The Official MBTA System Map

[TheRatmeister]

Have you ever tried to take that #47? You'll be in traffic on the BU Bridge for days.

It is still quicker to take the #66 bus and just go inbound. Take the #1 and go outbound.(though this is getting much much slower since bike lanes on the Mass Ave Bridge.)
Or take the Red Line to Green and go outbound. OR-- try to blend in with the students and use Harvard/MIT's LMA shuttles. These cuts out all the tons of stops and thus picks up some time. Or take Uber/Lyft direct from home which is the fastest option and you'l have less stress plus a guaranteed place to sit.

Are you trying to argue that the 47 isn't an important crosstown route? Because the ridership figures definitely don't agree with you there. If anything the stretch over the BU bridge is the most important, with incredibly high peak loads, even higher than the 1 or 66 at their busiest.

 

[bigeman312]

Seeing this map makes one realize how dumb and silly it is for the MBTA to have the 22 duplicate the Orange Line between Ruggles and Jackson Square. We already have the Orange Line between Ruggles and Jackson Square, so the MBTA's decision to keep the 22 between Jackson Square and Ruggles is redundent and an unnecessary waste of buses, with how anemic the bus network is. If you want to get between Ruggles and Jackson Square, the Orange Line already exists as the more reliable option. Huge missed and wasted opportunity for the MBTA reroute the 22 from Jackson Square to Brookline Village to alleviate pressure off the 66 and provide the extra crosstown connectivity.

It's not dumb at all. Let me chime in as an occassional 22 rider who also nerds out to T data to explain why it's not dumb.

Some very common trips that I and other 22 riders take:

• 8/19/47/CT2/CT3/Longwood Shuttle <-> 22, transferring at Ruggles. This is the best way to travel between the 22 corridor and LMA, Fenway, and Cambridgeport.
  • You are proposing turning this two-seat ride into a three-seat ride, which would be a transit loss.
• Directly to/from Ruggles. Ruggles sits at the heart of a major destination for employment, learning, etc.
  • You are proposing eliminating the one-seat ride to this major center from a transit dependent area. Huge loss.

 

[Delvin4519]

It's not dumb at all. Let me chime in as an occassional 22 rider who also nerds out to T data to explain why it's not dumb.

Some very common trips that I and other 22 riders take:

• 8/19/47/CT2/CT3/Longwood Shuttle <-> 22, transferring at Ruggles. This is the best way to travel between the 22 corridor and LMA, Fenway, and Cambridgeport.
  • You are proposing turning this two-seat ride into a three-seat ride, which would be a transit loss.
• Directly to/from Ruggles. Ruggles sits at the heart of a major destination for employment, learning, etc.
  • You are proposing eliminating the one-seat ride to this major center from a transit dependent area. Huge loss.

The 22 can still be extended from Brookline Village to LMA to meet the 8 and the 47 bus.

Also most of the 22 is within walking distance of a north south route. If you're noth of Egleston, the OL can take you to Ruggles from Jackson Sq., or the 42 to Nubian. Along Franklin Park, the 44, 45, and the 28 all provide the connection to Nubian/Ruggles, which can be used in lieu of the 22. If you're in Dorchester towards Talbot Ave., both the Fairmount Line and the 23 provide the connection to Nubian based bus routes. Almost all of the 22 bus have these alternative north-south transit connections to access Nubian/Ruggles based bus routes.

Converting the 22 to an east-west route extending frequent service into JP, connecting Brookline Village and Jackson Sq. with LMA via Heath St. and Brookline Ave. would provide an alternative to the 66, improve west-south connections between Brookline and OL southside, and get JP residents to ditch their cars with high frequency service between Riverway, Jackson Sq., and Egleston.

You want the bus system to form an effective frequent grid for more efficency, which allows more frequent routes and connections systemwide.

I'm not sure what's with this panic that the 22 is the sole connection to Nubian and Ruggles from the southside, and sending it to Brookline Village to reach LMA will cripple southside access. Did AB forget that the 42, 44, 45, 23, 28, and the Fairmount Line all exist?

 

[bigeman312]

The 22 can still be extended from Brookline Village to LMA to meet the 8 and the 47 bus.

