If you’re an avid rider of the T (or were, until it decided to break for a month), you’ve probably experienced this maddening scenario: After 15 minutes of standing on a crowded platform while a packed train idles in the station, the robotic voice sings out, “We are experiencing minor delays due to a disabled train.” Meanwhile, people six stops ahead of you are posting photos on Twitter of a smoke-filled station and panicked passengers breaking windows.
If this morning’s false Commuter Rail alerts are any indication, the MBTA alerts leave something to be desired. Now, thanks to a new website called MBTA Ninja, passengers can report their own delays in their own words, letting us decide whether slow-downs are ‘minor’ or ‘start walking to work’ level. More