Transit update...

Yes I am a transit dork. I LOVE public transport. I love the adventure of not driving. Yes I too have 'a ha' moments when driving in my car, but I don't learn as much about people and myself as I do when navigating public transport. It is very much a civic space for me, albiet more a flow of people than a set place, but it seems that it is essential for people to have places where they gather and be forced to interact a bit. Maybe this is why I love open air markets, ferries, trains, buses, and the like. The mixing of people with the goal of doing something other than mixing with people seems to be a productive way for us to at least notice that the world doesn't revolve around us and see a bit of the diversity we live admist.

That said - wow lots of changes here in Boston in the year and half since I lived here!
You can't miss these changes when you arrive by plane. The silver line has been extended all the way to the airport now and there are new 'charlie' cards for payment. No longer do you need to take the 22 bus to the blue line to the orange or green line to the red line! All the transit maps have of course been changed, but also I saw big improvements in signs across the boards. There were heaps of electronic signs stating destination, times, etc.


Some things were the same.. and I now feel less embarassed about being a tourist in my home country. I freely snapped pictures of T stops that were once an integral part of my every day routine.

Kendall – with its interactive musical pipes and metals clangers
Harvard – with is gradually slopping ramp that everyone runs down to catch their train in spite of the signs begging you to 'walk not run.”
The red line's journey over the Charles is still one of my favourite communiting moments in all the world.

Porter Square still has the windmills and insanely long escalator.

I also snapped a photo of the new Charlie card machines making a mental note that ever station has an American Flag (see below). I just don't see New Zealand's flag everywhere the way I see the American one here. And then security approached me about taking the photo. They asked what I was doing and I said "just taking photos of the station." They said that it is fine to take photos of station, but that that wasn't what I was doing. I guess where I was looking was not part of the station in their mind. I don't really know what the problem was. In the end they just dropped it. Its moments like this that made me feel very strange about America.
Maybe I don’t have enough of a criminal mind, but I just don’t see how taking the above photo is at all subversive or threatening to America’s security. But maybe they are nervous about us transit geeks because public transit does go a bit against the idea of us all getting in our cars to drive frantically between shopping and leisure and earning opportunities which at least some in power may have invested interests in us all continuing to do. I don’t know, maybe they were just bored. Maybe there had been a bomb threat early this year. It just seems so strange to me that my behavior was considered threating at all. I guess not too many people love transit enough to want to take photos of it....

I also snapped a few photos of the other major transit options in Boston... cars and walking.
It was also nice to see this horrible intersection in my old neighborhood finally fixed with the installation of a 'rotary' (as roundabouts are called here). This is one change I am thrilled to see.