General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

[datadyne007]

On the B Line last night, we surfaced at Blandford and heard a new announcement, spoken by a female voice when the doors opened: "Pay your fare; it's only fair." Then, at BU East: "Pay your fare; it's only fair." BU Central: "Pay your fare; it's only fair." That's right, it was played at EVERY. SINGLE. STOP. Strangers on the train were looking at each other in disbelief and talking about it, and I'm sure everyone here knows how much it takes for strangers on the MBTA to make eye contact with each other. Needless to say I had the mbta.com comment form filled out by the time I disembarked.

Has anyone ever heard this before? This car was also running that goofy and nearly as useless "bus . . . connection" hit, so maybe this was something old instead of something new. And sure, I can see wanting to mix in a fare announcement every half-dozen stops or at the busy ones like the "no smoking, please" announcement. But the poor folks who live deep in Brighton and would have to hear that 30 times a day would be driven slowly to madness. I sincerely hope that was just a one-car pilot program. Noise pollution at its absolute worst.

This is system-wide on all GL surface stops. It's driving everyone insane.

 

[ErnieAdams]

This is system-wide on all GL surface stops. It's driving everyone insane.

Holy hell. We need to produce some noise pollution ourselves until we're sure the T hears us and this gets knocked down or knocked out altogether. Unacceptable. On the plus side, my initial suspicion was that they were ghettoizing the B because of the students. Glad to hear it's a case of equal opportunity condescension.

 

[bigeman312]

I was about to post about this. Worst thing ever. I almost took a longer bus ride from Brookline last night to avoid it, as I did not have headphones.

 

[West]

I heard it the first time yesterday inbound on the D, ran at every stop until going underground. Today it was off until about Brookline Hills, then off again after descending to tunnel. So maybe the driver can disable it?

Definitely going to make someone go postal if they do it every stop, every day.

 

[KentXie]

It would be more tolerable if it wasn't so corny. Something like "Please pay your fare at the front of the car. Thank you." Or "Thank you for paying your fare at the front of the car" to guilt trip anyone who didn't.

 

[datadyne007]

While we're talking announcements, I just noticed that Boylston now announces "Change here for the Silver Line." I don't believe it did that before. It used to say "No smoking please" when entering Boylston. It probably isn't the best to announce the Silver Line at Boylston since it could confuse airport-bound people & the connection is not accessible.

Copley now says "Change here for Boston College, Cleveland Circle & Riverside" too on E trains.

Also, so many bus connections.

 

[ErnieAdams]

^Similar announcements at Kenmore for the other branches. That is a positive, but not nearly a net positive with all of the other changes.

Agreed on Silver Line. Any such announcement should mention the Dudley destination, and should also probably come with signage on the Boylston platforms to the effect that Airport/Seaport connections are not available at street level. Or, and I can't stress this enough, just do nothing like before.

And who is being served by a "bus connections" announcement with nothing further by way of explanation? Well, I was planning on riding farther, but now that I hear there's a random bus at street level, I'll see you suckers later!

If there are this many upgrades needed to the Green Line announcements, it's probably time to start fresh with a single coherent set of recordings. It's been a decade or so, has it not? Somebody needs to flash the Oglesby Signal in the sky and get Frank into the studio to lay down some sweet new baritone cuts.

 

[Downburst]

If there are this many upgrades needed to the Green Line announcements, it's probably time to start fresh with a single coherent set of recordings. It's been a decade or so, has it not? Somebody needs to flash the Oglesby Signal in the sky and get Frank into the studio to lay down some sweet new baritone cuts.

Amen. All of the new recordings are jarring in their spliced-in nature, and some are of noticeably lesser sound quality.

#MakeAnnouncementsGreatAgain

 

[datadyne007]

Amen. All of the new recordings are jarring in their spliced-in nature, and some are of noticeably lesser sound quality.

#MakeAnnouncementsGreatAgain

Yes. There's a jarring lack of consistency. That's what bothers me the most. The "bus connection" recording is by far the worst quality. What's strange is that they actually have a recording of Frank Oglesby saying "bus connection" from the bus announcements! On the bus, when you get to a stop served by other buses, he says "bus connections."

But as previously stated, the "bus connection" announcement is useless without stating what route. I have no problem if they want to announce key bus routes:
"Change here for key bus route 39 and local buses." (Copley, Prudential, Symphony, etc)
"Change here for key bus route 111, local and express buses." (Haymarket)

 

[Deetroyt]

If they're gonna do it for key bus routes, I'd actually rather they did it for every stop, on every line. Some sort of GPS guided algorithm recording so that it knows at each stop to list the specific # bus connection for that stop. Wouldn't be much help to the people who ride every day and know where to get on/off, but could be very helpful to visitors.

