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Like a motorcyclist oblivious to the 100db of wind noise blasting his ears as he flies down a highway, I’ve lost all perspective on how amazingly loud the Orange Line really is. I’ve managed to do this my usual way, by destroying another pair of earbuds and convincing myself that I’m going deaf. It happens every now and then, and I have a momentary freakout until I realize that it’s just my hardware, not wetware that’s dying.

I’ve become convinced that the Orange Line keeps companies like Apple, JBL and Shure in business. Or at the very least, makes a serious impact on their local sales figures. While the Green Line has its squeaks, screeches and scrapes, the OL just drones and roars. The rails being mounted on concrete has something to do with this, along with the mediocre soundproofing on the trains themselves. Overcoming this means turning the volume up, and up, and up a little more. It’s easy not to notice that you’re doing it, but before long you’re edging very close to the upper limit of your iPod’s volume slider. Then you know you’re in trouble.

In the past, I’ve activated my iPod’s volume limiter in a futile effort to beat this habit. It doesn’t work. I inevitably end up with a few really quiet tracks that force me to deactivate the feature. And the cycle continues…

This constant high-volume listening almost inevitably obliterates my earbuds (though I’ve lost a couple pairs to cable snags in the past year), and isn’t too good for my hearing. I’ve tried various “sound isolating” models that usually fall out of my ears ten seconds after I put them in, and never do that good of a job anyway. Last time I needed a new pair I decided to give up and buy a set of stock Apple buds that worked well-ish.

They began to die about a week and a half ago. Frustrated, and carrying an Amazon gift balance thanks to my birthday, I decided to act. Spend real money this time. (”Real money” in this context = $70.) I know there are really nice $150 - $500 earbuds out there, but I don’t have that much to blow right now, and I would be deathly afraid of losing them anyway.

My Shure SCL2s arrived yesterday. It didn’t take long to size them (translation: I just put on the largest rubber thing they had) and took them for a ride today.

Bottom Line: I could barely tell where I was.

Now this is usually a bad thing. I can foresee problems walking down the street and not noticing some really important, life-threatening thing because I have these on, but riding the train is just pure bliss. There was a group of kids blabbing away a few seats down - didn’t hear a sound. I glanced over and saw their mouths move, but nothing was coming out as far as I could tell. The sound of the train itself was a dull, distant grinding drone. The Magnetic Fields and I were alone in a separate universe. I could look in on this space around me, but I was in a state of happy detachment.

Then came the real test: the tunnel between Mass Ave. and Back Bay. This is where music and earbuds go to die. A full-speed ride through this thing can bring about excruciating ear pain. You can’t hear yourself think, much less make out the sound of Claudia Gonson or Bernard Sumner singing to you as the train hurtles through the darkness.

Today things were different. The Sparks crooned “the rain just falls off of me, the tears just fall off of me, I’m waterproof, I’m waterproof, the barometric pressure you’re exerting has no relevance to me!” and I could hear every word and every note. The tunnel noise crept in a bit, but it wasn’t too bad at all.

And my volume slider? Pegged at 50%. There might just be hope for my hearing and wallet after all.

This is about where the train 3879 derailed yesterday morning after leaving the outbound platform of Chestnut Hill Station on the B Line.

(That green electrical box to the right of the frame is where the rear door of the rear car came to an unpleasant stop)

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This particular station has always bothered me, as it seems designed to put passengers at unnecessary risk of personal injury.

While the view above shows a rather wide strip of asphalt near where the front car stops, stepping off the rear car of a train headed out to BC leaves you here:

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You basically have two choices:

Option #1: Run into traffic

Option #2: Hope that the train gets stuck at the light for long enough for you to reach the wider strip of asphalt at the far end of the station before you get hit.

Oh, but wait, there’s more. Let’s look at the inbound side.

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You literally have your back to traffic, and have to deal with trolleys racing into the station (as their wheels pop ominously as they cross the questionable tracks in the intersection), making you feel as though your face is about to get ripped off, or you’re about to get crushed under a train. It’s tons of fun to wait there when a train is coming and a truck or bus with large mirrors sticking out the driver’s side is flying down Comm Ave right behind you. Trust me on this one.

Other stations get nice, wide platforms, traffic barriers and even shelters. Trouble is, this one isn’t located at BU or BC, so it’s a bit below the radar of T officials. I’d like to think that if anything, the disaster the other evening will finally bring some much-needed attention to a place long-neglected.

