MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

tysmith95 said:
Regarding north shore transit, I think it's a loss that route 451 no longer serves Salem. Without commuter rail fare integration it makes that route less appealing.

Anyhow, not sure why 451 and the Beverly shuttle aren't combined into one. It doesn't make sense to have both with different routes serving the same area.
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I've been thinking a LOT about the service cuts in the this area.

Why wouldn't the MBTA run a circuitous route in the North Shore that serves the following and other stops in both directions.

Cummings Center
Beverly Depot
Salem Depot
Downtown Peabody
Northshore Mall
Liberty Tree Mall
Danvers Square
 
The MBTA has approved the purchase of a pair of sites adjacent to its Southampton garage for $15.4M - I gather an opportunistic buy, as the site's prior occupant and owner recently shut down operations.

No word yet exactly on what is going to go there except expanded bus storage in the interim to accommodate an expanded 60ft fleet. That said, even if Southampton is one of the last garages programmed for replacement, its good to know the T will have the site available for the future - though I would be curious if they would consider talking the city into letting them take and close Moore sooner. That street is already basically captive to MBTA uses already, given how many buses are seemingly staged on it in google street view, though it may impact access to the food bank's loading docks.
Screenshot 2022-07-19 124457.jpg
 
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I’m going to guess that the T will sandbag North Cambridge right into redeveloping the garage for housing, with an option to stick a charging station under it.
 
Since I guess I'm hawking it everywhere else today (via Twitter and elsewhere), I'll bring it up here again: earlier this summer, I did a deepdive analysis on Somerville's current bus network, and on the Redesign's proposed changes. I also put forward some suggestions for potential revisions to the proposed changes, trying to balance the T's goals and the concerns raised by the community. In short, I propose:
  1. Swap the new 90 & T39 north of Union
  2. Shorten the new 90 & new 87
  3. Keep+improve the current 90
  4. Run frequent Sullivan-Assembly shuttle service
I think these changes can be done with net-zero effect on needed rolling stock, and I believe they would address a lot of the concerns that have been raised about the changes.

As it happens, the Somerville Pedestrian & Transit Advisory Committee sent the T a letter, outlining their feedback and requests. Based on my read, I believe my revisions would address most of those requests (though sadly not the call for better north-south service). I also got a couple of pieces of surprising feedback from residents: I saw a large spike in traffic to my blog, and found that someone had linked to it on the Somerville subreddit. So that's nice.

Anyway: if you're reading this and you like the suggestions I've detailed in my post, I encourage you to submit feedback to the T this weekend -- the public comment period closes at the end of the day tomorrow. (And if you do submit feedback, I encourage you to be positive and constructive in your comments -- I genuinely believe the BNRD team has worked really hard to balance many competing interests here, and I'm sure they are getting a lot of blowback from the larger issues with the T right now. I'm guessing a little bit of positivity will go a long way in this situation.)
 
KentXie said:
I almost feel bad for the MBTA at this point
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There was a battery bus that caught fire in CT last month. I believe it is the same manufacturer and model series as the T's bus there. The battery bus caught fire on an extremely sweltering day like today and it seems kind of unlikely that it could be related but today was also sweltering and extremely humid. I wonder if there's some electrical system issue or perhaps a shared component that is causing the ignition of these flames and then it all goes bozonk after ignition.
 
as02143 said:
There was a battery bus that caught fire in CT last month. I believe it is the same manufacturer and model series as the T's bus there. The battery bus caught fire on an extremely sweltering day like today and it seems kind of unlikely that it could be related but today was also sweltering and extremely humid. I wonder if there's some electrical system issue or perhaps a shared component that is causing the ignition of these flames and then it all goes bozonk after ignition.
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Per the series number this one's a CNG bus, so it's certainly not exactly the same as any of New Flyers' battery buses. It is a worthwhile question as to whether there could be something in their systems architecture that's maybe not as heat-tolerant as it could be, unless it's merely a coincidence (which would seem more likely than if they were both BEBs)
 
yeah, my hypothesis is it being related to the electric load required to power the ACs in such humid times. BEBs and CNGs both being fairly volatile once ignited it seems like designing to make sure that nothing that does ignite gets to the potential volatile flammable materiaal.
 
