Comm Ave Bridge Replacement.

Went through there Friday evening, & it was a bitch trying to get home!! The trolley went one stop from Kenmore. Had to get off at Blanford Street, wait for a Peter Pan Bus there .The driver made everyone get off again & wait for another trolley the rest of the way!! Ridiculous!!!! :mad:
 
Jahvon09 said:
Went through there Friday evening, & it was a bitch trying to get home!! The trolley went one stop from Kenmore. Had to get off at Blanford Street, wait for a Peter Pan Bus there .The driver made everyone get off again & wait for another trolley the rest of the way!! Ridiculous!!!! :mad:
Click to expand...

I mean... not really, they have pretty upfront about this for awhile. Two weeks of pain will be better than months/years.
 
Posted in the general mbta thread but should have posted it here.

From my experience, I just want to say, the Peter Pan buses that are shuttling between the B line stops of Babcock Street and Blandford Street are traveling 3 times faster than the B line. If they want to rehabilitate all the tracks to BC and run the shuttle through every stop, I'm all for it.

I honestly believe that if they were to end the B line at Blandford St, dig up the tracks and convert it to a car lanes then convert the lanes closest to the side walk on Commonwealth Ave into a Bus lane and run articulate buses, the travel time into downtown would be considerably faster than what exists today.

Coming into work this morning, I was able to cut my transit time by 10-15 minutes, so shuttle away for me.

Also I live off Warren Street so I had to do trolley to bus to trolley as well.
 
"From my experience, I just want to say, the Peter Pan buses that are shuttling between the B line stops of Babcock Street and Blandford Street are traveling 3 times faster than the B line."

There's also no through traffic allowed on Comm Ave right now. So yeah, buses are fast when there's very little traffic. :p
 
cden4 said:
"From my experience, I just want to say, the Peter Pan buses that are shuttling between the B line stops of Babcock Street and Blandford Street are traveling 3 times faster than the B line."

There's also no through traffic allowed on Comm Ave right now. So yeah, buses are fast when there's very little traffic. :p
Click to expand...

Hence why I propose that they put a bus lane through Comm Ave and get rid of the B line tracks. No traffic in the bus lane.

The other idea to improve the speed of the B line is to limit the number of intersections where cars can cross the tracks. For example cars coming out of Pleasant Street and St. Paul Street would have to turn onto Commonwealth Ave and U-turn at Babcock Street or Forsythe Street (depending on which direction they are heading) to get onto the other side. This should also apply to Granby and Blandford Street so that cars cannot cross the tracks there. This would give long stretches on the B line where they would not need to stop at a traffic light.
 
KentXie said:
Hence why I propose that they put a bus lane through Comm Ave and get rid of the B line tracks. No traffic in the bus lane.

The other idea to improve the speed of the B line is to limit the number of intersections where cars can cross the tracks. For example cars coming out of Pleasant Street and St. Paul Street would have to turn onto Commonwealth Ave and U-turn at Babcock Street or Forsythe Street (depending on which direction they are heading) to get onto the other side. This should also apply to Granby and Blandford Street so that cars cannot cross the tracks there. This would give long stretches on the B line where they would not need to stop at a traffic light.
Click to expand...

First of all, aren't most of the lights on Comm Ave through the closure off right now?

Second, could buses even support the B-Line's current capacity?

Third, I actually wrote a post in the Green Line Reconfiguration thread on getting rid of the lights on each side of BU East.
 
KentXie said:
Hence why I propose that they put a bus lane through Comm Ave and get rid of the B line tracks. No traffic in the bus lane.

The other idea to improve the speed of the B line is to limit the number of intersections where cars can cross the tracks. For example cars coming out of Pleasant Street and St. Paul Street would have to turn onto Commonwealth Ave and U-turn at Babcock Street or Forsythe Street (depending on which direction they are heading) to get onto the other side. This should also apply to Granby and Blandford Street so that cars cannot cross the tracks there. This would give long stretches on the B line where they would not need to stop at a traffic light.
Click to expand...

Are the ridership #s the same as regular B-Line Service? I have a couple friends that are just taking the extra 5/10/15 minute walk over to the C-Line to avoid the shuttles/transfers after they sent out the consistent message about allowing extra travel time (I did it myself). So could more riders = slower bus speeds (from longer boardings) and therefore buses end up being the same speed as the current B-Line, or the ridership #'s match, or do they even matter?
 
whittle said:
First of all, aren't most of the lights on Comm Ave through the closure off right now?

Second, could buses even support the B-Line's current capacity?

Third, I actually wrote a post in the Green Line Reconfiguration thread on getting rid of the lights on each side of BU East.
Click to expand...

I would say in terms of capacity, I think yes if they run it frequently enough using articulated buses which I believe holds the same capacity if not more than the coach buses they are using right now. In addition, buses running between BC and Kenmore are not susceptible to congestion issues that the B line face when traveling between Park St and Kenmore where there are 2-3 other lines which can create inconsistent headway between the current train and the next train which in turn can slow boarding time due to crowding at the station. With a dedicated bus lane plus the ability to use normal traffic lanes, buses can "bypass" a slower bus ahead if needed and have the option to run express routes that skips certain stops, something the B line cant' do.

Also, considering how much wider Commonwealth Ave is without the tracks and the space dedicated for the station platform on each side (each side of the track looks like they are wide enough to support two traffic lanes), another idea is to create 4 lanes in the middle but reduce one lane on the edge and widen the sidewalk on each side of Commonwealth Ave. For bus stops that are skipped on "express routes", you can create a "bus stop lane" by indenting the now wider sidewalk so that a local bus can pull completely out of the dedicated bus lane, allowing express buses to bypass local buses without changing to normal traffic lanes.

