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The express buses do have the ability to charge local fares, but the driver has to hit a button on the farebox at the request of the passenger. In general*, fares on public transit should be solely based on distance, not type/speed of service. That allows riders to choose which service is best...

It's always fascinated me how the railroads completely avoided Burlington. Only a handful of municipalities in eastern MA didn't have any mainline rail at all. By my count, only 11 east of Worcester didn't: West Newbury, Burlington, Dracut, Pembroke, Norwell, Rehoboth, Acushnet, Mashpee, plus...

I do agree that place-identity names are preferable, especially for more regional services. I don't mind "Englewood Avenue" and "Chiswick Road" for more residential stops on the Green Line branches, as they fit the scale of the area that the stops are serving, and there won't always be...

"You want the benefits of the metro region, you have to do your fair share to support it. Your town's share of new transit-accessible housing units is XYZ. If they're not built or under active construction by 2030, you lose all local zoning/approval of multi-unit housing other than enforcing the...

I suspect South Attleboro is going to see extremely limited ridership with this service. While it's a bit more convenient to I-95 and US 1A, P/CF has more trains, bus connections, and more surrounding density. Cynically, I wonder if this is an attempt to say "look, no one's using South Attleboro...

The reconfiguration of Tower 1 interlocking at South Station is under way - the main construction contract was awarded last year. That should streamline movements through the "throat" and increase capacity a bit. Additionally, as Koopzilla pointed out, dwell times shouldn't be terribly...

Aside from the Lechmere Viaduct, which is a very strange case of moving the goalposts, I know that the primary reason for the lowering of speeds for the Riverside Line (and thus the GLX mainline) is the Type 8s. Their poorly-designed center trucks have a bad habit of derailing above 40 mph, and...

MassDOT is considering Albany-Pittsfield bus service (presumably Amtrak Thruway) to begin after the Berkshire Flyer season ends. I like the idea - it's presumably less expensive than extending an Empire Service train...

This was the original alignment of the Saugus Branch - it was a B&M branch intended to steal Lynn traffic from the Eastern. It opened in February 1853; the Eastern bought the line in 1855 to end the competition. That October, they extended it south to Everett Junction and removed the connection...

That doesn't let you do auto doors, so you're limited to doors with a conductor, which kills your dwell times. To do auto doors with a 6-car set, you need 510 feet (plus 20 or so extra for margin of error). Platforms really are not the expensive part of building stations - it's just footings...

After several years of doing slightly better, there's been a recent downturn in meeting transparency. Presentations simply aren't getting posted on the website any more.

I'm a fan of the double-sided sign with larger text - that will make a big difference in legibility. I'm not a huge fan of the design of the every-15-minutes logo - I'd rather see good branding like the "T" prefix - but it's not awful. My main comment in the survey was that when multiple routes...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360_Newbury_Street

I think spacing depends a lot on what the plan is for serving the LMA - i.e, whether the Huntington mainline is the primary access from the rapid transit network. If it is, then you need station entrances as close to Francis and Longwood as possible, which lends itself to a 1500' spacing. The...

I don't think it's significant enough to make a difference, though the MBTA has origin-destination data for subway trips that would verify that. From my experience, undergrad and grad students mostly tended to live on the B or 57, and professors tended to the western suburbs. Non-academic staff...

It's heavily weighted towards the LMA, for which the current service pattern of the D and E is intended. Ridership between North Station and the B, C, and the rest of the D isn't much. It would be nice to have the C run to North Station to untangle its headways from the B and to spread the load...

While I still place the blame 99% on the NIMBYism of Milton, the MBTA didn't do the state any favors. They let the main stairs to Milton station deteriorate, kept them closed for 5 years, then demolished them rather than repair. In a sane world, the town could have used the poor Mattapan...

Yes, slowly working through all of New England. I plan to release it as kml/shapefile for others once it's in a reasonable state of completion.

Maroon is the Eastern Railroad and the Chelsea Beach Branch. Purple is the Boston, Winthrop and Shore Railroad. Blue is the BRB&L, including the 1890s realignment.

I tend to be iffy on most infill stations; the value proposition often isn't great, especially since it lengthens the ride for everyone not using the station. Many of the existing stations are at nodes where bus routes, walk/bike corridors, commercial squares, etc all come together, so you get...