, the older I get and the more I travel the less I think proximity to downtown is a benefit. There’s a lot of airports in Europe that are like 30 miles outside the city center, but can be reached directly by transit faster than I could ever drive the <10 miles from Roslindale to Logan.

That, and how the airport being nearby limits development in the city since there are strict height guidelines on approach paths.

I’d rather have the airport be in Framingham with a train straight from South Station…

Why could it not have been built under central parking…

For those of us who live in Eastie we would prefer not having to walk into the depths of the airport to take the train to work... It's a classic transit planning debate, do you screw over the people who live near the airport by diverting the line to the center of the airport or do you have shuttle buses

Blue line baby, runs 24/7, 365. It was def one of the big factors I decided to stay in ths south loop of chicago. Chicago has two airports too! Trains go to both from the loop. The loop while not ideal now is a whole lot better than Bostons downtown.

It used to take an hour to get to Boston from Boston, but with inflation, it's now 2-1/2.

Technically, it was was not reversed. The airport predates the "Blue Line," and even the "East Boston Line" (the same service before color names were introduced). It does not, however, predate the BNH North Shore Railroad that used the same right-of-way.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think the Blue Line used the loop.

All the lines meet in the loop, the blue isnt elevated.

Dude, on Monday afternoon, it took me 1hr and 10 minutes to drive from Norwood to Somerville which was about 15 miles. Fucking insane.

I’d do the Blue Line from Logan more often if it was free like the Silver Lie. Yes, I am cheap lol.

The 504 has been horrible since they consolidated it with the 502 bus. I don't think it would have saved you much time. I would have done the Red Line to the 71 or 70 bus like you.

The MBTA was there BEFORE the airport was built. Gotta go find the Massport gang if you wanna kick balls.

They do tho. There are free shuttle buses that take you to the blue line…they run every 3-5 mins.

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You realize that the blue line was built long before air travel was commonplace, right?

> I’ve always heard Bostons airport being so close was a pro

I saw an old ad for one of the airport hotels that said, "Conveniently located 1 1/2 miles from downtown Boston!"

I had to laugh to myself at the people who booked there not realizing that they would be an hour and a half away too.

I know but the discoverability is poor because they tend to be away from where the silver line stops. The silver line is on the huge map of boston public transit and those buses aren't. You have to keep in mind that tourists have zero idea what they're doing (nor is the burden on them). They then have to figure out how to purchase a CharlieTicket. Even I didn't realize that the 22 and 88 come every five min or so. I figured they had same frequency as silver line.

You’re doing this every week but work won’t let you expense an Uber? Or you’re doing it for personal travel so can buy the plane tickets but not the taxi?

Hahaha same, talk about a lie with the name of the Blue Line station being "Airport".

Does anyone know the history of why they wouldn't have just built a 1 station extension or some kind of People Mover to the actual Terminals? Like they have in Chicago, Miami, Madrid, Barcelona, Stockholm....I could go on and on about cities that have trains that go all the way to the airport terminals.

Always blue line out of the airport!
Also, Thursdays the new Friday because everybody with even a single wfh day a week isn't in on Friday

Lol well played, this guy knows inflation applies to public transit travel times too

The Orange line is proof of that!!

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Bingo

Lol, I used to complain about that on the other end – by bus and train it took my 2 hours to get home from O’Hare

Yes, and if you read what I wrote I never claimed that it was. I said it was before air travel was commonplace.

The airport station opened in 1952 which was when someone taking a flight somewhere was considered a pretty big deal. To the point that the passengers would buy a new outfit and the whole family was likely to come and see them off.

Are the Massport shuttles less frequent now? I've never had too much trouble waiting for them and getting to Airport station.

tbh no idea I've only relied on them when the silver line is busted as I live along the red line (damn you lack of red-blue connector)

Those buses actually are shown on the subway map as a thinner blue line, which is listed in the legend as "free Logan Airport shuttle bus".

I refuse to bus it in Chicago lol.

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Last time I landed in Logan from ATL it took me 3.5 to get off the PLANE! We sat on the runway for 3.5 fucking hours.

My 15-20 minute drive at 5pm was 35 minutes yesterday afternoon, hours after the trailer overturned. It was also a rare double whammy that impacted drivers and red line takers.

I get what you're saying, but the MBTA route you suggest is three different transfers across three different modes; at each point there's a possibility of a delay, never mind the actual travel time.

It was less that they didn't know and more that there wasn't the demand or ability to do it. The tunnel under the harbor and line that existed since the early 20th century into Eastie wasn't really near enough to the airport to extend in that direction. It made more sense to extend it to Revere as they did because the amount of people there who needed to get downtown was a much larger driver than people who needed to get to the airport.