We should be thankful that none of the derailments that have plagued the Green Line in recent years took place at a stations like this. The Northeastern derailment in August of 2004 frayed some nerves and left a scar in the platform visible to this day, but nothing more. If it happened here, the waiting passengers would be under the train. Simple as that.

While the exact cause has yet to be determined, I did want to point out that I used to live a block away from the Commonwealth / Chestnut Hill Ave. intersection, and the tracks there have been in a bad state for a long, long time. A derailment there was always one of my worst fears, as the curve combined with the state of the track caused a lot of wheel popping that made waiting for an inbound train on the incredibly-narrow-to-the-point-where-it’s-unsafe Chestnut Hill platform a bit harrowing.

I’ve always believed that if a train were to derail anywhere on the B Line, this is where it would happen.

Urban planning is horribly subjective, and I don’t really expect most people to agree with most of my own personal opinions on what I find to be good, and not so good design.

I do believe that in most arguments, there is some kind of neutral ground to be found. With that in mind, can we agree that building a new development in the urban core of Boston with 6,500 new parking spaces is not really the best thing for the city?

Pollution, congestion, buildings that are meant to be driven to…all-in-all a pedestrian hostile neighborhood..

I’m continually amazed at how Boston is trying to abandon the best aspects of its history, and revert to some kind of car-centric nightmare that other cities are desperately trying to get away from.

Other cities are thinking about how they can redevelop, reshape and reinvent themselves to cast off the less sustainable growth patterns that suck the life from urban areas and make them into unhealthy, unwelcoming places.

- No real mass transit to speak of.
- Extremely wide streets featuring lanes and lanes of asphalt separating widely-spaced buildings.
- Mediocre architecture. Building exteriors that use the same rehashed precast, prefab materials and motifs. Structures that meet the street, and “greet” pedestrians with endless, blank walls. (see the above link)

Let’s hope the median-strip landscaping style of the nearby Greenway is abandoned for this new Seaport Square. Gotta have something to look at when you come up out of the parking garage.

I saw people working on Arlington station the other night. Blew my mind. Absolutely shattered my psyche for the next few minutes. I could barely contain my surprise. I coped by accepting the baseless rationale that they were probably doing maintenance on the wooden barricades keeping passengers away from the work site construction area.

If they were around today, I never saw them. There was a guy in a hardhat sitting in the customer service booth, but that’s about it. The number of people likely to be surprised by this? My unscientific estimate puts it at approximately zero.

But back to those barricades. They exist to keep people away from the open pits where workers have been thinking about building elevators for the better part of two years now, not to mention the stairs leading up to the Arlington St. mezzanine. I’m not sure what one would find if they took a stroll up there, but given the time they’ve had, and the exclusive access to the space (no blaming Sox fans this time) I’m rightfully expecting diamond-encrusted fare gates and gold inlay along walls of solid mahogany paneling.

Hypothetically, one could walk through the plywood door marked “EMERGENCY EXIT” and with minimal difficulty and eventually find their way to the surface again. Today someone tried just that. It’s pretty easy to do when:

A: You are blind

B: The “door” to decrepit platform beyond is left open. Allowing free access to whatever fun obstacles happen to be waiting there.

A businessman type stood by and watched our misguided passenger venture into the The Zone. I ran in and politely suggested he might not want to be there. He told me that he was just trying to find his way to the stairs. I gave him directions, and made sure he found his bearings on the platform wall, and not the tracks to his right. The yellow caution strips designed to keep the visually impaired from entering the track area don’t exist at Arlington. Someday, we’re promised. Someday.

Here’s my suggestion: Have workers GO TO ARLINGTON. DO WORK. LEAVE. GO BACK TO ARLINGTON. DO MORE WORK. LEAVE. Rinse, repeat until the project is done and the station is safe again.

Abandon all hope of effective transit, or saving over half a billion tax dollars

The boring is to facilitate the construction of bus tunnels that will replace the existing, useable rail tunnels that are big enough for the Green Line but not big enough for the Silver Line buses that will eventually traverse them.

A slower, more expensive, claustrophobic and bumpier ride than light rail for only $600 more than light rail? Sign me right up!

Oh wait, the EOT and city already did!

It’s letter writing time.

On my way out this afternoon, I stopped at the foot of my apartment building’s steps and did a quick re-inventory of all of the crap I was hauling downtown to use on a project. Peered inside bags and boxes, fiddled with my iPod for a second, and went on. I usually have this all setup before I leave, but today was different. Turns out my lack of planning was rather beneficial to my own well-being.

