General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

jass said:
I dont get the Route 1 proposal. Are they eliminating Ct1? How does the save time for folks using that route?
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I can only assume the buses from CT1 will be reassigned to the 1 and increase frequencies. But I wish they were clearer.
 
Riverside said:
I can only assume the buses from CT1 will be reassigned to the 1 and increase frequencies. But I wish they were clearer.
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I think in the era of being able to track buses, that doesnt make sense. You can plan your trip to hit the bus you want
 
sm89 said:
What does Muni do to maintain theirs? Aside from a different climate, wouldn't they be experiencing the same issues?
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MUNI doesn't maintain theirs. The Market Street Railway museum, a non-profit bankrolled by private contributions, maintains the MUNI historic fleet at their own shops using volunteer labor. Also...climate does make a difference. Ice and cold are murder on delicate old propulsion, and San Fran has the advantage of not having wild temperature swings.


The T has a loose relationship with Seashore Trolley Museum, but that's way up in Kennebunk, ME with a skeletal Seashore-affiliated staff taking up residence in Lowell for their very small museum line..

The resources don't exist in Boston-proper anymore. Now, if Lowell were to sink some money into expanding its streetcar around the canal district into general-purpose circulator transit and MassDOT were to tab Seashore as the operator you'd have a natural post-MBTA home for the Mattapan fleet in Lowell because the museum-staff expertise is there. So it's not like they'd necessarily have to leave the state after they're done in Mattapan. But for labor and supply chain maintaining historic equipment is all about location-location-location...and Hub of the Universe just ain't it for pooling those resources.
 
stick n move said:
Oh wow I was wondering why the hell we used the cars we do and were ordering the same crappy design again. So many light rail trains are completely flat like normal subways and hold twice as many people.

So let me know if this take is correct. As of now were not replacing any green line trains, were adding to the stock of what we have to allow for enough trains to cover the added capacity from the glx. The amount ordered to do this are also enough to cover the capacity of the mattapan trolley. So for now the new trains allow the green line to keep running, but with the added routes to malden. Once that is taken care of were going to replace the entire green line stock of trains with these new modern high capacity type 10 trains and then paint the new type 9s orange and send them to mattapan so that way they have new trains as well as the green line having a modern capacity light rail system. Is that about how its going to work?

One of the best upgrade listed is signal priority for trains. Each light can last a minute and that adds up an enormous amount over many trains over many stops. That combined with the fact that the glx is grade separated is going to make the green line a whole lot faster. Add in the doubled capacity and the green line goes from an inconvenience to a very capable modern light rail network.
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The Type 9 order also has 30 un-exercised options above the 24 on the base order. Tapping that would enable running 3-car trains for immediate capacity expansion, rather than waiting 5+ years for the 'stretched' Type 10's to arrive. As the Type 9's will be able to trainline with the next order, they'd then be able to be dispersed onto max-size stretched trains. Whether they pick up the option depends a lot on how long it's going to take to develop Green Line Transformation specs, and whether they're satisfied enough with the base order that packing 'em on now while they're available at a fixed price proves prudent vs. waiting.

While they would be candidates for Mattapan since the HSL has front-door mini-highs for the high section, the fleet requirements there are so small that they probably only need 6-8 articulated LRV's to cover all service. So while some may pass back and forth between Mattapan and the Green Line, most of the fleet (be it the 24 in the base order, or expanded out to 54) is going to live out its life on the Green Line.


The interior design of these pre-dates launch of the GLT study by several years, so that's not really a valid gripe. Nobody had surveyed the system for modifications that would enable a move to more standardized vehicles and ballparked costs for that effort until the last 24 months, and until that was done they had no basis for requesting funding from the FCMB to proceed with the GLT initiative. Aesthetic critiques of the Type 9's need to take into account that the timeline didn't agree with making an all low-floor buying decision because the proof wasn't yet served. You can argue GLX construction maybe should've been synced with the vehicle procurement a bit better, but that still nets a procurement schedule which pre-dates the all-clear on full low-floor cars.