East Boston tunnel was built in 1904. Airport was the 1923.

It was never on the bnh north shore right of way. That is behind down east cider, south of the blue line, pretty much abandoned. Nothing really predates the blue line right of way. It started as a street car line, but never changed much.

I even have a 1918 map with the 'blue line' on it but before the airport was filled in.

Similar to how the Olive Garden is "fine Italian dining".

The issue is that the one stop from the airport took OP about an hour. Once you get out of the pain tunnel and onto surface streets and a dedicated right of way, the silver line is only a few minutes out from South Station.

The blue line was first.

The airport came along years later.

You're asking why the city that doesn't have a North station-South station connection doesn't have a people mover from the airport?

Covidflation affects every aspect of life

If.

We desperately need a real subway connection directly inside Logan like many other cities have. The silver line is a fucking disgrace and shouldn't even count as bus rapid transit as it literally gets stuck in traffic! It's a glorified taxi at that point.

It's insane that there is no train that actually runs to Logan.

Happened to me one night when I got off the plane at 11:30pm. The lot was such a clusterfuck I couldn't get a rideshare for over an hour.

At that point, you could also just take the shuttle to the Airport stop on the blue line for free.

The cost of the flight was probably the same as to get to Watertown.

Why not take the shuttle to the blue line, take blue to State St or Government Center? From there, you could take the red line to Harvard for the 71 sure. I remember the few times I took the Silver line to/from the airport, it was absolutely awful.

You’re operating under the assumption that

1. we have the ability to make good decisions

2. we have the political will to force through good decisions

3. we have the capability to act on said decisions

Judging by the MBTA, big dig, and every other infrastructure project in North America in the last fifty years, what you’re saying is crazy talk

The blue line and the red line are subways under the elevated loop, but there are free transfers between them when you leave the subway stop and tap back into the elevated stop (or vice versa). It also serves the "loop" neighborhood, which is the area around the physical loop.

Yup, and an Uber would have been in that same traffic.

Sounds about right.

Trailers rolling over is the new norm around here.

Just need to move the airport at this point honestly, it’s great having it close to the city but with how fucked the city is on housing might as well use the space differently and build a new airport north

I frequently fly out of O'Hare in Chicago for work travel and I usually take the blue line even though I can expense an Uber simply because I don't need to worry about beating traffic. I've done it so many times for personal travel that it's not difficult for me.

I’ve had this thought too. Isn’t hanscom already owned by massport?

Is this all post COVID? I've flown out of Logan and back about a dozen times and never had an issue getting to and from the airport. I can't say I've ever traveled during rush hour, but these days rush hour feels like it lasts from 6AM to 10AM and 2PM to 6PM.

I would usually take the silver line too, it wasn't really that much of a hassle. I haven't traveled since December 2019 though.

The 71 has been an absolute nightmare lately.

1 hour on 93s from Medford to Dot at 7pm.

“Boston” Market

You could have walked faster.

I used to regularly walk home from my office on High Street, it's not as far as you think.

We need Elon musk to build a boring tunnel from Airport/Back Bay/Harvard Sq

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I haven't noticed any difference. Same intervals, same route. The trolleys weren't that fast to begin with.

Silver line is free, and let's you onto the red line (and all of the subway system) free.

OP had to pay for the last leg bus and that was it.

It’s never about how far you are going, it’s always about how long it takes to get there. 🤣

I agree, but there’s a free shuttle from Airport.

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On the flip side, moving the airport to Framingham would make the trek from where I'm at much worse, and most (but not all) of the people who live without cars in the city would have a much longer commute. I honesty don't think it would have much of an impact on the median commute time to the airport. For every person in Rozzie or Newton that might have a better trip, there's another in Saugus or Everett that would have to travel further.

I agree with you about the development cost of Logan's proximity to downtown though. The building height cap is unfortunate.

I hit 100k miles in my work van yesterday during my commute home. I hit 100,001 40 mins later.

You can always fly out of Manchester airport or TF Green, if you are on North Shore or South Shore it may make sense (and could even be cheaper).

But I live in Charlestown and without traffic the airport is 7 minutes away. With traffic, I think the worst has been 20 minutes. Heck I can even take a water taxi to the airport.

Former Chicago resident and I agree, but they’re talking about Boston

But you can take a water taxi from the airport hotel. Not necessarily cheap, but it's fun.

OP was going out of the city though? Not into it.

