Arthur may be out looking for the next best roller coaster, and this blog has been discontinued. Thanks for visiting and happy travels!

Let's say you're an environmentally sensitive kinda person, and you're in tune with Massachusetts' new Green Visitors Program that I wrote about in my last entry. You're at the Boston Common and you want to get to a hot restaurant in South Boston. Or Symphony Hall. Or Signing Beach in Manchester-by-the-Sea. Web sites that offer directions, such as MapQuest or Google Maps, could give you the information you need to get you there, but they are generally geared towards driving directions and assume you'll be traveling by car. Since you're a carbon-neutral guy or gal, however, you want to take public transportation, right? Should you take the T? If so, what color line should you take? And do you head inbound or outbound? The answers to these questions can be found at the PublicRoutes Web site.

As with the well-known map sites, PublicRoutes.com users enter their starting and destination points, and the site determines the best route. In default mode, the results might include a combination of walking, subway, bus, or commuter train directions. Users can tailor the results and ask for, say, walking-only directions or subway-only directions. Each step along the way includes clearly stated instructions and approximate times. (Of course, it doesn't account for late trains and other aggravations.) The site can be a bit wacky. When I entered "Public Garden" in Boston, it asked me whether I meant Garden Street in Worcester. And the results aren't always accurate. To get from the Boston Common to Singing Beach, PublicRoutes.com correctly directed me to North Station and told me to board a Rockport-bound commuter train. But the directions advised me to get off at the Gloucester station and either walk for an hour or take a cab to the beach--rather than disembarking at the Manchester-by-the-Sea station and walking about a half of a mile to the beach. The site did work well most of the time, however, and it does take the mystery out of the Boston area's often-confusing public transportation systems.

Photo: MBTA