MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

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Hard to express how gigantic these guys are in real life. Huge improvement
 
So I've been looking at the data for the 34/34E, arguably the strangest MBTA bus route, and it got be wondering: Should a Walpole-Forest Hills bus journey cost still cost $1.70? Or should there be some kind of express-bus-lite fare for the 34E?
 
well, are you paying for distance or quality of service? because the 34E doesn't move much faster than other suburban bus routes, even if it travels a longer distance. right now, obviously, we pay for quality of service, as demonstrated by the commuter rail acting as a premium alternative to many parallel bus routes. plus, inter-suburb trips shouldn't increase to a premium fare, meaning there'd have to be a tap-on tap-off system added.
 
The express buses do have the ability to charge local fares, but the driver has to hit a button on the farebox at the request of the passenger. In general*, fares on public transit should be solely based on distance, not type/speed of service. That allows riders to choose which service is best for the trip they're making. On a public service - particularly local/regional transit where most riders are frequent, passengers should never be in the position of having a financial incentive to have a longer commuter to save a few bucks. That ends up being effectively a regressive tax.

The 34E is a weird case. Only a small number of bus routes reach outside 128 (roughly the arbitrary zone inside which a flat fare would be reasonable) from points substantially inside 128, such that under any distance-based system they would be more than the base fare. Even fewer directly parallel commuter rail routes with higher fares - it's really just the 34E, 137, 238, 240, 450, and 455. In a world with frequent regional rail and fares intended for public benefit, these routes would pretty must just be for local passengers and feeding the CR. Again, passengers shouldn't be incentivized to choose them just to save money.

*For infrequent trips such as intercity service, especially when there is fixed capacity, this is a bit less of the case. I'm more okay with the Acela being more expensive than the Northeast Regional, especially since there's a difference in experience above the basic quality that all transit should meet. If the Acela tends to fill up and the Regional doesn't, then the Acela pricing should simply be used to shift excess demand to the Regional.** Similarly, I'm okay with price being used to shift Providence-Boston demand to the MBTA if those seats would otherwise be filled by intercity passengers.

**If Acela fares are high enough that they're not filling up even if there would be sufficient demand at a lower price, then the higher price is simply shifting passengers to a lower-quality mode, which benefits no one.
 
Su
StreetsblogMASS said:
We confirmed that the "T" prefix is not going to be used, and we also mapped the route changes being proposed:

https://mass.streetsblog.org/2024/04/11/bus-network-redesign-shows-signs-of-life


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Surprised there is not a bus linking Charlestown, and specifically Community College OL stop (and to a lesser extent Lechmere area of GL) to Kendall Square. Didn’t see anything in BNR either. It’s technically walkable, but it’s a long walk (30+ minutes from Community College) and it’s a really straight shot down Austin Street/Memorial Drive that seems like it could pick up a lot of OL and GL passengers (not to mention Charlestown folks). One potential barrier is Austin Street which doesn’t leave a good place for buses to serve Community College.

The CT3 route kinda does this from Sullivan, but it’s a circuitous route through Charlestown, E. Somerville, and Cambridge and I think for most people it just pencils out faster to go all the way Downtown and then take the red to Cambridge.
 
Smuttynose said:
Su

Surprised there is not a bus linking Charlestown, and specifically Community College OL stop (and to a lesser extent Lechmere area of GL) to Kendall Square. Didn’t see anything in BNR either. It’s technically walkable, but it’s a long walk (30+ minutes from Community College) and it’s a really straight shot down Austin Street/Memorial Drive that seems like it could pick up a lot of OL and GL passengers (not to mention Charlestown folks). One potential barrier is Austin Street which doesn’t leave a good place for buses to serve Community College.

The CT3 route kinda does this from Sullivan, but it’s a circuitous route through Charlestown, E. Somerville, and Cambridge and I think for most people it just pencils out faster to go all the way Downtown and then take the red to Cambridge.
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The 101 bus in the Bus Network Redesign does this exact thing you mentioned:
1714364853612.png
 
TheRatmeister said:
So I've been looking at the data for the 34/34E, arguably the strangest MBTA bus route, and it got be wondering: Should a Walpole-Forest Hills bus journey cost still cost $1.70? Or should there be some kind of express-bus-lite fare for the 34E?
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the E in 34E is not for express (I've seen people guess its for Extended?). There IS sometimes an express bus for the 34E that bypasses up until after Rozzie sq. going outboubd but thats like 1 bus per weekday. I used to have to take the 34E to Forest Hills and charging someone more for that horrendous ride would be cruel and unusual punishment 😭
 
DAVE said:
the E in 34E is not for express (I've seen people guess its for Extended?). There IS sometimes an express bus for the 34E that bypasses up until after Rozzie sq. going outboubd but thats like 1 bus per weekday. I used to have to take the 34E to Forest Hills and charging someone more for that horrendous ride would be cruel and unusual punishment 😭
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Just curious, were you taking the 34E as opposed to the Commuter Rail because there wasn't a CR stop nearby, the bus stop was closer than the CR, the bus was more frequent than the CR, or the bus cost less than the CR?
 
DAVE said:
the E in 34E is not for express (I've seen people guess its for Extended?).
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The E in 34E stands for East Walpole. That was its original terminus before the extension to Walpole Center:

1714413559782.png


I do think it would have been much nicer if the former 616 route was renamed 34W upon the MBTA transfer, which can also stand for East Walpole, especially since no other MBTA bus routes (34 or otherwise) came close to Walpole.