If the Type 9's fix everything that was wrong with the Type 8's (and so far testing hasn't turned up any whoppers), then they're eminently fungible for the next 25+ years. Both as fleet expansion, and as trailers embedded in future majority-Type 10 trainsets.
 
stick n move said:
One of the best upgrade listed is signal priority for trains. Each light can last a minute and that adds up an enormous amount over many trains over many stops. That combined with the fact that the glx is grade separated is going to make the green line a whole lot faster. Add in the doubled capacity and the green line goes from an inconvenience to a very capable modern light rail network.
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Also another upgrade will be the new fare system. For surface line stops, no more adding cash to the fare box, and all doors will be open.
 
tysmith95 said:
Also another upgrade will be the new fare system. For surface line stops, no more adding cash to the fare box, and all doors will be open.
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Pepridge farms remember when Charlie allowed all doors to open in 2006.
 
bigeman312 said:
The Better Bus Project has updated their website to include 47 proposed route changes.

EDIT: Two of the more interesting proposals to me are:

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Great maps on the documents summarizing each route. It looks like they did a very comprehensive job looking at the routes, so that's great.

But - is the MBTA also going to propose any totally new lines? There simply must be new transit needs that can't be satisfied by these changes, given all the development in the Seaport, South End, Brighton...

Also surprised the 66 has no proposed changes.
 
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bigeman312 said:
The Better Bus Project has updated their website to include 47 proposed route changes.

EDIT: Two of the more interesting proposals to me are:

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I'm curious about the 34/34E plan.
https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...344066833/Route+34+&+34E_Accessible_Final.pdf


While I'm extremely excited that they're getting rid of the Upland Woods service (which sometimes added 15 minutes but not even once have I seen anyone get on/off at this detour) and the Old Navy stop, I wonder exactly what they mean by combining the routes.

TBH it sounds like they're making it more complicated by putting three separate destinations on just the 34, and cutting down service to Walpole Center. Relying on the bus after Elm street in dedham is already fairly burdensome, so any marginal reduction in service here will have disproportionately larger deterioration of ridership.
 
Equilibria said:
Again, this is not all of the changes, just the tweaks. The 66 may need more than tweaks.
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What is really nice is that they did write up all of the routes, including the 66 with its EIGHT stops per mile. This is a solid knowledge base upon which to build.
 
FK4 said:
Great maps on the documents summarizing each route. It looks like they did a very comprehensive job looking at the routes, so that's great.

But - is the MBTA also going to propose any totally new lines? There simply must be new transit needs that can't be satisfied by these changes, given all the development in the Seaport, South End, Brighton...

Also surprised the 66 has no proposed changes.
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If it's more than just tweaks for new service, you're going to have to wait until they drop the load on the Bus Facilities Master Plan portion of the study. They're stuck at completely static fleet capacity and route assignments until you start seeing final recs put in front of the FCMB for things like:

  • 200+ sixty-footer bus yard proposed @ Wellington parking lot hooked into Charlestown district
  • activation of Watertown garage as a new west-region district (or alternative build @ Riverside)
  • load-shifting of gained Charlestown capacity further into downtown (related to ^^all of above^^)
  • reconfigs of Lynn (decommissioned for heavy maint in favor of Charlestown, with gain of more pure storage) + Quincy
Only then are they going to be able to make vehicle procurements above replacement level to provide equipment for brand-new routes, have any additional 60-footers to assign to routes ripe for a seating boost, or offer very substantially more frequent service on key routes.


There's several major cogs in the effort. Route optimization goes first because it doesn't require a ton of other dependencies to pound the inefficiencies out of a route. But the real service-increasing heavy artillery doesn't come available until the facilities/capacity side gets its Recommended Alternatives. That is indeed coming, but it's bigger-$$$ stuff.
 
Bus transit nirvana seems to me as complex as Fischer's 21 moves. No experience w/ the language of bus transit, but i've wondered if a few/day well placed jumps from mini hub to O-Line station or direct to Back Bay + Downtown is/can be used for moving some people efficiently from some of the more challenged nooks.
 
The MBTA released Commuter Rail Ridership Counts at the latest FMCB meeting.

This is a treasure trove of information.

