Talk:Causeway Street Elevated

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FYI, for those that ride the T regularly, subjective statements in the Boston Globe regarding the effects of service changes and improvement projects usually fail to reflect reality. In fact, the preponderance of articles like the one cited are just paraphrased MBTA press releases; rarely are counterpoints mentioned, much less investigated. Thus, a Globe article may be a reliable source for technical details or costs of a project, but is pretty unreliable when used to estimate quality of service. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.203.143.163 (talk) 04:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Remember, Verifiability, not truth. Unless you can provide a reliable source discussing the quality of service, we have to go with what this one says.--Loodog (talk) 15:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't mean to be taking this so personally, Loodog. Really, I know it's not that big a deal, especially in the context of such a minor article. It is just extremely frustrating to see Wikipedia reflect information that anybody who rides the Green Line between Lechmere and downtown on a daily basis KNOWS to be untrue.

Daniel Grabauskas and MBTA management certainly don't ride it. Nor do the Globe staff, who are famously car-commuting despite being pro-transit on their editorial page.

That said, I must yet again remove your inaccurate interpretation of the text of the Globe article, which clearly talks about improved track speeds on the Lechmere Viaduct but NOT in the replacement tunnel for the Causeway elevated:

"...the extension now continues above ground, up over Leverett Circle to Science Park station via what is now the steepest grade of tracks in the T system. FROM THERE [i.e. after Science Park station (emphasis mine)], new track and signal systems will offer a faster ride to Lechmere, with a posted speed limit of 20 miles per hour. Before the line was shut down for repairs, deteriorating track kept speeds on THAT SECTION [emphasis mine] of the line down to 6 to 15 miles per hour..."

P.S. Serious question, Loodog... What is one to do when the only three sources that might meet heightened "reliability" standards (in this case, the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, and official statements from the MBTA) are quite ignorant of the matter at hand (or in the case of the T, quite disingenuous)?

Oh, I see what you mean. I hadn't realized I was misreading it. Still, the bit about freeing up land and lowering ambient noise is pretty uncontroversial.

With regard to your question about sources, that's one of the imperfections of wikipedia. It's more important on the wikipedia model to having verifiable information/opinions from published sources than to have true information. Then again, if we throw that out, we're got an encyclopedia ruled by truthiness.--Loodog (talk) 20:35, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Whoops, I didn't mean to delete the latter (uncontroversial) part of the paragraph. And sorry for the general tone of frustration. The minutiae of public transit operations can seem very personal when one is reliant on the end result. Unfortunately, as disingenuous as the T is, the handful of "anti-T blogs" so frequently misinterpret information that I would be hesitant to cite them even when they represent a consensus counterpoint. There is simply NO reliable source on current MBTA issues that has done its homework.