MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

[Arlington]

Pittsburgh’s PATCO also mixed bus and light rail

 

[Riverside]

I don't remember the discussion, what is the actual concern about a mixed transitway on Huntington?

(At the very least, the T should integrate the 39 to the platform countdown clocks... if the next Green Line is 8 minutes away, but there's a 39 in 3, passengers shouldn't have to rush across the street when they happen to catch a glimpse of the coming bus.)

 

[Wash]

It could be about busses platforming at the green line stops?

 

[JeffDowntown]

Why does Bus 39 need to continue into Back Bay, paralleling E line service? Why is it not terminated at Heath Street? Why clog Huntington Ave. with the duplicative service?

And I am asking a real transit purpose question, not the historical "there used to be street car service" question. There used to be street cars (and El's) a lot of places.

 

[Brattle Loop]

Why does Bus 39 need to continue into Back Bay, paralleling E line service? Why is it not terminated at Heath Street? Why clog Huntington Ave. with the duplicative service?

And I am asking a real transit purpose question, not the historical "there used to be street car service" question. There used to be street cars (and El's) a lot of places.

Can the E handle the volume on its own? There were Heath Street short-turns (I don't know if they were a similar volume as the E is now) in addition to the Arborway cars, so it seems like there must have been more service overall on that branch when Arborway was still open?

 

[Riverside]

Why does Bus 39 need to continue into Back Bay, paralleling E line service? Why is it not terminated at Heath Street? Why clog Huntington Ave. with the duplicative service?

And I am asking a real transit purpose question, not the historical "there used to be street car service" question. There used to be street cars (and El's) a lot of places.

The short answer (in my opinion): because the ridership demand is there. Check out the (pre-covid) ridership map from the Better Bus Profile:

A large fraction of riders are boarding in JP and disembarking on Huntington Ave. Because it's been a route for 100 years, entire commutes have sprung up along the residential-employment pairing of JP and Huntington.

As for transfering to the E, there isn't a lot of capacity to spare. Brigham Circle, LMA, MFA and Northeastern get nearly as much ridership as the entire C Line (~10K vs ~12K). Add in Prudential and Symphony (~15K), and you've blown the C out of the water.

The 39 carries over 11K passengers on weekdays and is one of the T's busiest routes. Only about 1,000 inbound alightings happen before Heath St, so short-turning the 39 at Heath means dumping another 10,000 passengers onto the E, more than half again what it took pre-covid.

In some hopeful future where D-to-E has been built, frequencies along Huntington have been increased, and the Huntington Subway extended, maybe then you might look at short-turning the 39, or otherwise rerouting it (like the Redesign did). But even then... it's one of the T's most successful routes, despite middling reliability and lack of bus lanes. There doesn't seem like a pressing need to short-turn it.

(And as @F-Line to Dudley has pointed out in the past: historically, Huntington was served by a pair of overlapping E services: one that ran all the way to Arborway but short-turned at Park St, and another that ran to Heath St-ish and continued further north to Scollay/beyond. Now, the 39 obviously has an even "shorter" short-turn at Back Bay, but the concept is similar [and the transfer to the Orange Line maintained]. Overlapping the services -- whether with an Arborway trolley or with the 39 bus -- along Huntington maximizes frequencies and capacity where they are needed most.)

 

[737900er]

LRT in the Transitway notwithstanding, airport service should run via Summer St directly into downtown. Very few SL1 riders disembark in the Seaport, so there's no particular priority in serving the Transitway, but a combination of Summer St and Congress St bus lanes could provide a one-seat link between the Airport, the Seaport, South Station, the Financial District, Haymarket, and North Station, and provide direct transfers to all commuter rail lines, and all rapid transit lines.

I like the idea, but pre-COVID Massport seemed willing to run a North Station LEX through the Callahan/Sumner, so I'm not sure this would be better than a split service to North Station and South Station (especially if T7 ever happens). The trip to North Station from the Ted would be long no matter how you slice it, and require lower headways than the current SL1.

 

[stick n move]

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

Anyone who claims that transportation improvements is a ways to "kick people of color out" is a fucking moron. This isn't the days of taking homes for highways, we are literally making the one form of public transportation these very people rely on better. These are the same fools who shot the X28 down a decade ago. It's not about race, it's about power. They want a seat at the table for their neighborhood, and they SHOULD have one! But the knee-jerk reactionism race card play is so fucking transparent. It does the residents of these underserved neighborhoods more harm than good.