I meandered through the streets for a while, closing in on Green St. station. I was the only person around. Despite the nice weather, the sidewalks were empty and the roads were dead silent. That peace would be short-lived.

A few steps short of Elm St. where Seaverns becomes Gordon, there was the sound of a fast approaching car ahead. In one short moment a blur of metal appeared in the middle of the intersection.

My cynicism quickly asserted itself. “Oh yay, another Masshole blowing through a stop sign. In a residential neighborhood with lots of kids - a few feet away from a daycare for toddlers no less.”

I assumed the Masshole in question would just keep on keeping on as most do. Putting other people in danger until they ended up hurting or killing someone else. Oh, but the universe had other plans today. The momentary pause in my travels a few minutes earlier probably saved my life. My pessimism died however.

Like a mirage rising up from the deserted street, appeared a white and blue object over my right shoulder. “No…it couldn’t be!” I thought. Oh, but it was.

After spending a few years living in Memphis, I’m used to watching people blow through red lights and stop signs at 30 or 40mph in front of cops, without consequence. I have more faith in the BPD, but it wavered for just a few seconds today. The police cruiser coming down Seaverns rolled to a stop next to me. For a moment I assumed that perhaps the officer in question was either uninterested in pursuing the neighborhood Masshole, or was focused on something else when the other car flew through the intersection.

Turns out, the cop was just setting a good example.

Their foot suddenly met the accelerator with force. The wheel turned sharply to the right, the lights came to life, and a quick chirp of the horn rang out. It was over.

On an otherwise dead street, three people happened to be in the right place, at the right time. Everything timed perfectly. The universe in sync.

It wasn’t much, and those of you reading this might be wondering what the big deal is, but all I know is that it was enough to leave me in a chipper mood for the rest of the afternoon.

Marathon season tends to annoy the hell out of me. Huge swaths of the city get shut down, there are more crowds than usual, and not a single tourist can walk three feet unaided by “stop in the middle of the sidewalk and have a family meeting session”. I try to be understanding of the fact they’re probably from someplace where you drive from building to building, and walking is discouraged or downright impossible. Going from place to place on foot new to them. Soon they’ll have the South Boston Waterfront to visit, and they’ll feel more at home.

I think we often take it for granted that many visitors to Boston have never experienced mass transit before. The T is literally the first taste (smell?) they get. I know as a kid I loved the idea of riding the Green Line from the western suburbs, through to the central subway and out onto the North Station > Lechmere El. It made quite an impression on me, and the thrill of riding the trains almost surpassed that of our regular family trips to the Museum of Science.

Now that I’m much older I see things a bit differently. I’m more cynical and critical, and when I try to imagine what it must be like to have the modern day T as a first-time user it saddens me. Sure, kids love the T. It seems just as exciting to them as it did to me way back when. I’m not so sure about the adults.

But can you blame them?

If you visited Boston for the last marathon and were returning for the current one, I can’t imagine you wouldn’t leave the T without feeling as though it was falling victim to utter neglect. Copley looks almost identical to the state it was in back in December of 2006, much less mid-April 2007. In early spring of last year they ripped up the pavement where the new elevator shaft will be on the inbound side. Workers paved it over almost immediately. I assumed this was to clear up the site for the marathon and that once it was over, work would resume.

Yeah, about that. In 18 months, construction crews have managed to string up some temporary-looking overhead lights on the platforms, and install some more permanent-looking fixtures on top of the decades of flaking paint on each ceiling. The exclusion zone behind the outbound headhouse has slowly grown, but nothing actually seems to happen there. That’s it. Oh…wait…I almost forgot, someone found the time to bolt an empty conduit bracket on the ceiling of the outbound platform.

Arlington isn’t much better. That station was due to have half of its renovations complete 19 days ago. They managed to get some of the work done for the new elevator leading to the street, but the shaft leading down from the mezzanine to the outbound platform has remained an empty concrete shell since late last year. There is no shaft of any sort leading down to the inbound side. Nor have the platforms been raised, their walls redone, etc.

Kenmore is just a catastrophe, but at least it’s a reliable disappointment (to borrow a phrase from Harvey Pekar). They tore down one of the ubiquitous, long-standing wooden barricades in the lobby only to reveal that workers had installed tile within the barricade that didn’t match what they had installed on the other side. I suppose they could always play it off as some kind of “hip”, post-modern random blending of materials. The bus shelter they began assembling almost a year ago has yet to shelter anyone from anything, to my knowledge.

