(no subject)

[randomness]

So, according to Wikipedia, that unimpeachable source, the only subway systems in the world that operate 24 hours, 7 days a week are the New York City Subway, PATH, the Red and Blue lines of the Chicago L, and PATCO between Philadelphia and its New Jersey suburbs.

Anyone know of any others? Night bus networks, while nice, don't count.

(I thought of this after a conversation with bloodstones about Chicago's Blue Line, in which she said, "All-night transit service is a mark of civilization. Sorry, Boston.")

Comments

[frotz.livejournal.com]

I've read a bunch of reports that the purported cost of the Night Owl service was padded whereever possible because the MBTA really didn't want to deal with it. I don't have the information to really judge it either way, though I do think the employee roster was rather inflated.

When I did try and ride it, I saw a mixed collection of people riding the faux-Red-Line after an evening being social at parties or bars or whatever, and a huge number of service employees going home on the faux-Blue-line. (For the latter, I remember a continuous stream of packed buses just going back and forth between downtown and Maverick. That run sure looked like a money-maker, at least if anyone had been collecting fares, but I was never asked and actively blown off trying to pay, perhaps because they assumed (badly) that anyone getting on downtown was transferring.) The transfer point at downtown crossing was absolute chaos, with a ridiculous number of MBTA employees hanging out but contributing nothing apparent. (Though surely collecting overtime!) I didn't get the impression anybody at all actually cared about running an efficient service, and thus while I'd love to have real late-night public transportation in Boston, I'm perfectly happy to have the ridiculous Night Owl killed off.