Can see the 93 traffic from my condo and it was definitely quite a mess going into town, but it was fine going out. In fact, we went out around 5:30pm heading away from downtown and it was fine.

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Does that bs exist in other cities’ airports? iirc jfk has the airtrain and then you transfer to something else, right? I just want a straight shot from airport —> city.

I have taken those twice and both times waited way longer than that (10+ minutes).

OP paid with his time.

The silver line is free when you’re leaving the airport as well. I usually take it to south station and call a Lyft from there. I’ve saved $40-60 on rides doing that.

Blue line is faster though.

This explains why my one hour drive was over 2! I ended up having to miss the whole appointment.

It is, but Hanscom is not remotely equipped to be any sort of replacement for Logan in so many ways. No train access, no highway access, only two runways, and both are too short for anything bigger than a 757 (maybe a lightly loaded 767), no real terminals, etc. Trying to make the necessary changes to use it to replace Logan would need to be more extensive and expensive than it would be to just make the various upgrades at Logan.

They should have one of those automated trains that just goes in a circle between the terminals and the station.

Right, I mean, obviously this would be a massive, major project. But the one improvement you can’t make at Logan is reclaiming all that land. It would also have a big impact on height restrictions in the city. Just thinking out loud, I really only have a layman’s understanding of the benefits of each scenario. I like having Logan so close but I do think there would be benefits to moving it as well. Hanscom seems like the most realistic alternative because where the fuck else are you gonna put a whole airport in the GBA lol

Do we want more housing on low lying fill though? Eastie and Chelsea are some of the most vulnerable areas already iirc.

Yeah but Monday afternoon this week was a crazy blizzard with tons of accumulation each hour lol. Not normal driving conditions...

Why you have to go dragging Olive Garden into this??!?! That place is magical, though the food is iffy at best…

IMO the cost of building new runways and more taxiways, a whole new set of terminals, buying out neighboring properties, building a highway connection to the airport, building a train connection, and everything else involved would not be even close to worth it to get the land “back” (we never really had that land, the airport is all infill, it was just ocean before.)

I think just building a train to the airport terminals is the best thing to do, and would be a fraction of the cost of relocating the airport. Even just beholding an automated people mover to the terminals and train station wouldn’t be a bad option, and would probably cost less.

As for height restrictions, they really aren’t that significant anywhere other than the seaport. Besides, personally I don’t want Boston to be New York skyscraper dense, I want it to be Paris dense, with more 4-6 story apartments, which are not affected by flight paths at all.

Tru.. An Uber would have cost $50 and still took 2 hrs tho.

Its 2 stops on the blue line to Aquarium lol. Just because you don't want to take it doesnt mean it doesnt work.

Terminal to T shuttle is 10 mins max. You're on the blue line for about 5 minutes and you can be walking into the north end.

why didn’t you just fly to watertown square instead

I guess I should clarify that I didn’t mean move it to Framingham and have it serviced by the current commuter rail, but to have something similar to Europe where it’s 20-30 miles outside the city with a direct high speed transit line.

Massport claimed it would cost A BILLION DOLLARS to a build pedestrian bridge with people mover.

There’s nothing better than sitting on the train rolling by everyone parked on 90

Oh yea i forgot people forget how to drive when it snows

I've used that shuttle dozens of times. On good days, sure. It's fine. But have you ever had to stand on it, shoulder to shoulder, with 40+ lbs of luggage, for 45 minutes while stuck in traffic? Just to get to South Station?

I used to live in Watertown and can confirm its a shit show (at certain times of the day)

Rumor is he was spotted around Dulles…

Also half the airport is an active military base with access restrictions. And then the other sides of the airport are a national historical park and two conservation areas. It can't expand.

Plus, its only current transit connection is the 76 bus, which is, to put it mildly, a fucking embarrassment of a bus route.

Im glad I have this support group after what I went through yesterday. Left work early for doc’s appt which I had to cancel. Won’t get that paid time back.

We need to adequately fund the transit we already have

Not relevant to your situation but biking (e-biking) is the very best way to get around this coty

Worlds worst traffic or so I’ve been told

A Billion? It's only 1 mile or so, how is that possible?

Gotta get everyone back in those offices.

It’s a well-designed airport location — an island in the middle of the harbor connected to the mainland by a narrow land strip and a tunnel. The mainland being traffic snarled surface streets from the 17th century.

Don't forget all the traffic from people who have to get to/from Logan by car compounding regular city traffic.

Should have asked to drop you off as you went over

Providence Airport is on the commuter rail already. If they ever operate high speed trains (hah) it could be 30.min from south station.