Also most of the 22 is within walking distance of a north south route. If you're noth of Egleston, the OL can take you to Ruggles from Jackson Sq., or the 42 to Nubian. Along Franklin Park, the 44, 45, and the 28 all provide the connection to Nubian/Ruggles, which can be used in lieu of the 22. If you're in Dorchester towards Talbot Ave., both the Fairmount Line and the 23 provide the connection to Nubian based bus routes. Almost all of the 22 bus have these alternative north-south transit connections to access Nubian/Ruggles based bus routes.

Converting the 22 to an east-west route extending frequent service into JP, connecting Brookline Village and Jackson Sq. with LMA via Heath St. and Brookline Ave. would provide an alternative to the 66, improve west-south connections between Brookline and OL southside, and get JP residents to ditch their cars with high frequency service between Riverway, Jackson Sq., and Egleston.

You want the bus system to form an effective frequent grid for more efficency, which allows more frequent routes and connections systemwide.

I'm not sure what's with this panic that the 22 is the sole connection to Nubian and Ruggles from the southside, and sending it to Brookline Village to reach LMA will cripple southside access. Did AB forget that the 42, 44, 45, 23, 28, and the Fairmount Line all exist?

You’ve moved the goalposts closer to a good idea by pivoting from your original Brookline Village terminus to an LMA terminus. That retains many of the connections that 22 riders use.

Why connect via Heath St, which has no clear path to robust infrastructure, and is a slower more traffic-laden route to LMA, instead of sending it via Roxbury Crossing and the upcoming center-running bus lanes? Is the connection to Riverway and Brookline Village worth the extra travel time?

Your current proposal is far superior to your original proposal, but I still don’t see why you need to remove the Columbus Ave bus route. Do you also want to truncate the 77 to Porter because it’s “dumb” that it duplicates the Red Line or do you at least see the utility in connecting to Harvard and those bus connections there? If so, why don’t you recognize the value for 22 riders?

If you think the lack of east-west connection here is a problem (I agree), why not simply add a new bus route that would actually better address this gap, not at the expense of a currently successful route?

For example, Fields Corner <-> Brookline Village would fill a gap if added as a new route. It could go via Quincy St and MLK Blvd (corridors that are seriously lacking in service, especially east-west service). It could go via Jackson and Heath St, just like you’d like.

Essentially, the question isn’t why do you want more east-west service. You just spent a long post answering that when nobody is disagreeing with that. The question is why do you feel the need to remove an already successful bus connection that is one of the highest ridership routes in the system?

You didn’t present this as “we need more east-west connections.” You presented this as “having the 22 duplicate the Orange Line is dumb.” While I appreciate you pivoting a bit closer to reality, which is preserving more of the 22’s current connection, why not pivot a bit mor of the way back and retain the Roxbury Crossing connection?

 

[Delvin4519]

You’ve moved the goalposts closer to a good idea by pivoting from your original Brookline Village terminus to an LMA terminus. That retains many of the connections that 22 riders use.

Why connect via Heath St, which has no clear path to robust infrastructure, and is a slower more traffic-laden route to LMA, instead of sending it via Roxbury Crossing and the upcoming center-running bus lanes? Is the connection to Riverway and Brookline Village worth the extra travel time?

Your current proposal is far superior to your original proposal, but I still don’t see why you need to remove the Columbus Ave bus route. Do you also want to truncate the 77 to Porter because it’s “dumb” that it duplicates the Red Line or do you at least see the utility in connecting to Harvard and those bus connections there? If so, why don’t you recognize the value for 22 riders?

If you think the lack of east-west connection here is a problem (I agree), why not simply add a new bus route that would actually better address this gap, not at the expense of a currently successful route?

For example, Fields Corner <-> Brookline Village would fill a gap if added as a new route. It could go via Quincy St and MLK Blvd (corridors that are seriously lacking in service, especially east-west service). It could go via Jackson and Heath St, just like you’d like.

Essentially, the question isn’t why do you want more east-west service. You just spent a long post answering that when nobody is disagreeing with that. The question is why do you feel the need to remove an already successful bus connection that is one of the highest ridership routes in the system?

You didn’t present this as “we need more east-west connections.” You presented this as “having the 22 duplicate the Orange Line is dumb.” While I appreciate you pivoting a bit closer to reality, which is preserving more of the 22’s current connection, why not pivot a bit mor of the way back and retain the Roxbury Crossing connection?

