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As a current SF resident, the Waymos are pretty awful. They almost entirely pick up and drop off in travel lanes - there does not seem to be any effort to have them pull to the curb even if space is available. Any pickup/dropoff on a busy street blocks traffic and transit. That also means they...

Ashnot, these are INCREDIBLE. I've been avoiding these two for a while because of their weird layouts and the lack of good plans available. How did you manage to make them?

I think there's a potential market specifically because it wouldn't be colocated with the Red Line station - a station with access from Alewife Brook Parkway and Wheeler (both sides of the tracks) could serve the south side of the tracks rather better. There's been a fair bit of development...

That's a big aspect that doesn't seem to be successful (yet): how quickly a crowd of people can go through the gates. On the rapid transit system, the faregates read cards fast and open fast. From my limited experience, the North Station gates seemed much slower.

Bus lanes, bus bulbs, and transit signal priority. If you can save 10% of cycle time* on a route that uses 10 buses, you can run the same service with 9 buses. Or run 10 buses on shorter headways and attract more riders. *Cycle time is the scheduled time for round trip travel time, plus...

I stumbled across a 2024 FTA facilities inventory. Filtered it down to the MBTA, colored by mode, here it is. It's definitely not 100% reliable - some locations are clearly in the wrong place - but definitely provides some interesting information about the individual buildings at yards.

And the frustrating part is that it could be good! It has gorgeous tile floors, a (normally) airy atrium, and some of the best public art on the system. The station interior itself doesn't need much more than basic maintenance and better lighting. As for everything else, besides better...

And the remaining answers: 2: Mass Ave between Harvard and North Cambridge (routes 79 and 82, now route 77 and 77A), and Warren Street between Dudley and Walnut Avenue (routes 19, 22, 23, and 44). Warren is still one of the busiest bus corridors, with about 20 per hour in each direction at rush...

For whatever reason, the crosstown lines (predecessors of the modern 47 and 91) went through Central rather than Harvard. Harvard didn't have any crosstown service until the bus era.

2: Still open. If we're including bus frequency, I'm sure that section of Talbot (and maybe Huntington) would be in the sub-minute frequency range. However, only two of the routes on that part of Talbot, and only one on that part of Huntington, were streetcars. 4.1: Correct. The was a horsecar...

Last call for guesses, otherwise I'll post the answers sometime Monday afternoon. I try to make these quizzes hard but not too hard! The answers to 4.1 and 6, and some clues to 2, can be found in old maps. 2 and 6 are definitely mentioned in BSRA books as well. Everything in 10 comes from public...

Anecdotally, it seems a much higher percentage of them live in the suburbs and drive to work compared to their equivalents at the MBTA or the city transportation departments. And not just the greybeards either - I once attended a meetup for young(ish) transportation professionals, and met a...

Great work you two! One or both of you got most correct; a few still remain open. 1: Ratmeister got both. Prior to 1987, there was no Dudley-Mattapan route. (The 1 was [re]created in 1962 as a through-routing of existing services. The extension of the 66 to Harvard was during the MBTA era, but...

The key routes designated in 2004-05 (routes 1, 15, 22, 23, 28, 32, 39, 57, 66, 71, 73, 77, 111, 116, 117) are largely replaced in MBTA publications with the frequent routes. Some questions about them (and BNRD): Which two routes were created during the MBTA era? Which of them was on a routing...

Obviously I'm in the "transit + ped + bike should always be priorities" camp, but this location is especially important. It's such a choke point for so many modes, with no alternate routes for a mile on either side. The vast majority of auto trips through the intersection can and should be...

South Coast Rail was in planning for 25 years and in construction for 4 years. Every single alignment used that section of track. The station was planned for that site beginning in 2018. I'm not really sure what they expected.

The garage is supposedly big enough for 120 buses: https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/2021-11/2021-11-18-quincy-bus-facility-mod-meeting-presentation.pdf_1.pdf Perhaps the 88 is just sufficient for existing service?

The cut was already planned by May 2022. It's strange that Somerville still constructed the islands well after that.

An interesting oddity from the service changes effective today: the cutback of route 85 to Bow Street is now permanent. The cut occurred in July 2023 due to street construction; it was supposed to be short-lived, but was never reversed for reasons that aren't clear. (It was also planned as part...

Part of it is a self-inflicted wound - it appears that internal policy insists on applying tunnel egress standards to non-tunnel stations, requires backup generators at every station, and other cost-bloating factors. But I fully agree - this is not a station that should be horrendously...