General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

Delvin4519 said:
Axing the 77 back from Arlington Heights to Arlington Center would also be very useful in the event RLX to Arlington Heights is built. It's unnecessarily redundent to have the 77 to duplicate service between Arlington Heights and Arlington Center if the Red Line runs between the two places.
Click to expand...
No. There's a pronounced ridership bump-out around Mt. Vernon St. at the midpoint between Center and Heights that would be left un-served by the Red Line, since there isn't enough street grid affinity to fashion an extra Red intermediate stop somewhere around there. That bump-out + the not-inconsequential ridership at a few of the other stops between Mt. Vernon and Arlington Center means that too much would be left behind by truncating the 77. The route exceeds the T's frequent-route standard for OTP despite its heavy loading, so even with reduced loading from an RLX it's not a route that's got any crying performance reason to need a truncation. Bad idea.
1746835027100.png
 
CheapLeak said:
Also, how are the going to cram 2+ platforms at Roslindale with an OLX? They proposed it in Focus40, so there is clearly some way, but I. just don’t see it. I also don’t see a way to fit 4 tracks through most of that section, unless they will single track the Needham line.
Click to expand...
I've always assumed that an OLX+1 to Rozzie would eliminate the CR station that is currently there.
 
HenryAlan said:
I've always assumed that an OLX+1 to Rozzie would eliminate the CR station that is currently there.
Click to expand...
I always assumed the platforms would be staggered. For example, if you shift the Commuter Rail platform 300 ft west (over the bridge), then the CR and Orange Line platforms could be on opposite sides of the location of the current pedestrian underpass.
 
bigeman312 said:
I always assumed the platforms would be staggered. For example, if you shift the Commuter Rail platform 300 ft west (over the bridge), then the CR and Orange Line platforms could be on opposite sides of the location of the current pedestrian underpass.
Click to expand...
I agree that would work if the goal were to have both CR and OL, but it just never occurred to me that the Needham Line station would be preserved or reconfigured. I guess the question is whether enough riders would prefer transferring to Orange at Roslindale (or just deboarding to do things in the Square). If it seems likely that the numbers would be there, it might be worth the expense of building a staggered multi-modal station, which I guess is the sort of thing the study would answer.
 
HenryAlan said:
I agree that would work if the goal were to have both CR and OL, but it just never occurred to me that the Needham Line station would be preserved or reconfigured. I guess the question is whether enough riders would prefer transferring to Orange at Roslindale (or just deboarding to do things in the Square). If it seems likely that the numbers would be there, it might be worth the expense of building a staggered multi-modal station, which I guess is the sort of thing the study would answer.
Click to expand...
Don't Needham Line riders still have the option to transfer to OL at Forest Hills and Ruggles?

The only issue is with transfers to outbound buses, if most of the bus routes between Forest Hills and Roslindale right now are cut back to Roslindale after OL+1. However, that's a pretty minor issue. The West Roxbury section of the Needham Line also has the alternative of the 35/36 buses for this transfer, and I can't imagine many Needham residents seeking places south of Roslindale by bus.
 
Delvin4519 said:
(Stay tuned for the Spring 2025 update to the bus service hours metric in late May 2025, as for that, I would have to access to the historical delivered MBTA bus timepoints file for April 2025, which will not come out for another 2 months).
View attachment 61427
Click to expand...
As promised, the results for the bus service hours metric for Spring 2025:

I poured through the MBTA's "April 2025 bus arrival departure times" file, and extrated scheduled trips from Friday April 25th through Sunday April 27th (skipping any holiday weekends, and going with school vacation week so I can compare it with the school vacation week during Christmas 2019 pre-COVID).

Weekday scheduled bus service hours seems to be around 93% of pre-COVID hours, comparing scheduled service hours form Friday, April 25th, 2025 with Friday, December 27th, 2019.
Saturday scheduled bus service hours is somehow at 104% of pre-COVID hours (comparing Saturday April 26th, 2025 with Saturday, December 28th, 2019)
Sunday scheduled bus service hours is currently 118% of pre-COVID hours (Sunday April 27th, 2025 vs. Sunday, December 29th, 2019)

The discrepency seems to be there is 8-10% less scheduled trips, compared to scheduled hours, across the weekday, Saturday, and Sunday bus schedules, putting the MBTA's scheduled bus service hours at 95.7% of pre-COVID levels for the whole 7 day week, whereas the scheduled bus trips across the entire 7 day week is only ay 88.2%. The weekday situation is pretty bad (85.8% scheduled trips vs. 93.1% scheduled hours).

