Transit history/trivia quiz

Great work you two! One or both of you got most correct; a few still remain open.

1: Ratmeister got both. Prior to 1987, there was no Dudley-Mattapan route. (The 1 was [re]created in 1962 as a through-routing of existing services. The extension of the 66 to Harvard was during the MBTA era, but the bulk of its route was established prior.)
2: Still open. In the 1940s, Dudley Street only had route 15, with 3-minute peak headways. The 114+115+116+117 (including short turns) combined for about 80-second headways at Chelsea Square.
3: Ratmeister and Alewife got it.
4.1: Still open. The Chelsea-Woodlawn segment was formerly a horsecar, streetcar, and trackless trolley line.
4.2: Alewife got it - the Chelsea Bridge was served by Eastern Mass streetcars until 1934. Full points also to Ratmeister for an answer I didn't think of.
5: Alewife got all, Ratmeister got some. The 32, 1, 66, and formerly 77 were the ones I was thinking of. The 39 in Back Bay was also formerly incorrect. Looking at an old version, I also see that the 111 and 116/117 were falsely shown as not connecting!
6: Alewife got some; 1 still remains. The 1 currently has a grade crossing. The 77 actually used to have two - the Fitchburg Cutoff near Davis Square, and the Lexington Branch at Arlington Centre. I believe the crossings on the 111 and 116/117 have all been separated since at least the early 20th century, and the Dorchester Branch bridge at Wolcott Square over the 32 dates to 1898.
7: Ratmeister got it.
8.1 - 8.4: Ratmeister and Alewife got them all.
8.5: Ratmeister got it.
9: Alewife got it; half credit to Ratmeister.
10.1: Ratmeister and Alewife got it.
10.2: Still open. There's at least 3 answers. (It took me some time with the map to figure some of these out, so I don't consider it cheating to look.)
10.3: Alewife got it. It's been used for special MBTA service and some private-carrier services, but never as the terminal for a regular MBTA route.
10.4: Still open.
10.5: Still open. Central is oh-so-close to being correct: the 1, 47, 64, and 70 will all be through-routed. However, the 83 will still terminate there. There's at least two I can find that won't be terminals at all.
10.6: Still open. The 85 (very similar to the current CT2) will still run between Ruggles and Sullivan. The 86 indeed no longer runs to Sullivan, but I'd hardly consider Reservoir a major bus terminal. I think the only time City Point and JFK have had direct service was a short-lived extension of the 5 in 1987. I can think of 3 pairs of major terminals that will no longer have a direct bus connection, and two arguably-major pairs.
 
Last call for guesses, otherwise I'll post the answers sometime Monday afternoon. I try to make these quizzes hard but not too hard! The answers to 4.1 and 6, and some clues to 2, can be found in old maps. 2 and 6 are definitely mentioned in BSRA books as well. Everything in 10 comes from public MBTA materials.
 
Some research based guesses:
2: Talbot Ave coming out of Ashmont, and Huntington Ave between Francis St and S. Huntington?
4.1: 66 along North Harvard St?
10.2: Assembly I should have gotten even without looking, Woodland and Ball Sq I'm less bothered by.
10.4: Riverside
10.5: Orient Heights and Beachmont
10.6: Harvard/Davis, Sullivan/Malden Ctr, Kenmore/Ruggles, Ruggles/Jackson Sq, not sure what the last one is.
 
2: Still open. If we're including bus frequency, I'm sure that section of Talbot (and maybe Huntington) would be in the sub-minute frequency range. However, only two of the routes on that part of Talbot, and only one on that part of Huntington, were streetcars.
4.1: Correct. The was a horsecar line between Western Avenue and Harvard Square from 1883 to the early 1890s. It was never electrified, and service did not resume on that corridor until a bus route in 1925.
6: Still open.
10.2: Assembly and Woodland are correct. Ball Square already has the 80 and 89, so there's still one more out there.
10.4: Correct. The 53 (ex-553) extension to Woodland replaces the 558.
10.5: Correct. In one of the odder parts of BNRD, the 119 and 120 are being extended to take over the 712 and 713 (and thus bringing them under direct MBTA operation), meaning that the 119 will no longer terminate at Beachmont and the other routes at Orient Heights.
10.6: All correct. Others that I noted include Central/Sullivan, Ruggles/Mattapan, Haymarket/Lynn, and Haymarket/Salem.
 
