I recently took the T (MBTA subway in Boston) to and from Logan airport. On the other end of my journey I took BART to and from the airport in San Francisco. How can it be that it’s a half-hour trip from San Francisco to SFO airport which is many miles south of the city, yet it’s an hour trip from Boston to Logan airport which is maybe a couple miles? And don’t even get me started on the smooth and quiet BART with train arrival times compared to the agonizing screeches and rattles with jarring arrival and door-closing tones of the MBTA. Oh, and don’t forget the T’s meat-slicer entry/exit gates.
OK, I know the T in Boston was the first underground subway and it’s more than 100 years old and has evolved organically, while the BART system had the advantage of being designed all at once. The T for all it’s quirks, is endearing and quaint if you look at it right. That still does not excuse the fact that there is no rapid transit link directly into Logan. The Blue line requires you to wait for a shuttle to and from the T station. The Silver line…well it does go right into the airport, but is essentially itself a shuttle (getting real here) from the Red line’s South Station stop. If you’ve ever sat through stops at terminals A and B while needing to get to D or E, you know what I mean.
Still, the T is the least overall cumbersome and expensive method of getting to the airport in Boston. It saves that messy problem of where to stash a car for a week or watching the meter in your cab as you sit in traffic in the tunnel.
And both BART and the T have at least one thing in common. Ticket vending machines that are completely mystifying to the first time user. More on that in another post.
