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Boston's streets may seem as though they were not planned -- a common fiction is that they evolved from old cowpaths -- but in the 1600s they avoided swamps and marshes and followed shorelines before the original peninsula comprising the city was expanded with landfill in the nineteenth century. Except for the Back Bay and part of South Boston, Boston has no street grid, which is confusing for American drivers. Roads change names and lose and add lanes seemingly at random, and many drivers are flummoxed by rotaries. Legally, cars already in a rotary have the right of way; that's not the way it always works in reality.
For most of the 1990s and early 2000s, driving in Boston was disrupted by the Big Dig, the most expensive (roughly $14 billion) road project in the history of the United States. State officials claim that it will solve the region's traffic woes, but critics recall the same promise in the 1950s when they pushed through the Central Artery - the elevated highway the Big Dig is replacing.
There are four subway lines in the metropolitan Boston area: the Red Line, Green Line, Orange Line, and Blue Line, all of which head into and out of downtown Boston. That is one of the system's strengths - the subways do an excellent job of getting people to and from downtown. However, there is no cross-town service (The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which runs the system, has begun developing a cross-town bus line, though). Also, the subways stop running at 12:45 a.m. each night, although bars and clubs in Boston are open until 2 a.m. The MBTA runs "Night Owl" buses between 1 and 2:30 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. The basic fare is $1.25, extra to get on or off at some of the more remote stations, such as Quincy or Riverside. Monthly commuter passes and day and week visitor's passes are available.
Boston has the oldest subway system in North America - the first car began running under Tremont Street in 1897 (today, that line is part of the Green Line). The Red, Blue and Orange lines are traditional subway lines with third rail power (although the Blue Line uses overhead lines north of Boston Harbor). The Green Line and the Mattapan branch of the Red Line are really light-rail lines, using trolley cars. The Mattapan line uses refurbished pre-war "PCC" trolleys; the Green Line relies on more modern LRV cars from Japan and Italy. The Green Line is actually four different lines; it starts as one and about halfway through the system it splits into four different lines, the B (Boston College), C (Cleveland Circle), D (Riverside) and E (Heath Street) trains. Because the split is only present on the outbound end of the line one may take any train inbound, but when going outbound one must be careful of which train one gets on or else one will end up in a very different place. Because the Green Line runs through many college campuses it is often referred to by Boston students as the "drunk college kid express".
In the early 1960s, the then-new MBTA hired Cambridge Seven Associates to help develop a new identity. Cambridge Seven came up with a circled T to represent such concepts as "transit," "transportation" and "tunnel." Today, Bostonians call their subway "the T."
The colors of each line have a meaning: The Green Line runs into the leafy suburbs of Brookline and Newton; the Blue Line runs along the ocean; the Red Line used to terminate at Harvard (whose school color is crimson) and the Orange Line used to run along Washington Street, which was once called Orange Way.
The MBTA's commuter rail system, sometimes known as the Purple Line, brings people from as far away as Worcester and Providence, Rhode Island into Boston. Lines from the North Shore and northwestern suburbs begin and terminate at North Station; lines from the South Shore and the west start and end at South Station. There are approximately 125,000 one-way trips on the Commuter Rail each day.
In an effort to provide service intermediate in speed and capacity between subways and buses, the MBTA has begun projects using the Bus Rapid Transit, or BRT, system. Currently, the MBTA has one BRT line, the Silver Line.
The MBTA operates 162 bus routes within the Greater Boston area with a combined ridership of approximately 375,000 one-way trips per day. Included are four of the few remaining trolleybus lines in the U.S. (71, 72, 73 and 77a). The basic bus fare is $0.90; monthly commuter passes are available, as are transfers between some bus lines and the subway.
In addition, South Station is a major bus depot for inter-city travel.
The MBTA operates several large parking facilities on its subway and commuter rail lines. While these tend to fill up with commuters on weekday mornings, they provide a good place for visitors to leave their cars and see the city without parking hassles on evenings and weekends.
There are two major rail stations in Boston: North Station and South Station. There is a third station in Back Bay and a fourth, outside the city, on Rte. 128. All of these are served by commuter rail and Amtrak. Amtrak's Northeast Corridor service terminates at South Station; Amtrak's Maine service terminates at North Station. There is no direct connection between North Station and South Station. The MBTA Orange line runs between North Station and Back Bay Station.
Boston enjoys extensive domestic and international airline service at three airports:
There are also several general aviation facilities including Hanscom Field in Bedford and Norwood Municipal Airport.
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