MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

Also: "bus takes photos of cars that are in its way" makes a lot more sense intuitively than "bus takes photos of cars on the other side of the street that could theoretically be in the way of a different bus but are not actually." Don't underestimate the "is this a pill that the public will swallow?" element of policy design that is completely unrelated to actual technological limitations.
 
JumboBuc said:
Also: "bus takes photos of cars that are in its way" makes a lot more sense intuitively than "bus takes photos of cars on the other side of the street that could theoretically be in the way of a different bus but are not actually." Don't underestimate the "is this a pill that the public will swallow?" element of policy design that is completely unrelated to actual technological limitations.
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Absolutely.

And just expanding a bit, the goal of this program isn't to ticket drivers. The goal is to get cars out of the bus lane so that the buses run faster. Learning from all the other cities that have tried this, we can achieve that goal by simply ticketing the drivers who actively block the bus. On it's own, that works really well. If it really sped up buses more by also ticketing cars on the other side of the street, I think we should consider it. But I seriously doubt that would help much. And extra speed up would be really marginal (and, as you say, create a lot of backlash)
 
I think double parking on an opposite side bus lane is not just problematic for buses - emergency vehicles could benefit too even if a bus isn't immenently approaching a double parked or illegeally standing car.
 
The North Cambridge garage has a bunch of buses in the yard and a few up on lifts in the garage. Has it finally opened?
 
The Aberdeen Ave route pattern will continue to operate.
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It drives me crazy how the T operates different routes with identical numbers as if they're allergic to having route numbers that only run during the peak or something. That is the route of the old 72, just call the short-turn the 72 and the full run the 75. Or if you don't want a different number, call it the 75A.
 
TheRatmeister said:
It drives me crazy how the T operates different routes with identical numbers as if they're allergic to having route numbers that only run during the peak or something. That is the route of the old 72, just call the short-turn the 72 and the full run the 75. Or if you don't want a different number, call it the 75A.
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They number it the same so the MBTA can claim “these routes meet the SDP service delivery policy”.

If they numbered it the 72 instead of the 75; both routes would fail the rush hour standard of every 30 minute service and the 72 also failing the off peak service requirement.

By numbering both routes as the 75; then the MBTA gets to claim that the 75 “meets rush hour service frequency standards”.
 
Both regular route 75 trips and the Aberdeen short turns run every 30 minutes at rush hour.
 
Delvin4519 said:
They number it the same so the MBTA can claim “these routes meet the SDP service delivery policy”.

If they numbered it the 72 instead of the 75; both routes would fail the rush hour standard of every 30 minute service and the 72 also failing the off peak service requirement.

By numbering both routes as the 75; then the MBTA gets to claim that the 75 “meets rush hour service frequency standards”.
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Okay but that's all arbitrary, the MBTA controls what the SDP says. If a stupid numbering scheme meets the SDP as written but a sane one doesn't, then the MBTA should change the SDP to align with a better numbering scheme.
 
TheRatmeister said:
Okay but that's all arbitrary, the MBTA controls what the SDP says. If a stupid numbering scheme meets the SDP as written but a sane one doesn't, then the MBTA should change the SDP to align with a better numbering scheme.
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Honestly the MBTA should just eliminate the 72 bus entirely. And they should just run the 74 and 75 more frequently.
 
Delvin4519 said:
Honestly the MBTA should just eliminate the 72 bus entirely. And they should just run the 74 and 75 more frequently.
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Sure but it's not an isolated case, and there will always be some need for route variants. Take the 'variant' of the 15 that runs from Haymarket to Mattapan. That's not the 15, that's (almost) literally an entirely different route that happens to share part of its run with the 15.
 
The variant is just a rush-hour short turn to provide additional frequency on the section that has the most ridership. The only reason it still goes on Aberdeen is because it's easier to run the reverse trips via Mount Auburn (which conveniently also provides commute service to the hospital) than to loop the bus anywhere on Huron.
 
The EGE said:
The variant is just a rush-hour short turn to provide additional frequency on the section that has the most ridership. The only reason it still goes on Aberdeen is because it's easier to run the reverse trips via Mount Auburn (which conveniently also provides commute service to the hospital) than to loop the bus anywhere on Huron.
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There's only 4 trips AM and 7 trips PM for the 72 aka 75A short turn service. And it's just to turn the 30 minute frequency into 15 for the individual 75 segment. https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/media/route_pdfs/batch_7986/74-75-S3-P4.pdf

But the numbering as the "75" is still misleading.
 
Why is it misleading to number them as 75 trips? They only serve two stops off the 75 routing. It's very different from the pre-2019 situation, when route 72 ran all day and route 75 ran mostly on Fresh Pond Parkway.

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In other news, electric buses testing at North Cambridge today:
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Long ago I used to take the 75 that ran non-stop up Fresh Pond parkway - that was such a weird situation. I forgot about that!
 
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