The MBTA is short of 1680-ish scheduled revenue service hours from reaching pre-COVID levels (does not include deadhead, non-revenue service hours).

I do not currently have extra bandwidth to do any additional testing or validation, but within what I can do for now, is the results I was able to extract from the data.

1747327377425.png
 
Last edited:
Delvin4519 said:
As promised, the results for the bus service hours metric for Spring 2025:

I poured through the MBTA's "April 2025 bus arrival departure times" file, and extrated scheduled trips from Friday April 25th through Sunday April 27th (skipping any holiday weekends, and going with school vacation week so I can compare it with the school vacation week during Christmas 2019 pre-COVID).

Weekday scheduled bus service hours seems to be around 93% of pre-COVID hours, comparing scheduled service hours form Friday, April 25th, 2025 with Friday, December 27th, 2019.
Saturday scheduled bus service hours is somehow at 104% of pre-COVID hours (comparing Saturday April 26th, 2025 with Saturday, December 28th, 2019)
Sunday scheduled bus service hours is currently 118% of pre-COVID hours (Sunday April 27th, 2025 vs. Sunday, December 29th, 2019)

The discrepency seems to be there is 8-10% less scheduled trips, compared to scheduled hours, across the weekday, Saturday, and Sunday bus schedules, putting the MBTA's scheduled bus service hours at 95.7% of pre-COVID levels for the whole 7 day week, whereas the scheduled bus trips across the entire 7 day week is only ay 88.2%. The weekday situation is pretty bad (85.8% scheduled trips vs. 93.1% scheduled hours).

The MBTA is short of 1680-ish scheduled revenue service hours from reaching pre-COVID levels (does not include deadhead, non-revenue service hours).

I do not currently have extra bandwidth to do any additional testing or validation, but within what I can do for now, is the results I was able to extract from the data.

View attachment 63177
Click to expand...
The systemwide percentages would make some sense to me when i think about my commutes into Cambridge from Medford. However, I don't think Medford sees more weekend service than prepandemic, now. I think my new city is maybe getting the shaft for the whole current bus service regime.
 
as02143 said:
The systemwide percentages would make some sense to me when i think about my commutes into Cambridge from Medford. However, I don't think Medford sees more weekend service than prepandemic, now. I think my new city is maybe getting the shaft for the whole current bus service regime.
Click to expand...
The entire corridor from Somerville, Medford, Charlestown, and Malden are the ones with the most service reductions. Everything from the 8x’s, 9x’s, and the 10x’s have reduced service pretty much every day.
 
Delvin4519 said:
The entire corridor from Somerville, Medford, Charlestown, and Malden are the ones with the most service reductions. Everything from the 8x’s, 9x’s, and the 10x’s have reduced service pretty much every day.
Click to expand...
Have you accounted for GLX in your analysis?

Many of the routes you mention as having the most service reductions are those whose service has been duplicated by GLX. Those should be the routes with the most reduction, logically, as replacing bus service with Green Line service is actually a service gain, not a service reduction.

Also, if your only metric is number of trips, a two seat bus <> Green Line trip would register in your assessment as preferential to a one seat Green Line ride, even though the reality is the opposite. How are you handling those instances, which specifically affect the 8x’s, 9x’s, and the 10x’s you call out as having the most service reductions.

How have you accounted for that?
 
bigeman312 said:
Have you accounted for GLX in your analysis?

Many of the routes you mention as having the most service reductions are those whose service has been duplicated by GLX. Those should be the routes with the most reduction, logically, as replacing bus service with Green Line service is actually a service gain, not a service reduction.

Also, if your only metric is number of trips, a two seat bus <> Green Line trip would register in your assessment as preferential to a one seat Green Line ride, even though the reality is the opposite. How are you handling those instances, which specifically affect the 8x’s, 9x’s, and the 10x’s you call out as having the most service reductions.

How have you accounted for that?
Click to expand...
Oh come on, the COVID and operator induced bus service cuts are mostly still in place still to this day.

Is this advocacy for less bus service? To this day, there is still no way to get from Medford/Tufts to Malden Center or Wellington on the frequent network without travelling all the way downtown. 2.5 years later and we still haven't restructured the bus network in the wake of the GLX. The 94 and 96 buses have had 33% bus service cuts so now there are no meaningful, useful last mile bus routes to get to the GLX. The 90 bus connecting Assembly with the GLX was also hit with a 25% service cut despite serving new growing neighborhoods and connecting it with the new rapid transit extension.

