Your mention of employment opportunities at Harvard reminds me of an analysis I've done recently, which looks at ridership at Harvard, Central and Kendall/MIT in Fall 2019:Cambridge especially Harvard Square used to have a much more robust independent feeling—an endless number of small, independent businesses and shops and services that don’t really exist anymore. Now, there’s Harvard, of course, but other than that it feels very hollowed out, employment opportunity wise, unless you’re looking to bus tables or something similar.
Station | Harvard | Central | Kendall |
Walk & cycle | 9255 | 11145 | 16701 |
Drive, carpool, dropoff | 264 | 287 | 449 |
Transfer from bus | 11227 | 5145 | 1008 |
Cool data. Im wondering about this last table, and whether the data are parseable by bus line? I would be very curious to see the breakdown by bus line.Note that a large chunk of the residential ridership at Harvard (i.e., people commuting from Harvard during AM peak) comes from bus transfers, as illustrated with the 2015-17 ridership data below:
Station Harvard Central Kendall Walk & cycle 9255 11145 16701 Drive, carpool, dropoff 264 287 449 Transfer from bus 11227 5145 1008
The table alone indicates that 54% of riders at Harvard come from buses, but this ratio should be significantly higher if you also make the assumption that people working at Harvard walk to the station rather than taking a bus (i.e., they work near Harvard Square itself instead of an employment center along a bus route).
The data in this table alone can't be separated easily, as the survey simply asked anyone boarding at Harvard what's their previous mode of transportation. However, you can break down bus ridership by route using another dataset on bus ridership per route and per stop. I did an analysis here that showed weekly ridership at Nubian, Harvard and Sullivan for all bus routes in Fall 2022, and here's the table for Harvard: (includes the Harvard busway, the 1's stop at Mass Ave @ Holyoke St, the 66/68/69's stop at Johnston Gate and Dawes Island, and Eliot St @ Bennett St)Cool data. Im wondering about this last table, and whether the data are parseable by bus line? I would be very curious to see the breakdown by bus line.
Also, on the 71/73, Load Factor is an important consideration in service delivery.
The ETBs had fewer seats than their diesel counterparts, which pushed the peak load factor higher.
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I feel like the answer is that they're questionable at best routes that are politically unpalatable to cut entirely, and are of limited ridership potential + connectivity importance. There may be some merit in a minimal service for a few vulnerable populations, but they don't seem to have significant potential for generating much more ridership with higher service levels. Or at the least - there's other routes that cover the same populations that would see better returns on bumping service levels even higher than these would.Moving this discussion to the appropriate thread:
@TheRatmeister just pointed out that the Bus Network Redesign (BNRD) Remix Map has proposed frequencies for each route during each time period. This information was used in @Riverside's map here. However, when I last saw it last time, I felt the listed headways were too generic and almost felt like placeholders.
So I took a closer look: I'm in the process of making a spreadsheet with all the proposed BNRD headways for each route.
I for one don't understand why we're still left with so many "light brown" routes with 50-min midday headways, some of which even have 50-min headways during rush hours. I was in Phoenix earlier this year, and was very surprised by how the vast majority of their buses seem to run every 30 min or better. (They also have quite an interesting network design, for sure.)
@HenryAlan i think commented a while back on the 14. Not sure what populations it serves but I just think it’s kinda cool I can walk from my house in rozzie and get a one seat ride to the JP VA. Come to think of it, it probably does exist for the VA—I bet you there are a few lines that seem wonky but exist to ensure vets can get to the hospitals without multiple changes. Also, I think this is the only bus route that gets you from Roslindale Sq to Dorchester/Franklin Park. Otherwise you’d have to change at FH. And I do think a Rozzie<~>Dot connector makes sense.I feel like the answer is that they're questionable at best routes that are politically unpalatable to cut entirely, and are of limited ridership potential + connectivity importance. There may be some merit in a minimal service for a few vulnerable populations, but they don't seem to have significant potential for generating much more ridership with higher service levels. Or at the least - there's other routes that cover the same populations that would see better returns on bumping service levels even higher than these would.
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11 - 8th St to Broadway is a 5 minute walk. Unless Broadway is packed so full of buses that it can't hold more, I see no reason why you'd want to add service to this and not the T9
14 - This appears to do basically nothing useful and the sole part of it's route that isn't covered or nearly so by another, better service is....mostly going past dead people in cemeteries, some strip malls, and a golf course. Probably Boston's #1 route for ghost ridership, but not so much for the living.
17 - If you don't want to walk you can just take the T15/T16 that overlap 3/4 of the route. Yeah, there's a transfer for some, but it's between two services with frequent service. And the Fairmount Line to west + Red Line to the seems to really limit how many people are realistically trying to ride this.
