MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

[ritchiew]

The only bus traveling Boylston on the 2nd block is the #9, which in the AM rush hour is carrying no/almost no passengers on that stretch. (Primary travel direction in the AM is towards Back Bay, and anyone traveling inbound to that area got off at the stops on St. James Ave rather than spending minutes riding it all the way around in a circle to save 30 seconds of walking).

The bus lane seems to have helped in the PM rush hour, too, when people do ride that stretch. The average hasn't changed much, at six seconds slower. But the worst times have gotten better, by 25 seconds. So the bus on those couple of block is more reliable. And again, that's what you get with zero enforcement (and a worsening culture of food delivery cars blocking the streets).

But before getting too far in the weeds with these details, though, all I'm saying is the bus lane seems to have worked. It's speeding up buses part of the day, and making travel times more reliable. There seems to be a separate question of whether the bus lane is "worth it," and so far I keep wondering "compared to what?" Like, if we turn this back into a car lane again, how many seconds does this save drivers? If we're getting to point of questioning how many riders might be on the bus block-by-block, then how many more people in cars would get through if this was a car lane? Without anything to compare to, this feels like we're just assuming that cars have some inherent right to street space, and anything else needs to jump through a lot of hoops to justify itself.

 

[as02143]

I'm surprised that the police fire and ambulance services haven't said anything. They get traffic clear on Boylston now because cars have somewhere to move outta way.

 

[HenryAlan]

I'm surprised that the police fire and ambulance services haven't said anything. They get traffic clear on Boylston now because cars have somewhere to move outta way.

Couldn't cars move out of the way by entering the bus lane? I'm confused by your comment.

 

[TheRatmeister]

Couldn't cars move out of the way by entering the bus lane? I'm confused by your comment.

That's their point, I think. Or emergency services could use the bus lane, either one works. Is this a huge advantage that justifies putting spare lanes on every street? Probably not. Could it justify a corridor downtown though? Possibly.

 

[as02143]

Tha

Couldn't cars move out of the way by entering the bus lane? I'm confused by your comment.

Thats exactly the point. With out the bus lane it's a nother lane full of cars blocking a fire truck, ambulance, or cops.

 

[FK4]

I don't think anyone is saying that enforcement isn't needed (the TransitMatter post stresses that it is). Cities and the T haven't had the power to do automated / camera-based enforcement like New York, DC, Philly, Chicago, LA, SF, etc. have until January. That's the part that makes the Mayor's decision especially bad for bus service. It doesn't bode well for transit projects in Boston if the City is now running away from projects at the very time when they should be working to apply this new enforcement tool.

We can debate if saving 60 seconds is / isn't significant, but that overlooks the fact that if there's no priority, buses will just get stuck in traffic and get slower, less effective at moving lots of people. It's a way of preserving the service quality, not just saving time (which this project was).

I don’t understand why the conversation about “enforcement“ always seems to come down to handing over the lack of automated cameras. Don’t we have one of the biggest, most overpaid, and bloated police departments in the whole fucking country? What is stopping the mayor from working with the police department that she runs from instructing more police to give more tickets to cars and other vehicles that are breaking the law? This is not difficult. If you grew up in Boston you know that it’s basically impossible to get a ticket for almost anything other than violating a parking meter. We don’t need cameras to solve that problem.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I don’t understand why the conversation about “enforcement“ always seems to come down to handing over the lack of automated cameras. Don’t we have one of the biggest, most overpaid, and bloated police departments in the whole fucking country? What is stopping the mayor from working with the police department that she runs from instructing more police to give more tickets to cars and other vehicles that are breaking the law? This is not difficult. If you grew up in Boston you know that it’s basically impossible to get a ticket for almost anything other than violating a parking meter. We don’t need cameras to solve that problem.

The police will refuse to do it, and become confrontational with the Mayor. That's pretty much how it went in NYC and several other large cities whose departments have given up the ghost on basic traffic enforcement. The larger the department, the more unaccountable they become to willful redirection from above. That of course shouldn't be, but the reality is that steering big-city police departments to back any initiative that gives them more work is very hard and comes with a steep political cost.

Cameras don't "cop" an attitude. That's why they're seen as holy grail.

 

[bigeman312]

The police will refuse to do it, and become confrontational with the Mayor. That's pretty much how it went in NYC and several other large cities whose departments have given up the ghost on basic traffic enforcement. The larger the department, the more unaccountable they become to willful redirection from above. That of course shouldn't be, but the reality is that steering big-city police departments to back any initiative that gives them more work is very hard and comes with a steep political cost.