Bus service across the North Washington Street Bridge is down by 40-45% since pre-COVID and 50% down compared to 2009, with 25-35 minute headways at best during peak rush hours vs. every 15-20 off peak pre-COVID. We've built all this new bus lane infrastructure just to run barely even half the service that used to exist 3 - 5 years ago.

Bus routes 106 and 108 than ran 30 minute Saturday headways in Malden pre-COVID was axed down to hourly in Summer 2023 over operator shortages.

There are only 2 and a half routes that duplicate the GLX (87, 88, and the inner half of 80), and yet aside from the 80, they are still running mostly full service despite duplicating the GLX all the way from Lechmere to Gilman and Union Square. We should have immediately rerouted the 87 from Union Sq to Central instead of Lechmere when the Union Sq Branch opened in March 2022, and then killed the 88 completely with the Medford Branch the following December, extending the 90 to Clarendon to replace it, alongside extending the 96 to Malden to replace the 101, cutting the inner half of the 80 and rerouting it to Davis. The fact that none of this ever happened is a failure of the MBTA to provide last mile and crosstown circulation for the new rapid transit extension. That is an outright failure.

There are dozens and dozens of underserved corridors in the Somerville/Charlestown/Medford/Malden area that are supposed to complement the GLX, but were hit hard with COVID and operator service cuts. We are supposed to redeploy buses to build out the frequent grid of bus routes as we build new subway extensions. We should not just let the bus network make needless and useless duplications of the rapid transit network if half of our streetcar suburbs lack frequent transit service. There's good and bad ways to build coverage, resiliance, and redundency in the transit system, but what we have today and with the proposed RLX to Arlington Heights isn't it. Suggesting to cut bus service in the wake of a rail transit extension is also the worst possible suggestion to make if the streetcar suburb next door struggles to even get half hourly or hourly bus service to begin with. We should redeploy the buses elsewhere (i.e., redeploying bus service to the underserved 87/95 bus routes when the RL gets extended to A-Heights instead of duplicating A-Center to A-Heights)
 
Last edited:
bigeman312 said:
Have you accounted for GLX in your analysis?

Many of the routes you mention as having the most service reductions are those whose service has been duplicated by GLX. Those should be the routes with the most reduction, logically, as replacing bus service with Green Line service is actually a service gain, not a service reduction.

Also, if your only metric is number of trips, a two seat bus <> Green Line trip would register in your assessment as preferential to a one seat Green Line ride, even though the reality is the opposite. How are you handling those instances, which specifically affect the 8x’s, 9x’s, and the 10x’s you call out as having the most service reductions.

How have you accounted for that?
Click to expand...
Malden and Charlestown shouldn't really be seeing service decreases due to GLX, nor should my part of Medford. If anything we should be seeing different routes, reroutes, or new routes but the BNRD doesn't even give us that as a hope in the next 4 or so years.
 
as02143 said:
Malden and Charlestown shouldn't really be seeing service decreases due to GLX, nor should my part of Medford. If anything we should be seeing different routes, reroutes, or new routes but the BNRD doesn't even give us that as a hope in the next 4 or so years.
Click to expand...
Oh I absolutely agree. But Somerville should have seen a decrease in bus service and I want to learn about @Delvin4519 ’s methodology and if they have accounted for this major flaw in their methodology.

Especially now that phase 1 of BNRD has been implemented. A two-seat ride that runs three times an hour each being replaced by a one seat ride that runs four times an hour is a transit gain, but @Delvin4519 ’s methodology would count that as a transit loss. When you have major reroutes and extensions of frequent routes, like in Phase 1 of BNRD or extension of light rail services, a sound analysis would ensure that it is accounting for these realities.

I’m just curious, what, if anything, they are doing about this obvious flaw in their methodology.
 
bigeman312 said:
but @Delvin4519 ’s methodology would count that as a transit loss. When you have major reroutes and extensions of frequent routes, like in Phase 1 of BNRD or extension of light rail services, a sound analysis would ensure that it is accounting for these realities.
Click to expand...
Again with the advocacy for less bus service?

The MBTA should be running the same number of revenue bus service hours after a rail transit extension as before. The MBTA should have just redeployed the buses onto neighboring routes that are underserved, and still run the same service levels. Like I said, if you rerouted the 87 from Lechmere to Central you would still need the same number of buses to run the route, as otherwise you would just cut service and reduce frequency if you don't keep the service levels intact when rerouting the route to a different terminal.

As such cutting service in the wake of GLX, without doing service increases on neighboring routes, should correctly be shown as a penalty.