30 - makes some sense connectivity wise, but also serves very little directly, it's single-family + some more cemeteries for most of the route. Not sure how big the potential is.
34E - seems consistent with the few other services beyond 128. Within 128 the route is duplicated by the more frequent 34.
38 - I don't see anything about this route that would generate demand. I assume the minimal service is being kept for Faulkner, which also explains the Nubian connection. The southern end has more frequent services to Forest Hills in the 35+36 (which combined, have decent frequency) , where you can get on the Orange Line you're probably heading to anyway. Above Arborway you've got the T39 running frequently or 10min walk to an OL stop
40 - This basically exists to serve one public housing complex, and otherwise just overlaps the 34 (+34E), and Readville also has better options to get you towards Forest Hills.
41 - Appears to exist to connect the VA hospital, BUMC, shelters/homeless services (+ the jail) in a single seat ride. Aside from that specific clientele, I don't really see who'd want to ride this.
44 - ...doesn't look like a very efficient route, and much of the area theoretically has 1 or more frequent routes not very far away.
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tl;dr - If you had one more bus frequency bump to add to the BNRD plans, would you choose to add it to any of these services? I don't think you would.
Yeah, I'm a fan of the 14 for a few reasons.@HenryAlan i think commented a while back on the 14. Not sure what populations it serves but I just think it’s kinda cool I can walk from my house in rozzie and get a one seat ride to the JP VA. Come to think of it, it probably does exist for the VA—I bet you there are a few lines that seem wonky but exist to ensure vets can get to the hospitals without multiple changes. Also, I think this is the only bus route that gets you from Roslindale Sq to Dorchester/Franklin Park. Otherwise you’d have to change at FH. And I do think a Rozzie<~>Dot connector makes sense.
38 — somewhere on here, at some point in 2023, I asked about this line and got some educating from a bunch of folks on here. You’ll have to find where it is, but there was, if I remember correctly, some good discussion that explained why this line exists.
Good points.Yeah, I'm a fan of the 14 for a few reasons.
Basically, if you got rid of the 14, you'd need to recreate it by rerouting some combination of other buses.
- It is the only direct connection between Roslindale and the heart of Roxbury
- It has a very convenient transfer to several Dorchester serving lines
- It is pretty much the only service through the American Legion Hwy corridor, which is fairly densely settled
- I'm not sure I'd take it from Rozzie Square all the way to Heath St/VA Hospital, but I bet there are people in Roxbury who find that to be a convenient connection.
As for the 38, I somewhat recall that discussion, but not the specifics. It's obviously pretty crucial for a bus to serve the Faulkner. I think there is also a decent amount of ridership from people who live along the section of Centre St. between VFW Parkway and Holy Name rotary. The bus network redesign will hurt both groups, in that the 38 will no longer provide as efficient a connection to the Orange Line.
I rode the 7 bus through the Summer St pilot bus lane today. My impressions may not be accurate, as I couldn't see everything clearly on a bus that was quickly moving, but... Either they haven't finished the painting, or it fell way short of initial plans.According to their project page, the Summer St pilot bus/truck lane program started on Monday, December 4.
From the article:
It's curious that the SL6 study pretty heavily favored Kendall over Haymarket (in both ridership projections and community feedback), and even among the Kendall alignments, it favored Washington St and McGrath Hwy (Alt 4) over Rutherford Ave and Gilmore Bridge (Alt 5). Could it be that at the time, they weren't able to rely on bus lanes from the Rutherford Ave redesign as a certainty, and/or residents still expected buses to be stuck in traffic?While no MBTA bus routes currently use Rutherford Avenue end-to-end, the busway would benefit several existing and planned routes, including the 111 and the 109.
In the longer term, as new buildings bring more riders into the neighborhood and nearby areas, like lower Broadway in Everett, the City of Boston hopes to create a new bus rapid transit route that Sullivan Square and downtown Boston.
The MBTA's ongoing Silver Line Extension study identified Rutherford Avenue as a likely link for potential new bus rapid transit lines between Everett and Kendall Square or downtown Boston.
“It is difficult for the MBTA to make service commitments or do planning more than a few years out for what kinds of new services might exist. When we think about a design for this project, we’re thinking 50 years into the future," said Franklin-Hodge. "What kind of transportation needs will exist then?"
OSR? Google is failing me.While I do think the Rutherford bus lanes are important in the long term for an Everett-downtown BRT connection, they might only be effective when both the Rutherford Ave bus lanes and the downtown bus priority corridor are completed, allowing an OSR beyond Haymarket.
One seat rideOSR? Google is failing me.