Cameras don't "cop" an attitude. That's why they're seen as holy grail.

BPD is operating as if they aren't aware that many of their tasks can be automated and lead to their department's budget becoming less justifiable. I, for one, would love to see bus lane enforcement become automated. Cheaper operationally, less biased, more consistent, and more reliable.

 

[themissinglink]

Transit Riders Plan Grassroots Protest of Tonight's Boylston Street Bus Lane Removal - Streetsblog Massachusetts

Boston residents are planning to gather in Copley Square this evening to protest the city’s planned removal of the Boylston Street bus lane, which improved bus speeds and reliability for the MBTA’s Route 39 but also attracted the ire of the politically well-connected Back Bay Association...

mass.streetsblog.org

 

[The EGE]

The MBTA now has a project page for the Longwood Medical Area Bus Circulation Study:

Longwood Medical Area Bus Circulation Study | Projects | MBTA

Official website of the MBTA -- schedules, maps, and fare information for Greater Boston's public transportation system, including subway, commuter rail, bus routes, and boat lines.

www.mbta.com

Bus Network Redesign calls for substantially more service to the LMA, but punted on actual routings within the LMA, so this study is to figure that out.

This is from the approved BNRD network:

 

[bigeman312]

Does this mean Phase 2 of the BNRD won’t be coming this year?

 

[Teban54]

Does this mean Phase 2 of the BNRD won’t be coming this year?

Not a direct reply to you, but my comment is more for people who were as confused as myself about what Phase 2 entails. (I had not been actively monitoring the forum since last October until now, so I apologize if this is common knowledge.)

This is the tentative Phase 2-5 schedule in an update to Cambridge City Council in May 2024. Keep in mind, it's almost a year old.

Back to the topic of LMA, while it could definitely delay Phase 2 until they finalize routings within the area, I don't think that's a death sentence for changes in 2025:

• They could swap Phases 2 and Phase 3, so that Phase 2 focuses on other regions and Phase 3 comes back to Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan in 2026
• They could leave the LMA-specific routes (12, 22, 28, 47, 65, 66; and correspondingly, the removal of 8, 19, CT2 and CT3) temporarily unchanged in Phase 2, and implement the intra-LMA changes either in a future phase or as a separate change after the LMA Circulation study is complete.
  • (Note that Phase 1 didn't implement all planned changes in Chelsea, with the 112, 114, and planned 113 all untouched. Everett had even more routes left on the table.)
• They could implement the LMA routes with tentative routes in Phase 2, as the Remix map shows, and modify them again later.

 

[KCasiglio]

Uh oh somebody forgot to do their state inspection on time tsk tsk

 

[Teban54]

Compared to the Winter 2025 system map, the Spring 2025 map (effective yesterday) has quietly added Route 32 as a "15 min or better" Frequent Bus Route (FBR). This is despite the 32 already meeting service standards as of Winter 2025 (and in fact, its AM peak frequency indicated on the map even decreased slightly, from 5 min to 6 min).

To recall, the following routes were designated FBRs in Winter 2025: 1, 15, 22, 23, 28, 39, 57, 66, 71, 73, 77, 104, 109, 110, 111, 116. With the exception of Route 32, this is exactly the set of all Key Bus Routes from prior designations, plus the Bus Network Redesign (BNRD) Phase 1 FBRs (104, 109, 110, 116). Thus, the omission of the 32 may have simply been a careless mistake.

Meanwhile, some of the currently designated FBRs do not actually meet the requirements under BNRD, which is "Service every 15 minutes or better, 5am to 1am, 7 days a week." They're typically due to inadequate night and weekend headways:

• Route 15: Every 20 min at night
• Route 22: Every 18 min at night
• Route 23: Every 18 min at night
• Route 28: Every 20 min at night
• Route 39: Every 17 min on Saturdays
• Route 57: Every 20 min at night
• Route 71: Every 20 min at night and on weekends
• Route 73: Every 20 min at night and on weekends
• Route 77:
  
  • Winter 2025: Every 16 min midday, every 17 min on Saturdays, and every 19 min on Sundays
  • Spring 2025: Frequency was improved, and it now meets the 15-min requirement at all times

Note that the BNRD Phase 1 FBRs strictly adhered to every 15 minutes, even at night and on weekends. Also note the improvement to Route 77 as mentioned above.