At least the city is listening to riders and residents now, but still. The argument that black folks don't ride bikes is also so fucking racist that it makes my very white head spin. These are not the people we need to be listening to.

 

[KentXie]

Anyone who claims that transportation improvements is a ways to "kick people of color out" is a fucking moron. This isn't the days of taking homes for highways, we are literally making the one form of public transportation these very people rely on better. These are the same fools who shot the X28 down a decade ago. It's not about race, it's about power. They want a seat at the table for their neighborhood, and they SHOULD have one! But the knee-jerk reactionism race card play is so fucking transparent. It does the residents of these underserved neighborhoods more harm than good.

At least the city is listening to riders and residents now, but still. The argument that black folks don't ride bikes is also so fucking racist that it makes my very white head spin. These are not the people we need to be listening to.

I'm not saying that it isn't a moronic statement but transportation improvement without some legislature that prevents rents from increasing in the communities that are benefitting from the improvement will lead to people of color and long term residents being kicked out. Access to public transportation is desirable and will lead to higher demand which will increase rent, pushing low income families out, of which, will have a greater impact on people of color.

This wasn't much of an issue in the past when people were more car-centric but with today's environmentally conscious generation who also happens to be the most in-debted generation, there just isn't enough affordable rental housing near transit connections to go around

 

[sneijder]

I'm not saying that it isn't a moronic statement but transportation improvement without some legislature that prevents rents from increasing in the communities that are benefitting from the improvement will lead to people of color and long term residents being kicked out. Access to public transportation is desirable and will lead to higher demand which will increase rent, pushing low income families out, of which, will have a greater impact on people of color.

This wasn't much of an issue in the past when people were more car-centric but with today's environmentally conscious generation who also happens to be the most in-debted generation, there just isn't enough affordable rental housing near transit connections to go around

I think this is the key. I agree with vanshnookraggen that we absolutely can't let this get in the way of redesigning streets and progress (the status quo is always going to be keeping car throughput). But when transit and bikeable neighborhoods are scarce, streets that have transit/separated bus/bike lanes will be more desirable than streets with a 4-lane stroad and no sidewalk. Of course, the "correct" solution is to have transit and bike infrastructure everywhere, such that they will longer cause rents to be at a premium. But until we get there, this will be an unfortunate consequence of improving street design.

 

[JeffDowntown]

I'm not saying that it isn't a moronic statement but transportation improvement without some legislature that prevents rents from increasing in the communities that are benefitting from the improvement will lead to people of color and long term residents being kicked out. Access to public transportation is desirable and will lead to higher demand which will increase rent, pushing low income families out, of which, will have a greater impact on people of color.

This wasn't much of an issue in the past when people were more car-centric but with today's environmentally conscious generation who also happens to be the most in-debted generation, there just isn't enough affordable rental housing near transit connections to go around

Build more affordable housing too. Right along the corridor. Linked mitigation projects. You cannot "rent control" your way out of a supply and demand problem. Rent control suppresses supply.

 

[bigpicture7]

A key answer (I truly believe) is to always, constantly be doing ongoing/incremental transit system improvements and expansions so that such becomes normal and expected. No more grand announcements that "In 10 years a gazillion dollar later, [insert color] transit line extension is now going to serve [neighborhood]." In such a "grand and rare" system improvement mode, the speculators are always going to swoop in like moths to a flame and break things. No more political dog and pony shows and hyperbolistic press releases about what we should just expect to be happening as a matter of course. It's about just always being in the mode of extending and improving so that it's not a "special feature" of a neighborhood, but as expected as any other public utility or service. No more waiting to extend a route by x more stops; rather, everyone should always expect that any line could grow in any direction at any time, stop by stop, year after year. Same with bike lanes, bus lanes, street improvements, etc. Always growing, always expanding. It would become as mundane as seeing a roadwork zone as you drive down the pike.