Between 2012 and 2018 commuter rail ridership grew from 104,574 to
126,754 trips per day, an increase of 21.2%
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Ridership and trends for all lines are explored, as well as the highest and lowest ridership stations.

Some losers:

Silver Hill + Hastings are down to 63 combined riders per day (down from 139 in 2012). I have to believe it makes sense to cut a couple of the scheduled flag stops from those stations to speed up commutes for the (overwhelming majority of) riders that are passing through. At first glance, it would seem reasonable for trains 414 and 427, for example, to remove the scheduled flag stops at these stations. This could shave a few minutes off of those runs for anyone traveling from the outer stations (Lincoln and beyond).

Riverworks is also down to 45 daily riders (from 129 in 2012). Does anyone know why they continue to schedule 28 flag stops at that station? That's an average of less than two passengers per scheduled flag stop. I'd imagine the vast majority of those get next to no utilization at all and add unnecessary complication to operation. On runs where the flag stop is not scheduled, the trip is scheduled to be 1-2 minutes faster. Especially with this being such an inner station, wouldn't it be in nearly everyone's best interest to find the couple round trips with the most passengers and cut every other scheduled flag stop from the schedule?

West Gloucester now has just 82 daily riders, which appears to be the lowest full-service station in the system. Given that it's on the outer part of the Rockport Line, it doesn't seem like a huge opportunity cost, but it still may make sense to explore which runs could be scheduled to run express between Gloucester and Manchester, if they get next to no ridership presently. Fewer West Gloucester and Riverworks stops to serve a passenger or two (or even not slowing down a bit for the flag stop check only to see there is nobody there) could result in real, measurable time savings for Rockport and Gloucester to Boston commuters.

Newmarket, at 163 daily riders, is real disappointment too. Don't know what else there is to say or do there. South Bay mixed-use development should help. North-South Rail Link would help. Charlie Card use (has this happened yet?) on the Fairmount Line would help.

Some winners:

Ruggles is now the highest ridership CR station, outside of North Station, South Station, and Back Bay. There are now 4,937 daily riders, up from 3,120 in 2012. The new platform is a key, unheralded project right now. Any proposal to increase service would be a good idea.

Salem and Beverly have a combined 7,756 riders. Imagine the ridership if a N-S Rail Link was constructed and the North Shore had a one-seat ride to South Station and Back Bay. In the meantime: more Beverly short-turns for increased frequency? Beverly-Salem-Lynn-Sullivan-North Station Regional Rail? Beverly-Salem-Lynn-North Station DMU/EMU? Electification + Regional Rail? Beverly <-> Waltham service?

Providence, Attleboro, Mansfield, Route 128, and the Providence Line as a whole continues to serve a huge chunk of the Commuter Rail ridership. Any increased service would be a good use of resources. Electric locos serving a Providence-Mansfield-128-Ruggles-BB-SS Regional Rail would be a great step. DMU/EMU service to 128 would also be awesome and welcome.

Worcester saw a 46% increase in ridership since 2012 and is now a top-10 ridership station and the Worcester Line saw more passenger growth than any other line. Obviously, Regional Rail and any ways to speed up service on the corridor would be a huge boon.
 
odurandina said:
Bus transit nirvana seems to me as complex as Fischer's 21 moves. No experience w/ the language of bus transit, but i've wondered if a few/day well placed jumps from mini hub to O-Line station or direct to Back Bay + Downtown is/can be used for moving some people efficiently from some of the more challenged nooks.
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Actually, that's where Urban Rail to Riverside on the Worcester Line and BLX-Lynn come in. Expressing so many routes from Newton and the North Shore to downtown because of lack of rapid transit transfers out there ends up being a major equipment drain that starves the local routes in those regions of better frequencies. Those super-stretched routes are wildly inefficient, and culling them at better-organized transfer terminals ends up key to securing the equipment rotations that can pump up local frequencies. Unfortunately it does require some pricey builds, but no one ever claimed the reward for BLX wasn't as sky-high as the price tag.