The fact remains that the station is falling victim to the same construction problems as the other two. Mainly, shit just ain’t getting done. I don’t know what sort of pace you would have to work at to complete so little in so much time. What is complete will probably start to crumble to dust by the time the project finishes. A date, I might add, is closely linked to that of the development of fusion power generation or an HIV vaccine. Always just “a few years away” with the periodic “breakthrough” event that ultimately amounts to nothing.

When it come to MBTA station renovations, things come together rapidly, and you stand back amazed at how they’ve managed to take shape so fast, only to see what looked like a nearly-finished part sit seemingly ignored for an eternity.

Living here, we have to live with the slow march of progress every day. I can’t imagine how I’d feel coming back to Boston after a year or more and finding the Green Line in almost the exact same state it was in when I left. It’s something that I’ve had to explain away to a number of out-of-towners.

Maybe after this marathon they’ll finally start accomplishing something. But then we’ll hear how things can’t get done because it’s Sox season, school is in session, foliage-seeking tourists are in town, followed by the influx of visitors for Christmas or Hanukkah.

Maybe after the marathon after this one. We can hope.

We can also hope that visitors don’t come away with a feeling that we just don’t care about our city, and are happy to let it crumble away beneath our feet. No amount of tourism advertising or “Coming in the Spring of ‘09″ banners can counter the reality that people see with their own eyes.

This entry on your stereotypical young Masshole on the T getting his comeuppance made me want to share this little anecdote from last week.

I was standing waiting for the good old #39 bus in JP when a car pulled up into the bus stop at Seaverns and Centre. This is where people often park when they want to grab takeout from one of the many restaurants nearby, but find the idea of walking to be a strange activity totally not in sync with their drive - get something - drive more - get something else - drive a bit further - get the next thing mentality.

This is slightly annoying for people like me who have to walk out in the middle of the street to catch a bus (really only when the street is partially flooded), other drivers who can’t get around the bus, and profoundly crap thing for those who absolutely, positively need a bus to pull up to the very edge of the curb so they can get on board. (something #39 drivers have been getting a hell of a lot better at recently - thanks guys!)

But Massholes don’t care about this sort of thing. They only care about their own convenience, and because we often portray their behavior as something “cute” and worthy of excusing and coddling, they continue on, and worse…multiply.

Enter a quadriplegic man stage right. I spot him coming down the street and take a step back so he can get by. He is about to continue on his way when he suddenly spins around and heads my way again. Rolls right up to the woman parked at the very spot where the front door of the bus will meet the curb and stops. Spits out the device he uses to move himself about, stares right at her, summons up every bit of energy he can muster and yells at her to move.

She promptly floors it out of there.

I’m not sure if I can really convey how utterly random and amazing this was. Usually the elderly and disabled are forced to hobble off of curbs and up onto buses, or simply wait for the next one and hope the Masshole moves their car before then.

What really got to me was that maybe, just maybe the shame stuck around long enough for her to convince herself to never do that again.

From the “2+2=5″ department:

Today I once again made the mistake of believing the MBTA Photo Policy to have some kernel of truth to it. Despite the fact it was issued by the Transit Police, and a call to the State Transportation Building will confirm you can no longer get your hands on one of the bright yellow permits for non-commercial photography, it is still highly likely that anyone attempting to take pictures on the T will be told it doesn’t exist. Or - and this is a new one - that it is a complete fabrication. I was informed today that it “is a lie” and “they’re trying to figure out why it’s up there [on the MBTA Transit Police's site].” For the sake of the employee in question, I won’t say who it was, or where this took place, but that they assured me the non-existent policy I linked to above was not enforced one of the last times someone took a picture in their presence.

I was also informed that I would have my camera confiscated and face arrest if I continued to take pictures. If I didn’t have other obligations, I might just risk it. Let them arrest me, and then place a call to a civil liberties lawyer. Drag the T to court, and settle it once and for all. Challenge punishment for breaking a policy that doesn’t exist despite the fact someone at the MBTA took the time to write it, convert it to PDF and host it on the police’s site.

Even though it’s pointless, I’ve tried to rationalize with T employees.

Lines of reasoning like: “Is there a measurable difference between taking a picture of the platform and looking at the platform?” don’t work. I’m of the opinion that if something is in plain sight to anyone, then there really isn’t any danger in permanently preserving a record of what I could walk past every day for a year without ever being questioned.

Ultimately, we end up apologizing to each other because neither one of us can do a damn thing.

There are two possible solutions to this. Someone with some pull at the T will finally lay down the law and tells employees to follow the policy, or someone will get arrested or their equipment confiscated and takes the T to court over it.

Sadly, I think it will probably be the latter.