Also note that my metrics have 1 specific metric for "excluding discontinued routes". If a route is discontinued (like in BNRD), it is removed from the calculation and the calcuation only uses routes that exist today.

I've iterated in my post that Somerville should have seen service increases with various underserved destination pairs: Union <-> Central, Union <-> Davis, Malden <-> Davis via Medford, Assembly <-> Gilman; etc. Not a service cut.
 
Last edited:
Delvin4519 said:
Again with the advocacy for less bus service?

The MBTA should be running the same number of revenue bus service hours after a rail transit extension as before. The MBTA should have just redeployed the buses onto neighboring routes that are underserved, and still run the same service levels. Like I said, if you rerouted the 87 from Lechmere to Central you would still need the same number of buses to run the route, as otherwise you would just cut service and reduce frequency if you don't keep the service levels intact when rerouting the route to a different terminal.

As such cutting service in the wake of GLX, without doing service increases on neighboring routes, should correctly be shown as a penalty.

Also note that my metrics have 1 specific metric for "excluding discontinued routes". If a route is discontinued (like in BNRD), it is removed from the calculation and the calcuation only uses routes that exist today.

I've iterated in my post that Somerville should have seen service increases with various underserved destination pairs: Union <-> Central, Union <-> Davis, Malden <-> Davis via Medford, Assembly <-> Gilman; etc. Not a service cut.
Click to expand...
Let’s elevate this discussion a bit.

Let’s look at the 109* as an example. The 109 used to operate 50 round trips per day and now operates 100. By your methodology, that would be counted as a 100% increase in service. The problem is, the round trips now are not the same as the round trips then. The 109 has been extended, meaning your methodology undercounts the actual service improvement to this corridor.

Now let’s consider revenue miles. The 109 used to be 9.2 miles per round trip and is now 14.2 miles. That’s an increase from 460 to 1,420 revenue miles per day, a 209% increase in service. This reflects a far more accurate picture of the actual investment and coverage increase than a simple trip count.

The only thing I’m advocating for is better data analysis. Why aren’t you on board with improving methodology, when the flaws are pointed out? You aren’t your methodology and this isn’t a personal attack.

*My data may not match the exact data set you’re using (I’m using 2018 figures), but the numbers illustrate the concept clearly for anyone seeking to analyze the most accurate and representative metrics.
 
bigeman312 said:
Let’s elevate this discussion a bit.

Let’s look at the 109* as an example. The 109 used to operate 50 round trips per day and now operates 100. By your methodology, that would be counted as a 100% increase in service. The problem is, the round trips now are not the same as the round trips then. The 109 has been extended, meaning your methodology undercounts the actual service improvement to this corridor.

Now let’s consider revenue miles. The 109 used to be 9.2 miles per round trip and is now 14.2 miles. That’s an increase from 460 to 1,420 revenue miles per day, a 209% increase in service. This reflects a far more accurate picture of the actual investment and coverage increase than a simple trip count.

The only thing I’m advocating for is better data analysis. Why aren’t you on board with improving methodology, when the flaws are pointed out? You aren’t your methodology and this isn’t a personal attack.

*My data may not match the exact data set you’re using (I’m using 2018 figures), but the numbers illustrate the concept clearly for anyone seeking to analyze the most accurate and representative metrics.
Click to expand...
The reverse is also true for the 86. The 86 was cut in half and so by that metric, it only needs half the service to run the same number of trips. Even the TransitMatters COVID recovery dashboard data isn't able to compare apples to apples. The ridership numbers for the BNRD routes are essentially meaningless when you try to compare pre and post BNRD using TransitMatter's data.

With that being said, if TransitMatters is able to come up with a way to compare apples to apples, I would be happy to hear their solution and what they did.

Each metric has it's use cases with pros and cons.

The "number of trips" metric is primarily useful in measuring specific routes and whether they have frequency increases or decreases. The MBTA generally does not do drastic or complete overhauls to bus routes that often, and so most of the time, it is able to be used for most schedule changes. It is also the fastest metric that I can update at this time, and so when a new schedule is announced and posted, that metric is the first to update before the new rating goes live. The metric is also useful in that if a route has more traffic requiring it to run less service, then this metric will show that accordingly.

The "scheduled revenue service hours" is more resiliant to bus route overhauls, and as such, is very useful in that regard. The biggest downside is that this metric is much slower for me to update, and so there is a 6 - 10 week delay in this metric updating to reflect the latest ongoing bus schedule. (It's also just more cumbersome to get this data as well). The other downside is that this metric fails to show bus routes getting slower due to traffic and requiring fewer trips and frequency in light of traffic getting worse. As such, this metric can't show that.