 

[JeffDowntown]

The answer (I truly beleive) is to always, constantly be doing ongoing/incremental transit system improvements and expansions so that such becomes normal and expected. No more grand announcements that "In 10 years a gazillion dollar later, [insert color] transit line extension is now going to serve [neighborhood]." In such a "grand and rare" system improvement mode, the speculators are always going to swoop in like moths to a flame and break things. No more political dog and pony shows and hyperbolistic press releases about what we should just expect to be happening as a matter of course. It's about just always being in the mode of extending and improving so that it's not a "special feature" of a neighborhood, but as expected as any other public utility or service. No more waiting to extend a route by x more stops; rather, everyone should always expect that any line could grow in any direction at any time, stop by stop, year after year. Same with bike lanes, bus lanes, street improvements, etc. Always growing, always expanding. It would become as mundane as seeing a roadwork zone as you drive down the pike.

Every expansion should require linked TOD and affordable housing on the expansion. Flood the supply along the new line to mitigate rent increases. (It is how they do it in the Chinese mega cities.)

And the time to require the TOD is when the expansion is being approved. It is the price of adding a transit station to the neighborhood. It is really hard to go back later and try to get the housing.

 

[HenryAlan]

A key answer (I truly believe) is to always, constantly be doing ongoing/incremental transit system improvements and expansions so that such becomes normal and expected. No more grand announcements that "In 10 years a gazillion dollar later, [insert color] transit line extension is now going to serve [neighborhood]." In such a "grand and rare" system improvement mode, the speculators are always going to swoop in like moths to a flame and break things. No more political dog and pony shows and hyperbolistic press releases about what we should just expect to be happening as a matter of course. It's about just always being in the mode of extending and improving so that it's not a "special feature" of a neighborhood, but as expected as any other public utility or service. No more waiting to extend a route by x more stops; rather, everyone should always expect that any line could grow in any direction at any time, stop by stop, year after year. Same with bike lanes, bus lanes, street improvements, etc. Always growing, always expanding. It would become as mundane as seeing a roadwork zone as you drive down the pike.

Essentially, we would be treating transit, bike, and pedestrian improvements the same way that we have always treated street improvements. This should not be a radical concept.

 

[kingofsheeba]

Anyone who claims that transportation improvements is a ways to "kick people of color out" is a fucking moron. This isn't the days of taking homes for highways, we are literally making the one form of public transportation these very people rely on better. These are the same fools who shot the X28 down a decade ago. It's not about race, it's about power. They want a seat at the table for their neighborhood, and they SHOULD have one! But the knee-jerk reactionism race card play is so fucking transparent. It does the residents of these underserved neighborhoods more harm than good.

At least the city is listening to riders and residents now, but still. The argument that black folks don't ride bikes is also so fucking racist that it makes my very white head spin. These are not the people we need to be listening to.

You do understand that this is a part of Boston that had the fabric of their neighborhood destroyed for a failed I-95 connection, right? I’m multi-ethnic/multi-racial and the skepticism for anything that has to do with us is going to be real.

With that said, my only complaint about this road diet, bus lane is that the plan isn’t friendly to those with disabilities. That’s the big issue that I have here.

 

[real_EthanHunt]

Why, because its center running? Now, a person with disabilities (or anyone for that matter) has to cross the entire road once (inbound or outbound). With the proposed the crossing is just half way twice. 1 lane of general traffic each time or 4 lanes at once. I'd say that's an improvement not a negative.

 

[HenryAlan]

You do understand that this is a part of Boston that had the fabric of their neighborhood destroyed for a failed I-95 connection, right? anything that has to do with us is going to be real.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the project area, but I'm not aware of any SW Expressway clearing having taken place in Mattapan or Dorchester. It was all Roxbury, JP, and a little bit of Roslindale. Or do you mean that people displaced from those clearings migrated to the Blue Hill Ave. corridor? That's probably a good point, just what to be sure I understand what you are saying.

 

[kingofsheeba]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the project area, but I'm not aware of any SW Expressway clearing having taken place in Mattapan or Dorchester. It was all Roxbury, JP, and a little bit of Roslindale. Or do you mean that people displaced from those clearings migrated to the Blue Hill Ave. corridor? That's probably a good point, just what to be sure I understand what you are saying.

The later. Blue Hill Ave.

 

[DAVE]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the project area, but I'm not aware of any SW Expressway clearing having taken place in Mattapan or Dorchester. It was all Roxbury, JP, and a little bit of Roslindale. Or do you mean that people displaced from those clearings migrated to the Blue Hill Ave. corridor? That's probably a good point, just what to be sure I understand what you are saying.

Its interesting because my great grandmother was actually kicked out of her home along Canterbury street through eminent domain for the highway and moved to Mattapan near Blue Hill Ave.