Delvin4519
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At long last, I now present the:
Blue Line Extension to Salem (from Swampscott) - pretty big extension of the frequent transit network (4th iteration)
(Thicker and darker lines denote higher frequency, excluding CR (thin lines) and historical RRs; ignore the fantasy map that is Malden/Melrose, that is part of the fantasy land "Boston Metropolitan Railway" concept below)
On my third iteration of the fantasy frequency map that extended the Blue Line to Swampscott (NOT Salem), Salem stuck out as the biggest remaining transit desert on that map. The Salem area is the most unique out of all the outlying densely populated areas; being an major extension of the Lynn terminal, out of the 3 outlying major terminals outside of the inner core (Lynn/Quincy/Waltham). Compared the KBR status of the 220/222 in Quincy under BNRD, population densities in Salem are actually enough to give 3 corridors of 15 minute KBR frequencies, surprisingly! These corridors would be the 435/465 to Peabody, 451/451A to Beverly, and the 454/455 to Salem State.
Danvers gets a circuit, technically 15 minute headways between Danvers and Salem if going via either side of the circuit from Danvers Sq. Marblehead has issues with reverse branching, but technically it'd be KBR levels if it weren't for reverse branching.
Aside from the restoration of the 454 (and the 465 technically), no new routes in the North Shore or metro north are introduced or re-introduced; beyond those that existed across the MBTA since 2012 (BLX massively improves service span of the 428/436/439/451). Instead, the focus should be on providing quality high frequency service in dense urban cores; instead of crappy hourly service suburban/rural routes.
After the Blue Line Extension to Salem, the high frequency grid could extend from Salem to include portions of Beverly and Peabody, although the frequent coverage area would no longer be contiguous between Lynn and Salem, once Salem gets rail frequencies instead of bus frequencies out from Swampscott. The vast majority of large contiguous areas with over 10,000 people per square mile (3,850 people per sq kilometer) could be covered with frequent service.
Notably absent on this map is Reading, Lexington, Needham, all of the Green Line D Branch within Newton, South Braintree station of the Red Line, as well as a small area between Newton Corner and Oak Square. This does not mean they don't deserve frequent service. The D Branch in Newton and South Braintree station of the Red Line are more or less "unicorns" in a way. They simply got lucky and gained high frequency service, despite having lower densities further removed from Boston; before other more densely populated transit deserts did (including Beverly, Charlestown, Roslindale, Medford, East Malden, Everett, etc.).
This also means that after BLX-Salem, there aren't really any additional rapid transit extensions that would signficantly impact the bus system in a signficant positive way (as far as iterating my map again, goes). BLX-Salem is the "last" major one (in terms of a 22 km/14 mi distance to Downtown Boston). If a rapid transit extension after that needs to redistribute bus headways outwards, then rapid transit swallowing Peabody and Beverly is the only possible way after that (Enjoy messing around with the Salem RR tunnel). Only then, can one start introducing new suburban/rural bus routes extending outwards in the North Shore. If I made such a 5th map, I'd have rapid transit swallowing the Peabody and Beverly KBRs whole, bus terminals shifting outwards to the Peabody/Beverly railroad junctions. Then redistribute bus headways to restore KBR frequency on the 455 between Salem and Hawthrone's Crossing filling in the gap left behind with BLX-Salem, and maybe perhaps the then-truncated 435 to Peabody terminal and the outer segment of the 450 could gain KBR status (removing the 424).
. Without BLX-Salem they really left off the entire North Shore off the spider frequency map. I had to shift the entire Lynn area and condense it/cram it into the northeast corner of the map, to maintain the same aspect ratio as the original MBTA spider map. It was the only way to slot in Salem, Peabody Square, and Beverly; onto the high frequency grid and keep the image the same size as the original MBTA spider frequency map.
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