And the remaining answers:

2: Mass Ave between Harvard and North Cambridge (routes 79 and 82, now route 77 and 77A), and Warren Street between Dudley and Walnut Avenue (routes 19, 22, 23, and 44). Warren is still one of the busiest bus corridors, with about 20 per hour in each direction at rush hour. While the 77 is still a busy route, it's not nearly as busy a surface corridor as it was before the Red Line.
6: Route 71 had a grade crossing with the Watertown Branch just east of Watertown Square. The crossing was single track - the last single-track pinch on the system - until 1949. I said "MTA or MBTA eras" because that section of the Watertown Branch was abandoned in 1960, just two years after the line was converted to trackless trolleys.
10.2: Suffolk Downs will also be gaining a direct bus connection - actually, two. The extended 119 will run on Bennington Street between Orient Heights and Beachmont, a section that hasn't had transit service since the route 118 trackless was discontinued in 1955. The extended 120 will also run much closer to the northwest side of the station than it currently does.
 
Today's quiz is all about transfers. The collection of historical streetcar maps on Commons may be helpful.

For the purposes of this quiz, the "downtown area" is as shown in the map below. "Surface lines" are streetcar lines that did not enter the subway (i.e, not Green Line branches"). The "rapid transit" system is the more-or-less grade-separated portion of the rail lines: the Red, Orange, Blue, and Mattapan lines, plus the Green Line minus the surface B, C, and C branches.
  1. What was the last rapid transit station within the downtown area to have a surface line connection?
  2. What was the first rapid transit station outside the downtown area to lose its last surface line connection?
  3. What was the first rapid station to be built without a surface line connection?
  4. a) What was the last rapid transit station to be built with a surface line connection?
    b) That one is an unusual case; what's the second-last that's a more typical case?
  5. What rapid transit stations have never had surface connections of any kind, streetcar or bus? I count 10.
  6. What rapid transit station has been the end of the line, but not a terminal for any bus routes?
  7. The Boston Elevated Railway was known for its well-designed transfers. How many stations had cross-platform transfers to surface lines?
  8. Several stations have not had surface line connections, but have had trackless trolley (trolleybus) connections. Most of these were on the Blue Line, where trackless trolleys replaced streetcars when the extension opened as far as Orient Heights. What is the one non-Blue Line station in this set?
1772999161938.png
 
1. South Station
2. Kendall
3. Green St
4a. New Forest Hills
4b. Symphony
5. Community College, Assembly, Green St, Cedar Grove, Butler, Valley Rd, Capen St, Science Park/West End, Bowdoin, Shawmut
6. Bowdoin
7. Six (Everett, Sullivan, Dudley, Ashmont, Fields Corner, Maverick)
8. Porter

1. (Unchanged)
2. (Unchanged)
3. Columbia
4a. (Unchanged)
4b. (Unchanged)
5. Community College, Assembly, Cedar Grove, Butler, Valley Rd, Capen St, Science Park/West End, Shawmut, Longwood, Brookline Hills, Beaconsfield, Chestnut Hill, Eliot, Waban, Woodland, Magoun Sq
6. Suffolk Downs
7. (Unchanged)
8. (Unchanged)
 
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Almost all correct - just a few remain!
  1. Correct - the South Station - City Point via Summer Street route (now route 7) lasted until 1953.
  2. Correct - I believe the last route (Kendall-Spring Hill) was replaced on September 18, 1926.
  3. Correct (second guess) - Columbia and Savin Hill opened without any connections. Savin Hill did get bus connections within a few years; Columbia (now JFK/UMass) did not until 1954.
  4. a) Still open - even counting the 1987 iteration of Forest Hills as separate, the Arborway Line was gone by then, and it wasn't a surface line anyway because it entered the subway
    b) Correct - Symphony opened in 1941 with a connection to the Massachusetts - Dudley line (now part of route 1)
  5. Assembly, Butler, Valley Road, Capen Street, Shawmut, Longwood, Beaconsfield, Chestnut Hill, Waban, and Magoun were the ten I was thinking of.
    Longwood is actually arguable in retrospect - the Brookline minibus (route 594) ran on Longwood Avenue about 400 feet away from 1974 to 1976. That's closer than some signed connections, such as the upper busway routes at Forest Hills.
    Community College was served by the 92 from December 1975 to December 1977.
    Cedar Grove was served by a short bus route from June 1932 to February 1933. (Again, depending on how close we define "connection", you could also argue the 215 on Gallivan Boulevard.)
    Brookline Hills was the terminal for routes 58 and 60 from July 1959 to sometime in 1960.
    The others have/had connections - just not MBTA routes. Science Park has EZRide and Woodland has MWRTA. The other two are guesses: B&W/Gray Line bus service used to run on Route 9 past Eliot, though I'm not sure of the exact stopping pattern. The MTA operated a North Station-Kendall route for the second half of 1963; I don't know of any maps, but it probably stopped near Science Park.
  6. Suffolk Downs isn't the one I was thinking of, but it is also correct - there's been a few ersatz routes that served it, but never as a terminal. Bowdoin was the terminal of Charles Street bus service for many years. One remains.
  7. All six are correct; one remains.
  8. Correct - the 77A served Porter.
 
