Miles Taylor (C ’22) never quite grew out of his train phase.
“I had like a little wooden train set as a one–year–old … I lived in Cambridge, Mass., so we would ride the train a lot [and] I always loved it when we did,” Taylor muses.
Calling it a train phase, however, would certainly be an understatement. At 13, Taylor materialized his locomotive passions and launched a tiny blog on the interweb called “Miles on the MBTA” (Boston’s public transportation system). Little did he know that the blog, now morphed into a YouTube channel, would attract thousands of fellow transit enjoyers and curious onlookers—“Miles In Transit” now has a sizable 45,000 subscribers (and counting).
The shift didn’t happen overnight. Perusing the early days of “Miles on the MBTA” reveals a 13–year–old kid beaming with excitement as he eagerly learned the nooks and crannies of the Boston bus system. “I came across this blog called the ‘(T)he Adventure’ [pronounced ‘T–adventure,’ referencing Boston’s moniker as the ‘T system’] … I read every post religiously, over and over and over again,” says Taylor. “I started to get into the bus system and tr[ied] to memorize every bus route and learn the whole bus system.”
Taylor’s early venture into video–making—or at least, something akin to his current format—didn’t come until he was in high school. “I did a summer program at Cambridge Community Television,” Taylor explains, stating that their chosen project was “trying to break the record for the fastest time going around the MBTA. That was the first time kind of doing like a vlog type of thing.” This inspired the budding transit enthusiast to develop his video side project. Adventures such as documenting the entirety of Boston’s B train or a day exploring the GATRA bus system were crucial stepping stones to the young channel’s growth, showcasing its potential.
With a growing catalog of videos, Taylor began to dream bigger. “What’s the Cheapest Way to Long Island?” asks one video (spoiler alert: by public transit). “The Longest Bus Ride in America” features a nearly 90–hour transcontinental bus ride from New York to Los Angeles. An early iteration of the channel’s renowned “Great Race” series, “The Great Race to Chelsea,” features a cast of friends and new faces thrown into the chaos of public transport.
But it wasn’t until the COVID–19 pandemic that Taylor made the hard switch to making videos. As the world went into lockdown during his sophomore spring, Taylor went back home to Boston, where he realized that blogging was no longer what he wanted to do. “I found myself not being interested in writing anymore. I was feeling very like perfectionist about it,” Taylor recalls. “I had a couple of videos in my backlog that I filmed kind of like just before COVID–19 … and I had so much fun editing those where I was like, ‘What if I just pivoted to videos?’”
Following the fateful switch from blog to vlog, the channel blossomed, and viewers could see Taylor’s passion for transportation infrastructure shine through. Ever wonder why Amtrak stops in towns with under 1,000 people? Taylor’s series “Least Used Amtrak Station in Each State” explores the crucial link Amtrak provides for people living in rural towns as the only mode of transport that isn’t driving hundreds of miles. What is it like taking Megabus and Greyhound between cities? Awful, as Taylor has discovered time and again in “We Took a 100+ Hour Greyhound From Boston to Seattle,” and “I Spent $3 for a 2000–Mile Megabus Ride.” As absurd as these videos may seem to the casual viewer, Taylor uses them to highlight the current state of public transportation and raise awareness of its importance.
“They’ve kind of radicalized me as far as like, thinking that we should have a nationalized government–run bus system, maybe in conjunction with Amtrak,” Taylor says. “Our inter–city bus system is pretty horrendous … I'm a big believer in being able to serve rural communities with transit just because … it’s just very easy, I think, to forget that, like, if you don't have a car out there, you're just screwed.”
But Taylor’s turn to full–time video–making didn’t come without hardships. While there were times during the pandemic he felt it was difficult to stay motivated—even going so far as putting content–making on hold for about a year—he cites the channel as a crucial component during this period. He describes it as “an important escape,” and that gave him something to work towards. “One thing that's really nice about YouTube compared to the blog is that YouTube very much encourages comments … I put out a video and [can] get positive feedback, and I know that I was doing something that was good, which I did not feel like a lot of things I was doing was good at that point.”
While the zany transit adventures remain the core of the channel, there are other pieces of the puzzle that makes it uniquely Taylor. For example, scattered within the videos are a myriad of inside jokes and self–referential moments that capture his sense of humor. After trying out Amtrak’s seat upgrade bidding process with the minimum amount needed, his “Poor Bid” soundbite reappears every so often during a subsequent Amtrak video. As is the case with the ”Now That Is a Fun Fact” soundbite, contributed by his girlfriend Aleena Parenti (C ’25) (who would also join him on his adventures) that appears whenever someone in the video mentions an odd or random transit factoid.
Perhaps the most important aspect that reflects Taylor’s personality is the original music prominently featured on his channel. During his time at Penn, Taylor played tuba in the Penn Band, and it was there where he met Jackson Betz (C ’19, and featured in 2019’s Penn 10), who helped Taylor produce most of the original music that is now intertwined within the channel—the “Apparently a Trip Report” intro song, the “Bathroom Review” and “Menu Shot” jingles, and the original songs detailing the chaos of “The Great Races” were all co–composed by the pair.
“He’s a genius. I mean, when you say that the music is composed by me and Jackson, it’s really like 90% Jackson,” Taylor says. It was also Betz who encouraged Taylor to sing, and the pair even performed at a joint concert in West Philly on July 27. “All of my shout–out there goes to Jackson for like, kind of, I think guiding me into knowing what I’m capable of as at least as a vocalist … I never saw myself being the frontman of a rock group,” jokes Taylor.
As for what’s next for the 24–year–old? “My job as a service planner [for the MBTA] is like my dream job … I would say that I would be perfectly content being in the exact same spot ten years from now, just [with] like a slightly bigger YouTube channel, ideally.” As the channel continues to grow, Taylor hopes that people see the potential that transit has to offer, especially for Penn students. “Philadelphia is a very big and very vibrant city with so many cool neighborhoods to explore, and if you want to do that cheaply, the best way to do it is using SEPTA …Take advantage of your time in Philly and go and explore because it’s a city really worth exploring.”