Except Watertown isn’t Boston, it’s the next town over. And Logan is across yet another river almost in Winthrop. That’s like saying getting from New York to New York takes 2 hours but you’re going from Staten Island to Manhattan

Post?

Almost 4000 people died from SARS-CoV-2 last week alone.

We're very much NOT "post covid"

Personal. So no expensing anything. I use points to go back and forth because I have a jetblue card that I use everything for and pay immediately.

Welcome to Massafuckyouchusetts

I take the 71 daily. The amount of times I’ve waited and waited for it, only to see it change to yet another 73 as it pulls up is so upsetting. It’s gotten progressively worse since they moved upstairs for pickup

Nope, not a single word of Airport. It’s called O’Hare, that’s it. Just took that.

This speaks to my soul. I know the train is longer. BUT: it's on time, I can bring my own wine and I can get off at Back Bay station and be home in 15 minutes. Worth every penny..

Oh it is very possible and probable, remember the big dig...$2 billion project that turned into an $8 billion disaster?

If your Uber/Lyft was $50/$60, then there was a traffic issue on the roads and you’d have taken ~1 hour to reach by car as well.

I’ve done this exact journey >10 times and it’s normally $25-30/20 mins via Uber or ~45mins-1hour via the T.

I haven't tried the blue line one yet. Are the Lyft fares decreased significantly there?

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So, I'm guessing this was more a joke than a question, but the Blue Line basically pre-dates the airport by 19 years. The East Boston tunnel was opened in 1904 and ran from Maverick to what is (basically) now Government Center with stops at what is now Aquarium and State.

The 1954 extension to Wonderland used the Boston, Revere Beach and Lynn Railroad right of way to get to Wonderland. Hence, the airport station is where it is. It wasn't really placed there so much as that was where they could get the train to go.

Back in 1954, air travel wasn't that common like it is today. Check out the airport in the 1920s: https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:cn69mx627, https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:cn69mz00f, https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:cn69mx962, https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:cn69mx848, https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:8k71nz49t. Even in 1936, it looks like basically nothing: https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:cn69mx741. Even in this image circa 1955-1964, it's still pretty primitive looking: https://repository.library.northeastern.edu/files/neu:m0472z357. It's definitely starting to take shape, but doesn't seem like that big a deal.

Ultimately, a lot of our train lines run along rights of way that already exist and it can be difficult to get new ones. Plus, diverting the train to the airport itself likely would have required quite a tight turn and the 1950s were starting to be the era when rich people wanted to use their cars. Boston was spared some of the auto-supremacy thanks to governors Volpe and Sargent, the latter who cancelled many of the highways that would have cut through Boston including the Inner Belt (which would have run through Union, Inman, Central, Cambridgeport, BU, North Brookline, and Melnea Cass Blvd), the Northwest Expressway (which would have run through Arlington, North Cambridge, Porter, and Union), and the Southwest Expressway (which is where the Orange Line is today).

Yes, it's disappointing that the Blue Line isn't closer to the airport, but given the time it was built and the right of way that existed, it seems less ridiculous. And as bad as it is, most American cities basically don't have public transit...though how I'd love something like DCA where the stop is right at the terminal. At least we were spared three additional highways cutting our city apart?

Unfortunately the data agrees with you. I pulled the reliability data from the MBTA Performance Dashboard for yesterday and the Thursday prior to pulling the trolleybuses from service.

Seems like things haven't changed much. Other than more pollution, of course.

When Lyft rides are $60 to Belmont, South Station will save me up to $40 well the blue line station with only save me $20.

I've always wondered if the Red-Blue connector would be worth it compared to other projects.

Personally, it feels like a GLX from Union to Porter would be more useful for me. Or a GLX to Medford Square. How much are you trying to go Red to Blue other than the airport? For people on the Blue Line, it would open up commuting to Kendall Square easier, maybe South Station as well, though DTX and Chinatown aren't that far (Orange Line), unless you're looking to cross to the Seaport. A Blue Line extension to Lynn would get a lot more people on the subway. Resurrecting the Green Line A-Branch to Watertown would help a lot of people. Extending the Orange Line into Roslindale. Turning the Fairmount Commuter Rail into a new T line with frequent service would serve a large area and the heart of where Black people in Boston live. Making the Commuter Rail an electrified regional rail system with frequent, all-day service could make a huge difference - especially with the zoning bill that has density requirements near Commuter Rail stops. Using Track 61 to go from Back Bay to the BCEC and hook that up to good rail service. Giving Chelsea decent service (since it'll soon be the densest city in Massachusetts) maybe with the Orange Line forking at Sullivan or Assembly - and you could even extend that to the airport since the tracks go in that direction (and even back across the Blue Line tunnel into Boston). Or instead of forking the Orange Line, it could continue along the Grand Junction Path into Cambridge and to BU. It wouldn't exactly offer a connection to the Green and Red Lines, but it would run very close to Lechmere and Kendall.

