The blog that started it all! Check out reviews of every bus route and train station in Boston, as well as ongoing reviews of the regional bus systems in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Recent Posts from Miles on the MBTA
MART: Athol/Orange Link
Yes! We're finally leaving Athol! We're on our way home! Let's just wait at the Athol ITC and get the lovely Athol/Orange Link, and...oh God, what is that... TRUCK MINIBUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm just gonna come out and say it: this was the...
MART: Athol/Orange Shuttle 1/2 (Counterclockwise/Clockwise)
Man, this route is out there! It officially gets to a point where it's closer to the New York border than it is to Boston. Interestingly, this far-out land has had a bus route for a while; this deviation-filled loopy-loop used to be operated by a company called...
MART: Athol ITC
Oh no, ATHOL has an "intermodal transit center" too? This has to be even worse than the Gardner one, right? Well, right off the bat, I'll say this: the Athol ITC is in an old train station, so it's more "intermodal" than Gardner's transit center is! Plus, the...
MART: Gardner Route 1/2 (Counterclockwise/Clockwise)
Ohhh...we get to go back to...Gardner! And ride a really long, deviation-filled bus route around the whole...city. My...favorite......place.......... YAY! GARDNER!!!! The bus was very nice, at least. It was that rear door-less Gillig that we had gotten before on the...
MART: Devens Regional Shuttle
The Devens Regional Shuttle recently celebrated its one-year anniversary, and MART threw a lovely party for it at one of its stops, with free swag to boot! I didn't attend the party, and I have no idea how many people attended it, but my guess is not too many. Why? I...
Shirley
Surely Shirley can't be that bad! Great, I've gotten that joke out of the way. Andddddd...that's it! Shirley has one very very very small platform. Quite very small. However, it's entirely occupied by a shelter that's actually rather charming! It has some benches...
Cross-Acton Transit
I gotta say, a suburban, rich town like Acton (median household income $133,532) is one of the last places I would expect to see an awful minibus shuttle! I mean, why does Acton get an hourly service, while Webster (a place where people actually use the bus)...
WRTA: 42 (Union Station Hub – Oxford – Webster via Southbridge Street and Route 12)
Sam and I barely made the 42! We ran and ran and ran and we couldn't find a stop, so we just kept going down Southbridge Street until finally, we came across the strangest bus stop in Worcester: WOAH! Goodness, the 558 is longer than I thought! Yeah, I have...
WRTA: 6 (Union Station Hub – West Tatnuck via Chandler Street)
The 6 is a lot like the 3, except longer. Not only is the route longer, though - we also got the WRTA's awesome full-sized Proterra on this thing! Oh my gosh, it was a beauty in every conceivable manner! YES! OH MY GOSH, THIS IS AWESOME!!! We began at Tatnuck Square,...
WRTA: 3 (Union Station Hub – Worcester State University via Highland Street)
Ready for a super-short trip on the 3? This is gonna be a quickie! Sweet, a Proterra!!! We cruised down Foster Street making those awesome Proterra all-electric noises, and we soon came into downtown Worcester. Once we crossed Main Street, the road became Maple Street...
Your MBTA Bus Ride Will Never be the Same Again
Your MBTA commute is about to get a lot more exciting. For the past few months, I've been interning for a group of MIT graduate students who have produced an incredible app: Alight. Instead of wasting your money on overly-expensive tour buses, you can now ride local...
WRTA: 24/24A (Union Station Hub – UMass Medical Center via Belmont Street)
Heyyyy, why does the WRTA website URL still reference the former 34? That's no good! That was a Sunday-only variant of the 24/24A, but luckily it's been eliminated, so we only have to deal with the 24 now. ...or, in this case, the 24A! We began at the UMass Medical...
WRTA: 5 (Union Station Hub – Southwest Commons via Grafton Street)
WRTA has an annoying policy where passengers can't "ride around" at the end of a route. This makes doing isolated routes like the 5 tough. Sam and I's solution was to get off a little bit before the end and just wait on the other side of the road. We missed a...
WRTA: 14 (Union Station Hub – Showcase Cinemas/Holden via Burncoat Street)
RTAs often end their routes at malls, but Showcase Cinemas is a new one! Unfortunately, Sam and I weren't able to catch the 14 from its true start point, so we began at its second stop, the Porter and Chester Institute. On weekdays, buses deviate directly into it, but...
WRTA: 30 (Union Station Hub – West Boylston Walmart via Grove Street and West Boylston Street)
We're going to the West Boylston Walmart on the 30. Fun stuff. Nice wrap! We headed out onto Foster Street from the Central Hub, then we turned onto Major Taylor Boulevard. There were lots of office buildings with parking lots along here, and they continued as we...