Source: NETransit history page
 
I took the 34E everyday up until last fall out to Norwood and back for work because I couldn't afford the commuter rail more than a few times a month. Most of the traffic out beyond Norwood is local Norwood-Walpole rather than all the way to Boston. There was typically up to 5 people that I'd share the long haul with but we'd start picking up people outbound in Norwood, and the bus would show up inbound with often a lot of teens or other folks that get off at Norwood Common. There should be a lot more buses like it that run on a main arterial through the burbs offering inter-town transportation at 20-30min intervals all day. This should be the standard for a lot of existing long distance suburban routes as well as adding a couple new ones like:
- A 32N (or E meaning 'extension') extending E-W across Dedham and up rt135 to Needham Center
- 715 that runs rt138 into Stoughton and Easton (meets with BAT 9)
- 551 between Riverside and Framingham via rt16 and rt135
 
Just got a Better Bus Project update email and this paragraph was interesting.
1714677838124.png

This would suggest they never had an inventory of physical bus stops and signs before, only the # and ID of the stop itself but nothing related to the physical infrastructure. Id imagine it was on a by sight or report basis before which would explain a lot
 
I got the same newsletter as @Koopzilla24, and a few of the bus priority updates sound very interesting:

  • In February, Mayor Michelle Wu and GM Eng announced plans to redesign Blue Hill Avenue between Warren Street and Mattapan Station as a new multimodal corridor. The project will add a center-running bus lane for the more than 40,000 bus riders who travel on Blue Hill Avenue every weekday. Sign up here to learn more about upcoming workshops, open houses, and opportunities to provide feedback as the project team finalizes the project’s conceptual design.
  • In February, we submitted with the support of the City of Everett an application for $28 million for a busway on Lower Broadway. The Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity, or RAISE Discretionary Grant program, provides a unique opportunity for the Department of Transportation to invest in road, rail, transit and port projects that promise to achieve national objectives.
  • In March, we announced a preferred route to connect Chelsea and Everett to the Orange Line with the Silver Line Extension (SLX). Following the release of the SLX Alternatives Analysis, the MBTA and MassDOT are exploring funding opportunities to advance the SLX design and engineering phase.
  • In 2024, the MBTA is partnering with the City of Boston and other partners to plan, design, and construct several priority corridors, including the Route 39 Transit Priority Corridor, the Route 57 Transit Priority Corridor, and the second phase of the Columbus Avenue project, among others.
 
Koopzilla24 said:
Just got a Better Bus Project update email and this paragraph was interesting.
View attachment 50144
This would suggest they never had an inventory of physical bus stops and signs before, only the # and ID of the stop itself but nothing related to the physical infrastructure. Id imagine it was on a by sight or report basis before which would explain a lot
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Someone at the MBTA must have short term memory loss because they made a big deal of hiring consultants in 2017 who did a physical survey of every single bus stop in the system, denoting everything from shelters to signage to curb ramps. https://mbta-massdot.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/MassDOT::pati-bus-stops/explore


While that work has been vitally important in identifying stops to rebuild for accessibility, and several hundred that were identified through the PATI process have already been reconstructed, I get the impression that all the inventory tools used in that surveying process were lost along the way, or property of STV (the consultant on that project) and not given to the T. And because 2017 was 7 years ago (ouch), that existing data is increasingly not much use.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Someone at the MBTA must have short term memory loss because they made a big deal of hiring consultants in 2017 who did a physical survey of every single bus stop in the system, denoting everything from shelters to signage to curb ramps. https://mbta-massdot.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/MassDOT::pati-bus-stops/explore


While that work has been vitally important in identifying stops to rebuild for accessibility, and several hundred that were identified through the PATI process have already been reconstructed, I get the impression that all the inventory tools used in that surveying process were lost along the way, or property of STV (the consultant on that project) and not given to the T. And because 2017 was 7 years ago (ouch), that existing data is increasingly not much use.
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I think rather @Koopzilla24 might be making a bit of a leap in the assumption of "never had an inventory". An inventory is always a snapshot (in time) and with the MBTA being the MBTA, I could definitely imagine that the PATI database is a snapshot fixed at 2017 and not updated regularly - since we underfund planning at the T.
 
Or, there's a middle ground. While PATI is definitely a fixed snapshot, looking at its data it didn't concern itself with much about the signs beyond does it exist and does it obstruct the accessible path.

This project seems to care about the sign itself - does it still show accurate information, is damaged etc. The key is in the purpose - to identify and fix outdated signs and signposts. I suspect that this is really just an add-on to existing condition datasets the T maintains. Frankly... It's something the T should extend to signage outside of the bus system. (Looking at you, outdated system maps)

(To be fair to PATI, I don't know how often it actually would need to be updated, since what it cared about was accessibility, not material condition. Until the implementation of the Better Bus Project stops are unlikely to change meaningfully, and new builds will be accessible as a matter of course.)
 
MBTA and the Town of Arlington Announce Extension of Shared Bus/Bike Lane on Massachusetts Avenue Funded by MassDOT’s Shared Streets and Spaces Grant

Installation of the extension of the shared bus/bike lane is scheduled to begin May 20 with completion anticipated in the next few days (weather depending). The project includes the addition of an outbound lane from Alewife Brook Parkway to the opposite side of Lafayette Street. This segment of road was identified by the MBTA in their Transit Priority Vision as a critical need for bus priority improvements and used design guidance from the MBTA’s Transit Priority Toolkit.
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