Good thought on Stadium - I missed that one! Harvard/Brattle actually was the main Harvard Square bus terminal while the Harvard Bus Tunnel was closed for renovations - it served everything except the 1, 69, 72, 75 (now 68), and 77A.

Lechmere is the 7th I was thinking of. Mattapan was a strange case - it wasn't a true cross-platform transfer except from outbound HSL cars to buses, but it was all level just like today.
archive.org

Annual report .. : Boston (Mass.). Transit Dept : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Beginning with the 8th report of the title page reads, Report
archive.org
 
I've got access to some private vehicle data so here's a fun one:

What two non-adjacent rapid transit stations have the most private vehicle trips between them per weekday? Data is from April 2026, each station has a non-overlapping radius of 0.5 miles.

I should add that the data is noticeably imperfect and I wouldn't trust that 100% of vehicle trips are captured, and I wouldn't trust that all captured trips are private vehicle trips, but I think it's an interesting question regardless.
 
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TheRatmeister said:
I've got access to some private vehicle data so here's a fun one:

What two non-adjacent rapid transit stations have the most private vehicle trips between them per weekday? Data is from April 2026, each station has a non-overlapping radius of 0.5 miles.

I should add that the data is noticeably imperfect and I wouldn't trust that 100% of vehicle trips are captured, and I wouldn't trust that all captured trips are private vehicle trips, but I think it's an interesting question regardless.
Click to expand...
I have no idea how this is measured. I'm assuming surface roads only, but given I-93 run under/over/adjacent to Sullivan, Community College, North Station, South Station, JFK/UMass, and Savin Hill, some combo of those would be the answer if that were included.

Similarly, the Pike gives a cheat answer for Airport and Back Bay.

Is this surface roads only?
 
bigeman312 said:
I have no idea how this is measured. I'm assuming surface roads only, but given I-93 run under/over/adjacent to Sullivan, Community College, North Station, South Station, JFK/UMass, and Savin Hill, some combo of those would be the answer if that were included.

Similarly, the Pike gives a cheat answer for Airport and Back Bay.

Is this surface roads only?
Click to expand...
Highways are counted, but it's only counting journeys that start and end in a zone. So driving from Woburn to Quincy on 93 doesn't count for Sullivan, for example.
 
TheRatmeister said:
Highways are counted, but it's only counting journeys that start and end in a zone. So driving from Woburn to Quincy on 93 doesn't count for Sullivan, for example.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the clarification! Private vehicle trips between two stations where those stations are the termini of the trip.

I'm assuming when you say "each station has a non-overlapping radius of 0.5 miles" that the trips have to start and end within those respective zones. Correct me if I'm wrong.

My guess:

Harvard and Back Bay.
 
Airport/Logan - Back Bay

And by "private" this includes or excludes commercial vehicles?
 
@as02155 Including, I believe.

Some interesting guesses. Spoilers and answers below:

Overall the top of the list is mostly short journeys. My suspicion is that the since platform I'm using was developed for car-traffic first, the numbers get a little bit wonky in places where there is functional public transport and a good deal of people walk or cycle. Nevertheless, I do find this to be reasonably believable. Most trips people make are short, and for the most part it isn't suggesting lots of people take driving trips from places where it is clearly difficult to drive, such as State or Downtown Crossing. With all that being said, here are some of the top ones I was able to find:
  1. Quincy Center to North Quincy
  2. Union Sq to Central
  3. Assembly to Gilman Sq
  4. Eastern Ave to Airport Terminals (Probably parking shuttles)
  5. Copley to Airport Terminals
  6. Chelsea to Wellington
@as02155 wins for getting one of the top ones, and one of the top 'genres' (Airport <-> Downtown) more broadly. The downtown stations generally all did poorly except for Airport trips.
It's pretty hard to decide what to include and what to omit because a lot of these results are... fishy to say the least but these all seemed to me to be pretty legit. I'll need to take a much closer look at the shorter ones to see why they are getting included.
 
Having been in the taxi line at the airport several times this past year - the number of Back Bay or Copley riders was surprising in its consistency. Just made me think that that demand for Back Bay-Airport trips must be super high and consistent with all the big events we have around there.
 
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