Commuters waited on a platform at Arlington Station, one of the stops on the Green Line where trolleys are known for making sudden stops and starts between stations.
(Christina Pazzanese for The Boston Globe)
Globe Watch
Uneasy rider has fitful time on subway
Commuters waited on a platform at Arlington Station, one of the stops on the Green Line where trolleys are known for making sudden stops and starts between stations.
(Christina Pazzanese for The Boston Globe)
Everyone seems to have that one thing about the MBTA that drives them crazy. For Erik Knechtel, his thing is the frequent and what he calls “bizarre’’ practice of trains coming to a screeching halt between stations.
“I’m a daily user of the MBTA trains, and I’m writing to complain about a common practice I’ve noticed on both the Green and Red lines. The subway cars, instead of waiting at a station until the path to the next station is clear, and providing a smooth ride with no unnecessary stops to the next station, frequently go and then stop while they are in the tunnel, sometimes repeatedly, inching forward in a jerking motion,’’ Knechtel wrote in an e-mail.
“This morning [Feb. 17] at 8:50 a.m. on the Green line going from Boylston Station to Arlington Station, the car made a very sudden stop, which caused many people to fall over. One elderly man fainted after being thrown to the floor by the sudden stop, and we then had a medical emergency.’’
Knechtel, who commutes between the Hynes Convention Center and Park Street stations, suggests that the T require drivers to hold trains in the station with the doors open until it is clear to proceed to the next station without stopping.
“It’s totally unnecessary to have cars stopping in the middle of the tunnels. One of my major complaints when the trains stop is that people will gradually let go of the handrails when we’ve been stopped for a long time, and the train will suddenly start with no warning, or the driver will tell us we’ll be standing by and then immediately start to move. I’ve never experienced anything like this elsewhere, and I’ve lived in Germany and Japan and taken the train in other countries in Europe.’’
The MBTA responds
“A number of factors affect the movement of trains through the subway,’’ Lydia Rivera, a T spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.“The Green Line is a complex operation that operates some of the highest frequency light rail service in the nation. Four branches merge into one Central Subway Line. We do not have the sidetracks to allow us to bypass problems such as a disabled train or medical emergency. A number of other variables such as street and pedestrian [traffic] affect the flow of trains through the subway. So there are times that trains are backed up between stations or go slower than scheduled.’’ Stops are sometimes unavoidable because of the close proximity of Green Line stations, she added.
The Red Line uses an automatic signal system that controls the separation between trains to prevent collisions, said Rivera.
“The signals to stop or go or slow down are transmitted directly to the train’s controls. If a train approaches another, the following train eventually will receive a stop command. Drivers “cannot see the train ahead, but we train them to regulate the train’s speeds within the signal command limits to prevent ‘jerky’ train operation. The [driver] should wait until he or she has a code indicating the way ahead is clear and the train will not receive a stop code. This gives the customers a more comfortable ride.’’
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