 

[swtat]

These "bus connection" announcements grind my gears every time I hear them. They help no one and only add to noise pollution. If the MBTA started announcing specific bus routes again (they did when automated announcements were introduced around 2003), they could help regular commuters learn about new connections and options and help visitors navigate their way through the bus system. I'd argue that "change here for the commuter rail" is equally as useless without announcing which specific lines (except at North, South and Back Bay stations), although this seems to be a standard practice among transit agencies across the country. Does anyone remember when the buses would announce "subway connection" before 2007? I'm glad the T fixed that at least.

 

[The EGE]

The announcement equipment on the trains already know where they are - they use odometers plus reset points to track when they're at stops. There's absolutely no reason why they couldn't record a full set of bus numbers. Perhaps they're wary of announcing buses that only run at specific times?

If you want actual bus numbers, and you don't like the "pay your fare" announcements, let the MBTA know. Email them, tweet at them, etc. If people are unhappy and let them know, they might actually do something about it.

 

[datadyne007]

The announcement equipment on the trains already know where they are - they use odometers plus reset points to track when they're at stops. There's absolutely no reason why they couldn't record a full set of bus numbers. Perhaps they're wary of announcing buses that only run at specific times?

If you want actual bus numbers, and you don't like the "pay your fare" announcements, let the MBTA know. Email them, tweet at them, etc. If people are unhappy and let them know, they might actually do something about it.

I think anything that is on the rapid transit/key bus routes map (below) should be announced. The key buses especially because the rapid transit portion of the T is entirely hub and spoke. Routes like 1 & 66 are radial. Announcing a #1 connection at Symphony would help people trying to get to Cambridge from the Fenway.

 

[Suffolk 83]

I wish that 1 bus was a subway. Would be sweet

 

[The EGE]

The key bus routes are a really poor substitute for an actual list of the important bus connections; I'm very unhappy that they're the MBTA's basis for maps, late night service, etc. They were chosen just on route-level ridership, and ignore important other service characteristics.

Why not announce the 7, 9, and 11 - three of the most frequent routes on the entire system during rush hour?

Why not the 70, the primary route for vast swaths of Allston, Watertown, and Waltham?

Why not the 214 and 216, or 220 and 222, which combine for very frequent service in Quincy?

Why not the eight bus routes southwest out of Forest Hills, which is thhe most frequent bus corridor that the MBTA operates?

 

[bigeman312]

Agreed, EGE. But let's not make perfect the enemy of good, here. Datadyne's proposal is simpler and would be a huge step in the right direction.

 

[SouthEnder88]

I wish that 1 bus was a subway. Would be sweet

Considering how congested Mass Ave gets, has this idea ever been floated around? Say a red line spur running from JFK ultimately up Mass Ave and reconnecting at Central? Pardon the out of place crazy transit pitch

 

[citylover94]

It has been talked about before. I agree it would make sense to build a subway line that generally follows that route. The issue though with branching the Red Line at thta point is that you have now reduced frequencies to Park Street, DTX, and South Station by 50% which is pretty bad from a congestion perspective seeing as those stations can barely handle the number of riders using them now with the current frequencies.

Alon Levy has a whole post on reverse branching and why it should be avoided if possible. Here is a link:The Wrong Kind of Branching

Personally I would rather see a completely new subway line built running from UMass up to Mass ave or up Blue Hill ave to Columbia Road and on to Mass ave and then up to Central where it could either follow Western Ave or River St toward Allston/Watertown, or it could continue to Porter and then follow the Fitchburg line to Waltham.

My Concept:

Link to the Map: Mass Ave Subway Map Concept

 

[boston85]

Considering how congested Mass Ave gets, has this idea ever been floated around? Say a red line spur running from JFK ultimately up Mass Ave and reconnecting at Central? Pardon the out of place crazy transit pitch

I have been thinking something along the same line, although slightly more out of place for crazy transit pitches. Expand on that red line spur idea following Mass Ave to Central into a new line. Start at Sullivan follow the rail road track through the inner belt to the Washington street Station on GLX, tunnel to Union, and Central. Follow Mass Ave down under the river to Hynes GL, Symphony GL/Mass Ave and through the south end to Broadway and then into South Boston or the seaport. It is a little bit of connecting the dots idea but would allow for transfers outside the downtown core.

 

[bigeman312]

Considering how congested Mass Ave gets, has this idea ever been floated around? Say a red line spur running from JFK ultimately up Mass Ave and reconnecting at Central? Pardon the out of place crazy transit pitch

The closest thing that has been formally proposed by the MBTA in recent years is the "Urban Ring." Similar service pattern/area, connecting the Silver Line (Dudley), Orange/CR (Ruggles), Green Line (LMA, Kenmore), and Red Line (Kendall):

THE URBAN RING

Here's a pretty cool map DaveM made a couple years ago showing a Mass Ave subway:

You can find the discussing in Crazy Transit Pitches:

Re: Crazy Transit Pitches