As such, it is best to have both metrics around and understanding their use cases and limitations. I suppose the other useful metric (which I don't have the bandwidth currently to analyze) is scheduled revenue service kilometers/miles, which that data is much much more harder to analyze. Though it would do well in capturing both service levels, number of trips, traffic congestion, and is resiliant to bus route overhauls.

In the case of the 109, if a route had 50 trips before and now runs 100, then it is correct that the frequency only doubled. The frequency did not triple even if you run triple the revenue service hours. You're only waiting half the headway instead of 1/3rd of the headway. A longer route takes longer to cycle and so if you want the same frequency, you do need more service hours to make up the extra difference. So a bus running every 30 minutes pre-BNRD is only running every 15 now, not every 10, because the route length was doubled.
 
Last edited:
Delvin4519 said:
The reverse is also true for the 86. The 86 was cut in half and so by that metric, it only needs half the service to run the same number of trips. Even the TransitMatters COVID recovery dashboard data isn't able to compare apples to apples. The ridership numbers for the BNRD routes are essentially meaningless when you try to compare pre and post BNRD using TransitMatter's data.

With that being said, if TransitMatters is able to come up with a way to compare apples to apples, I would be happy to hear their solution and what they did.

Each metric has it's use cases with pros and cons.

The "number of trips" metric is primarily useful in measuring specific routes and whether they have frequency increases or decreases. The MBTA generally does not do drastic or complete overhauls to bus routes that often, and so most of the time, it is able to be used for most schedule changes. It is also the fastest metric that I can update at this time, and so when a new schedule is announced and posted, that metric is the first to update before the new rating goes live. The metric is also useful in that if a route has more traffic requiring it to run less service, then this metric will show that accordingly.

The "scheduled revenue service hours" is more resiliant to bus route overhauls, and as such, is very useful in that regard. The biggest downside is that this metric is much slower for me to update, and so there is a 6 - 10 week delay in this metric updating to reflect the latest ongoing bus schedule. (It's also just more cumbersome to get this data as well). The other downside is that this metric fails to show bus routes getting slower due to traffic and requiring fewer trips and frequency in light of traffic getting worse. As such, this metric can't show that.

As such, it is best to have both metrics around and understanding their use cases and limitations. I suppose the other useful metric (which I don't have the bandwidth currently to analyze) is scheduled revenue service kilometers/miles, which that data is much much more harder to analyze. Though it would do well in capturing both service levels, number of trips, traffic congestion, and is resiliant to bus route overhauls.

In the case of the 109, if a route had 50 trips before and now runs 100, then it is correct that the frequency only doubled. The frequency did not triple even if you run triple the revenue service hours. You're only waiting half the headway instead of 1/3rd of the headway. A longer route takes longer to cycle and so if you want the same frequency, you do need more service hours to make up the extra difference. So a bus running every 30 minutes pre-BNRD is only running every 15 now, not every 10, because the route length was doubled.
Click to expand...
Even for your intended purpose of measuring frequency, the trip count metric doesn’t hold up when routes are restructured. It fails to reflect actual frequency or coverage for riders in corridors where service has shifted. In the case of the 86 and 109, the 86 went from 57 to 65 round trips per day, and the 109 went from 50 to 100. Your metric shows a 54% increase in service across the two routes. But a large portion of the old 86, particularly between Harvard and Sullivan, is now served by the much more frequent 109. Your metric treats those as separate changes, but for riders in that corridor, service has clearly improved in a way that trip count misses.

Looking at revenue miles makes this clearer. The 86 went from 13.4 to 8.4 miles per round trip, and the 109 from 9.2 to 14.2. That’s a drop from 764 to 546 revenue miles on the 86 and a jump from 460 to 1420 on the 109. Combined, the corridor went from 1224 to 1966 revenue miles: a 61 percent increase in service. That reflects both the extension and the increased frequency in a way your trip count metric cannot.

This difference would be far more pronounced in Somerville, where GLX service improvements are primarily by extending trips (into Somerville/Medford), rather than adding trips.

While I can empathize with the fact that number of trips is easier data to come by, it’s still important to note the limitations of that methodology.
 
One thing I haven't seen brought up yet is bunching, which can make two trips act like one. If you eliminate a trip that's almost always bunched from the schedule, that's not really cutting service. No that's not every case, or even most cases, but it definitely makes the comparison between "Trips" and "Service" harder to make.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top