After arriving back at Logan Airport from a recent trip to Iowa, I decided to travel toward home by the MBTA’s new Silver Line.

It marked a first for me, taking the bus from the Delta terminal to South Station. I wanted to see for myself how well this new feature of the T’s transportation system works.  The results must be judged mixed.

I did save money. My fare was only 35 cents, as contrasted with the more than 40 dollar total cost of a taxi. Thanks to the senior discount shared with my age peers, I traveled most of the way home for a pittance.

However, the term used by the T to describe the vehicle turned out to contain a false claim. It took what has been named the “Bus Rapid Transit” a whole half hour to travel the few miles from my airport terminal to South Station.

There was nothing rapid about the trip. Surely, there must be a better way to cover this short stretch of tunnel and roads.

No wonder that the Association for Public Transportation, a group that advocates for improved services, continues to oppose the use of the term Rapid Transit “for service that is anything but.”

After picking me up, the bus stopped at Logan’s every terminal. Lots of passengers got on, mostly young people loaded with suitcases and heavy packs of various shapes. It made for a packed vehicle with inadequate space for the luggage and with some riders (fortunately not I) forced to stand.

What surprised me were all the other stops after we cleared the tunnel. It made for painstakingly slow progress with some people getting on and off at stops unfamiliar to me such as the Federal Court House and Convention Center.

It soon dawned on me that I would have probably made faster progress by taking the old shuttle to the airport subway station. Then, of course, it would have been necessary to change transport twice before I could catch the Red Line. But that inconvenience would be counterbalanced by getting to the subway much faster.

All in all, the Silver Line bus deserves the rating it receives from my friend, the transportation expert Christopher Lovelock. He calls it “a cheap way of not having a rail line to the airport.” The Silver Line bus that I took would have made traveling impossible or, at least, uncomfortable for many of my age peers.

One obvious temporary solution to the Silver Line time problem would be to make at least some of the trips express runs from the airport to the South Station. The T could add more buses and designate them as non-stop. However, the T rejects this approach: spokesman Joe Pesaturo told me the agency believes this would not shave off time from trips.

Unlike me, some other passengers bound for commuter trains at South Station may not object to the current system. They may regard the bus ride to their connection as worth the half hour. Others may fault me for looking for gold when silver signals progress over what the MBTA offered before.

However, to get people in general to use public transportation, you have to make it fast, reliable, and efficient. Otherwise, they will resort to private means if they can afford to do so.

What really needs to be done is first to extend the Blue Line in a loop to the airport. Secondly, the Blue Line needs to be connected to the Red Line. That has been long planned, with a link between Bowdoin Station and Charles promised as a condition of the Big Dig construction.

However, the Commonwealth has reneged on this promise, claiming that the Silver Line takes care of the matter. That forms the basis for a lawsuit currently brought by the Conservation Law Foundation.

The Silver Line in its current format may well be attracting lots of passengers but, from my observation, it is not providing the level of express airport service that many people need.  

These issues connected with public transportation need much more discussion than they receive. Why, in the current debates among the candidates for governor do we hear little or nothing about airport access?

In reviewing the web sites of the four major candidates, I found no mention of public transportation as an issue. Those who seek the office of governor should present proposals for improvement in this vital resource for citizens at large.

Older people, many of whom may suffer at least minor disabilities, are likely to hold public transportation to a higher standard. If we cannot foresee that buses and subway trains will provide us with seats and offer us other forms of security, then we may choose to stay home.

The Silver Line bus that I took would have made many of my age peers unable to travel or, at least, uncomfortable because of crowding and the overly long duration of its short route.

Richard Griffin