Arlington will get what amount to queue-jump bus lanes in both the inbound and outbound direction at Mass Ave and Alewife Brook Parkway. The outbound lane will let Arlington "receive" buses that have been on the Cambridge side of the intersection (where Cambridge's Bus-Bike lane ends) (really, just a "preferred merge" for a short segment on the Arlington side)

The inbound lane will be extended to the threshold of ABP and will allow buses to line up to join Cambridge's inbound bus-bike lane.

Arlington, in partnership with the MBTA, received $133,640.00 to install an outbound shared bus/bike lane on Massachusetts Avenue from Alewife Brook Parkway to opposite Lafayette Street, to extend the existing inbound shared bus/bike lane from Boulevard Road to Alewife Brook Parkway, and to implement related pedestrian safety measures.
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Boston Seeks Plans for Bus Priority, Protected Bike Routes Through Longwood and Kenmore Square
BikeTrafficKenmoreSquare.jpg



“The Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA) just released a request for proposals to conduct a new transportation study of the Longwood and Kenmore Square neighborhoods that aims to accommodate millions of square feet in new development with new transit-priority streets and better-connected networks of trails and protected bike lanes.

According to the BPDA, over 9 million square feet of new development are either under construction or in the planning pipeline in the Kenmore Square, Fenway, and Longwood neighborhoods – much of it concentrated along the Brookline Avenue corridor between Kenmore Square and the Brookline town line.

But while the neighborhood adds new residents, jobs, and attractions, the amount of space available on the neighborhood’s crowded streets isn’t increasing.

The BPDA’s proposed “Fenway-Kenmore Transportation Action Plan,” with a $1.2 million budget, seeks a “coordinated approach to designing improvements in the Fenway neighborhood” with improved walking, biking, and transit networks, according to a request for proposals document released last week…”
https://mass.streetsblog.org/2022/0...e-routes-through-longwood-and-kenmore-square/
 

Federal Funding Approved for Lynnway Multimodal Corridor Project

More than $20 million approved by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s federal Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) Grant Program
www.mass.gov www.mass.gov

$20 million in federal funding for the Lynnway project. Too bad it's too late for the upcoming station closure. I'm curious if we'll see some of the routes that currently use Route 107 eventually shift over to the Lynnway - with bus lanes, it would probably be the faster route between Lynn and Wonderland.
 
The EGE said:

Federal Funding Approved for Lynnway Multimodal Corridor Project

More than $20 million approved by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s federal Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) Grant Program
www.mass.gov www.mass.gov

$20 million in federal funding for the Lynnway project. Too bad it's too late for the upcoming station closure. I'm curious if we'll see some of the routes that currently use Route 107 eventually shift over to the Lynnway - with bus lanes, it would probably be the faster route between Lynn and Wonderland.
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Since BLX to Lynn is many years away, bus lanes on the Lynnway make eminent sense.
 
Is $20M federal enough to expect center-running bus lanes and stations?

It looks like Boston spent about $13M on ~0.7 miles of Columbus Ave, and Lynnway is ~1.7 miles, so I'm afraid the answer will be No.
 
W-4 said:
Is $20M federal enough to expect center-running bus lanes and stations?

It looks like Boston spent about $13M on ~0.7 miles of Columbus Ave, and Lynnway is ~1.7 miles, so I'm afraid the answer will be No.
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Also, they cannot do anything about the bus lanes until they finish the never-ending water main replacement process along the Lynnway, that appear to be careers for many construction crews.
 
W-4 said:
Is $20M federal enough to expect center-running bus lanes and stations?

It looks like Boston spent about $13M on ~0.7 miles of Columbus Ave, and Lynnway is ~1.7 miles, so I'm afraid the answer will be No.
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Lynnway is a more wide-open roadway (3 lanes each way and no parking), so it may be more straightforward and cheaper to put in center bus lanes than the more constrained Columbus Ave.
 
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