OL southside has spare capacity, where crowding issues on the OL tend to plauge the northside more than on the southside. The 66 bus is also one of the T's buses that experiences heavy crowding. In addition, Jackson Square to Nubian and Jackson Square to Brookline Village today only have hourly bus service.

This means that the transit options at Jackson Square are quite limited, with the only high frequency corrdiors duplicating one other with the 22 and the OL, and the 66 is heavily crowded as the sole crosstown route in the area. Given constrained bus resources, we should try to avoid having bus routes duplicate subway lines, and we should also try to avoid having urban bus corridors with hourly service. The best way to avoid both issues with one stone is sending the 22 westwards from Jackson Sq. to continue it's east-west trajectory. If you are at Franklin Park or Ashmont and want to get to Roxbury Crossing, we already have the 23, 28, and the 44 that provides this connection. LMA already has the BNRD's T28 and T66 to Roxbury Crossing, so the 22 is redundent in that regard. Sending the 22 to Heath St means that LMA would have OSR to Heath St, which no other bus route provides aside from a 10 - 12 minute walk from Brookline Ave & Longwood Ave. to the 39; increasing network connectivity (altough Heath St. is relatively close in to LMA).

In addition, the more bus routes you have means you get less frequent service as it gets spread thin. If you want frequent transit, you want the fewest number of routes possible to maximize frequency.

 

[TheRatmeister]

Quick change to match the new "Regional Rail" change turned into a bigger update with thicker lines, which was surprisingly difficult, actually. As always I'm sure this added a few mistakes, I think I got most of them but something or other has surely slipped through.

 

[HenryAlan]

I like the way the thicker lines give added emphasis, which makes sense with the idea of a transition to regional rail over commuter rail. The purple rail system will become a far more important part of the overall transit picture and therefore merits the thicker lines. I'm not sure if you did this as part of the conversion, or whether it was already there in the original map, unnoticed by me, but I'm curious about your placement of the Worcester line between where it parallels the B-Line. Shouldn't it be cross over northward after BU Central?

 

[TheRatmeister]

I like the way the thicker lines give added emphasis, which makes sense with the idea of a transition to regional rail over commuter rail. The purple rail system will become a far more important part of the overall transit picture and therefore merits the thicker lines. I'm not sure if you did this as part of the conversion, or whether it was already there in the original map, unnoticed by me, but I'm curious about your placement of the Worcester line between where it parallels the B-Line. Shouldn't it be cross over northward after BU Central?

You're right, that is a "lie" on this map. It's done to minimize the overlap with text, and the official map makes the same tradeoff. (Although it lies way more about the location of Boston Landing, I've kept it closer to its actual location.)

 

[thepixelnation]

I don't know if anyone has commented on it before, but I love the inclusion of parks, esp. the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Makes it feel like it has more presence in the city than the reality of it actually being a park in the city.

Would you include the green of the Comm Ave Mall? It's a bit thin but would further connect Emerald Necklace connected.

 

[TheRatmeister]

I don't know if anyone has commented on it before, but I love the inclusion of parks, esp. the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Makes it feel like it has more presence in the city than the reality of it actually being a park in the city.

Would you include the green of the Comm Ave Mall? It's a bit thin but would further connect Emerald Necklace connected.

The parks have been a tricky balance to get right. My first version included way too many, and I've since cut back to what I consider the essentials, but even this current version still includes the Mt Auburn Cemetery which is obviously unlike the others, I just think it's a nice anchor to that part of the map.

As for the Comm Ave Mall, I don't know. Charlesgate was removed since it's a car dominated hellscape masquerading as green space, so I probably wouldn't actually connect them, it would just be a weird finger coming out from the Public Garden.

 

[thepixelnation]

The parks have been a tricky balance to get right. My first version included way too many, and I've since cut back to what I consider the essentials, but even this current version still includes the Mt Auburn Cemetery which is obviously unlike the others, I just think it's a nice anchor to that part of the map.

As for the Comm Ave Mall, I don't know. Charlesgate was removed since it's a car dominated hellscape masquerading as green space, so I probably wouldn't actually connect them, it would just be a weird finger coming out from the Public Garden.

Totally see you on finding the balance. I think it would be better to just fix charlesgate rather than have to fix it on your map, they're kind of assholes for doing that to you.

Mt Auburn Cemetery draws a good amount of people not looking to pay respects. I know it's big in the birding community. It deserves to be there.