I guess the Red-Blue connection has never felt as important to me as so many other wishes. The Green Line comes so frequently between Park and Government Center that it feels easy enough to get from Red to Blue (compared to so many other problems with the T) and I generally don't want the Blue Line, except to go to the airport. I guess of my dreams, a Red-Blue connector just feels like "yay, I guess I can shave 5 minutes off my airport trip now." Sure, that's fine, but I'd be more into projects that really opened up more places.

I've also always used the Blue Line for the airport. The Silver Line always frustrates the hell out of me. I'd rather change at Park, wait a couple minutes for a Green Line train and then change at Government Center for the Blue to take the shuttle than deal with the Silver Line. The Silver Line is so unpredictable. Between traffic and that absolutely awful switch over from electric to diesel, it's just nightmare fuel. Plus, the shuttles at the Blue Line are frequent and usually dedicated to one terminal rather than stopping at every terminal. Sure, if you're going to Terminal A, the Silver Line might be fine. By the time you get to Terminal E, it's annoying. I guess I've just always had good luck with the Blue Line and would rather deal with the transfer at Park than the Silver Line.

Again, I'd love to know if you see the Red-Blue connector differently or more worthwhile. It is slightly inconvenient to get to the Blue Line, but a lot of other places seem more annoying to get to.

Looks like you got the wrong year

They were looking to do a small (but greater) amount of commercial flights out of Hanscom, but residents hate the idea and throw up enough opposition to kill most things. There was interest in using Hanscom for some flights like to NYC - things that don't warrant a 757 or anything large. It wouldn't replace Logan, but it could handle some flights except that residents are hugely opposed to it.

I just double checked and I appear to have typo'd the year in my comment. I've adjusted the comment to properly reflect that the date of this past Thursday was January 26, 2023 and not January 26, 2022. The rest of the comment remains accurate though.

blue bus > blue line > orange line > red line > 71 ?

no road traffic till the last part

I think avoiding the tunnel is a lot of it

When my sister comes to visit me I leave once her flight leaves (1hr 30 flight) as a game to see who gets to Logan first. It’s a crapshoot!

It's possible that it could have done both. The Blue line already curves toward the airport before curving away to the Airport stop. If they put a stop at Santarpio's, had it go under the East Boston Memorial Park to the airport, and loop back to stop either at the current Airport stop or a new stop just east between Putnam and Prescott, that would give really good neighborhood coverage while also hitting the airport.

There are definitely ways where it could serve both.

Even if you don't like the detour to Logan, the Elizabeth Line in London has some trains go to Heathrow and some not. If we could rewind time, maybe instead of building the Silver Line and the Ted Williams Tunnel, it would make more sense to have the Blue Line have two different terminuses. One leg terminates at Logan and one leg goes to Wonderland.

Burying I-93 was really important, but maybe public transit could have gotten more love and we could have put a bit less into the highways.

The accident happened around 12:30. Our infrastructure is so bad that there were delays across the city for over six hours because of it.

If there's one thing that sucks about Boston, it's literally everything that has to do with transportation.

It was earlier than that. I left work early, around 1:30pm, and there was already a 42-minute delay on my drive from the South End to Neponset Circle.

I went Dot Ave/Old Colony/Morrissey in the end and there was a ton of traffic there too.

Took me 90 minutes to get to quincy from malden. Return trip took 26 only a couple hours later

On a "normal" weekday, from Logan to Watertown Square should take less than 1.5 hours. Back Bay Logan Express and Express Bus 504.

93 added 45 mins to my ETA from Burlington to Braintree. 30min drive took 1:15

I think some of those small NYC flights ended up heading out to Worcester. I wish there were more flights out there actually, it's a great little airport!

We're talking about the MBTA blue line, not the CTA blue line.

Damn. I would've got off the Silver Line & walked to South Station. Basically, put up a big enough fuss that the driver would let me off, even if not near an actual T stop.

I feel like in context the question was clearly post the beginning of COVID.

The GLX was supposed to have been part of the Big Dig remediation. It just finally opened.

Uhhh, thats just asking for me to be an internet Karen. No thanks.