The real problem then becomes whether Kenmore and Blandford can handle the crush load of dropping all passengers on those stops
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted by Jahvon09 View Post
Went through there Friday evening, & it was a bitch trying to get home!! The trolley went one stop from Kenmore. Had to get off at Blanford Street, wait for a Peter Pan Bus there .The driver made everyone get off again & wait for another trolley the rest of the way!! Ridiculous!!!!

bakgwailo said:
I mean... not really, they have pretty upfront about this for awhile. Two weeks of pain will be better than months/years.
Click to expand...

I agree with you 100%, bakgwailo. Jahvon09 may be the only person living in Eastern Massachusetts who didn't receive the message that has been blasted out in large neon letters for the past 3 months "STAY AWAY FROM THE AREA BETWEEN July 26 - AUGUST 11".

Don't blame the electric company if you put your finger in a wall socket.
 
KentXie said:
I would say in terms of capacity, I think yes if they run it frequently enough using articulated buses which I believe holds the same capacity if not more than the coach buses they are using right now. In addition, buses running between BC and Kenmore are not susceptible to congestion issues that the B line face when traveling between Park St and Kenmore where there are 2-3 other lines which can create inconsistent headway between the current train and the next train which in turn can slow boarding time due to crowding at the station. With a dedicated bus lane plus the ability to use normal traffic lanes, buses can "bypass" a slower bus ahead if needed and have the option to run express routes that skips certain stops, something the B line cant' do.

Also, considering how much wider Commonwealth Ave is without the tracks and the space dedicated for the station platform on each side (each side of the track looks like they are wide enough to support two traffic lanes), another idea is to create 4 lanes in the middle but reduce one lane on the edge and widen the sidewalk on each side of Commonwealth Ave. For bus stops that are skipped on "express routes", you can create a "bus stop lane" by indenting the now wider sidewalk so that a local bus can pull completely out of the dedicated bus lane, allowing express buses to bypass local buses without changing to normal traffic lanes.

The real problem then becomes whether Kenmore and Blandford can handle the crush load of dropping all passengers on those stops
Click to expand...

I remain unconvinced on capacity. Here's a good post by Ari on the capacity of BRT. Take particular note of the references to Metro Orange Line in LA since it would be a pretty good analogue to the type of BRT we could put on Comm Ave, and keep in mind that the Metro Orange Line has ridership well below that of of the B-Line.
 
shmessy said:
Originally Posted by Jahvon09 View Post
Went through there Friday evening, & it was a bitch trying to get home!! The trolley went one stop from Kenmore. Had to get off at Blanford Street, wait for a Peter Pan Bus there .The driver made everyone get off again & wait for another trolley the rest of the way!! Ridiculous!!!!



I agree with you 100%, bakgwailo. Jahvon09 may be the only person living in Eastern Massachusetts who didn't receive the message that has been blasted out in large neon letters for the past 3 months "STAY AWAY FROM THE AREA BETWEEN July 26 - AUGUST 11".

Don't blame the electric company if you put your finger in a wall socket.
Click to expand...



I did not know that they were blasting.
 
Last edited:
Jahvon09 said:
Idid not know that they were blasting.
Click to expand...

I don’t think I’m misusing the word ‘literally’ to say that literally every digital sign in Eastern MA along any road has had this alert for the past few weeks.
 
DominusNovus said:
I don’t think I’m misusing the word ‘literally’ to say that literally every digital sign in Eastern MA along any road has had this alert for the past few weeks.
Click to expand...

MassDOT also blasted out the message via every major news outlet. Businesses throughout the area have been warning their customers.

Also frequent readers of this message board would have noted that this thread got bumped back in May with the dates of this years closure. And of course anyone who followed last year's construction would know that there was a phase 2 coming this summer.

MassDOT also expressed a lot of concern that the message would go unheeded, because most people basically cruise through life in a brain-dead coma.
 
Jahvon09 said:
Idid not know that they were blasting.
Click to expand...

Do you live under a rock? I've heard this on the radio, on TV, on here, on reddit, seen it on message boards, and heard people talking about it.
 
chmeeee said:
Do you live under a rock? I've heard this on the radio, on TV, on here, on reddit, seen it on message boards, and heard people talking about it.
Click to expand...

I have friends who moved to DC after school that are getting emails warning them about the project from their Mass EZPASS accounts.
 
Jahvon09 said:
The Comm. Ave. Bridge located over a portion of the Mass Pike is scheduled to be replaced.
The project will take at least two summers to complete (Link below).

It will be done in 2 segments. The first one will take place during this coming summer. The 2nd one will take place next summer.

The DOT is advising motorists, MBTA commuters GL & commuter rail riders to seek alternate routes around that area while construction is ongoing. The T will also be affected, since the B Line to Boston College operates across the bridge.

The portion of the Mass Pike under the bridge will also be affected in that area. :(

http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/highway/HighlightedProjects/CommonwealthAvenueBridgeReplacement.aspx
Click to expand...

Jahvon, I'd also like to point out that YOU started this thread about the project.
 
OK gang, let's lay off already. If you spend time here often, you shouldn't find these posts out of character and you should appreciate that the poster is making a genuine effort to spark discussion.
 
chmeeee said:
Do you live under a rock? I've heard this on the radio, on TV, on here, on reddit, seen it on message boards, and heard people talking about it.
Click to expand...



Excuse me!

I just wasn't following it at at the time. :rolleyes:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top