So while the MBTA conveniently re-designated all former Key Bus Routes as FBRs without actually meeting the new service standards in Winter 2024, it does appear that they're slowly fixing that problem, starting with the 77 this time. It also seems that once any of the "legacy" FBRs receive their BNRD phase, their night and weekend frequencies will also be addressed. Hopefully, that will be completed by the time BNRD is fully implemented.

As an aside, the following routes will be upgraded to FBRs under later phases of BNRD: 7, 8, 9, 12 (new route), 16, 31, 47, 70, 96, 101, 35/36 (between Forest Hills and West Roxbury), 220/222 (between Quincy Center and North Weymouth), 442/455 (between Wonderland and Lynn).

 

[as02143]

I don’t understand why the conversation about “enforcement“ always seems to come down to handing over the lack of automated cameras. Don’t we have one of the biggest, most overpaid, and bloated police departments in the whole fucking country? What is stopping the mayor from working with the police department that she runs from instructing more police to give more tickets to cars and other vehicles that are breaking the law? This is not difficult. If you grew up in Boston you know that it’s basically impossible to get a ticket for almost anything other than violating a parking meter. We don’t need cameras to solve that problem.

A cawp can only enforce a small section of road or highway. A camera system can do much more and should be more effective at getting results.

 

[FK4]

A cawp can only enforce a small section of road or highway. A camera system can do much more and should be more effective at getting results.

Again, that may be actually true but does not answer the question about why cops in Boston never ticket anyone for anything. Someone already opined that it’s basically politically impossible to get cops to do this part of their job, but if that’s true, that’s absurd and begs the question of what they’re doing driving around in the first place.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Again, that may be actually true but does not answer the question about why cops in Boston never ticket anyone for anything. Someone already opined that it’s basically politically impossible to get cops to do this part of their job, but if that’s true, that’s absurd and begs the question of what they’re doing driving around in the first place.

I cannot tell you where it comes from, but it is a long standing tradition that the Boston Police do not do traffic enforcement. It dates back at least to the era of Mayor Kevin White who basically told them not to enforce traffic laws. He felt Boston Drivers had a healthy disrespect for traffic rules (a paraphrase).

 

[FK4]

I cannot tell you where it comes from, but it is a long standing tradition that the Boston Police do not do traffic enforcement. It dates back at least to the era of Mayor Kevin White who basically told them not to enforce traffic laws. He felt Boston Drivers had a healthy disrespect for traffic rules (a paraphrase).

That is fucking insane. One of the largest police departments in the country and they can’t be bothered to do their job?

 

[Stlin]

I mean, the data doesn't back that claim. The RMV does a study on citations every 2 years primarily for bias checking purposes - but it does tell you how many uniform citations a given department has done in its data appendix. While they haven't released 23 and 24 data yet, in 2022 Boston issued nearly 29 thousand traffic tickets. Using only the top right population adjusted figure, that's a stop rate exceeding that of the neighboring communities of Cambridge, Revere, Medford, Newton and Quincy, and on par with Chelsea, Milton, Somerville and Lynn. Brookline stops somewhat more, and Dedham admittedly blows it out out of the water at 383(!) stops per thousand residents.

Also keep in mind that MSP troops H4, H5 & H6 exist, which largely covers DCR state roads in Metro Boston and issued 16k tickets, as well as H9 (the tunnel troop) which issued 12k tickets on the Big Dig highways in 2022.

Honorable mentions go to MSP as a whole which accounted for 40% of all statewide tickets, particularly troop D which managed more tickets than troop H while covering the less dense South Shore, the town of Sturbridge which had the most "productive" department with 515 stops per thousand residents, and Worcester, which had the least "productive" department amongst larger cities in MA with a paltry 15.1 per thousand.

That said, a dishonourable mention to the Transit Police which should have the most reason to enforce the Bus Lanes - they're a unit of the MBTA, after all. They only managed 305 tickets in 2022.

https://www.mass.gov/lists/independent-massachusetts-motor-vehicle-uniform-citation-data-analysis-and-report

 

[KCasiglio]

in 2022 Boston issued nearly 29 thousand traffic tickets.

Does this include parking violations? Important to remember that BPD is not the issuing party for those. Also, not saying it would or wouldn't change where Boston stands in relation to its peers, but tickets by population doesn't really seem like a fair comparison since so many more people are driving into Boston as opposed to surrounding communities (though obviously Cambridge and Somerville have high "passing through" rates as well). Something like citations by VMT would give a better picture.