Lynn is an especially bad bus district because the trip to downtown is so distended that no local route out of that terminal is able to match inbound/outbound equipment cycles evenly, leaving the whole North Shore starved for frequencies when it needs them most. If those routes could terminate at Lynn Terminal instead with consolidated rapid transit transfer the frequency & ridership gains would be exponential from Revere to Danvers & Beverly simply because the rotations could be balanced for the first time ever. Newton isn't quite as bad, but the expresses are chewing up more time than ever before in Pike traffic and starting to show their limitations. Shotgunning 15-min. all-day frequency Urban Rail with a new west-region garage and an infill Worcester Line stop at Newton Corner ends up creating a new mini-hub at Newton Corner acting as major ridership pipe. And you'd be able to substantially redraw the route maps for Allston, Newton, Waltham, etc. to make them more frequent and more transfer-oriented instead of uselessly long and meandering.

Even stuff like that new Wellington garage aids these efforts the way it redraws Charlestown district's reach to re-spread the load to modern areas of need.
 
bigeman312 said:
Silver Hill + Hastings are down to 63 combined riders per day (down from 139 in 2012). I have to believe it makes sense to cut a couple of the scheduled flag stops from those stations to speed up commutes for the (overwhelming majority of) riders that are passing through. At first glance, it would seem reasonable for trains 414 and 427, for example, to remove the scheduled flag stops at these stations. This could shave a few minutes off of those runs for anyone traveling from the outer stations (Lincoln and beyond).
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I think the state has been trying to play eight-dimensional chess with the Weston stops, possibly to their own detriment.

  • They want to reconfigure Exit 26 and provide frontage access to MA 117 for the Polaroid development so residential Stow St., Waltham no longer gets slammed with traffic it can't handle. The western tip of the Route 20 rotary is on the Weston side of the city line, so they can tangentially slow that project down.
  • All manner of private biz is agitating for that Route 128 Fitchburg Line stop connected to Polaroid via the Central Mass trail overpass and tied into the 70 bus terminus. Such a stop would sit in Weston on the Biogen access road off US 20, and come with an ironclad stipulation that Kendal Green station (whose privately-owned station building makes the platforms unmodifiable for level boarding) be closed. Far too many Operation Chaos vectors there.
  • They want the Central Mass trail completed, and Weston was the NIMBY central that's still holding out in a cliffhanger.
My guess is that they don't take any action on Hastings and Silver Hill until they've secured commitments for the 128 stop, which has new urgency now in the RER study. Weston is absolutely petty enough to hold those two nothingburger stops...and Kendal Green...over their heads in a game of chicken. The interchange reconfig is less consequential, but they can certainly piss and moan loudly at that to stir up trouble on the Waltham side of the border.

If Kendal Green gets traded in and Hastings in an outright deletion, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to barter Silver Hill as a keep for hostage releases, as at least that's grade-separated unlike all-world dangerous Hastings and at least can be theoretically ADA'd if its gravel ramps were paved/lit/railing'ed and a 1-car mini-high were installed.

Riverworks is also down to 45 daily riders (from 129 in 2012). Does anyone know why they continue to schedule 28 flag stops at that station? That's an average of less than two passengers per scheduled flag stop. I'd imagine the vast majority of those get next to no utilization at all and add unnecessary complication to operation. On runs where the flag stop is not scheduled, the trip is scheduled to be 1-2 minutes faster. Especially with this being such an inner station, wouldn't it be in nearly everyone's best interest to find the couple round trips with the most passengers and cut every other scheduled flag stop from the schedule?
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They're still haggling with the private proposals to open this stop to the public on a trial basis. GE's workforce has certainly stagnated enough to explain the drop, but that apartment developer in front of the station still has big plans for it. The ridership decline for GE should be added impetus for the state to actually consider this trial and the temp ADA waiver for it, as it would give them some actionable data for the future instead of just concern-trolling the proposal in the local papers once every few months and assuming GE would oppose when they haven't actually opposed. Don't forget, that apartment guy still has an offer on the table to build a full-on "Lynnport" ADA station with public egress through his property. There's serious potential here at low price point. If only they would stop stonewalling the public trial with the as-is platform.

West Gloucester now has just 82 daily riders, which appears to be the lowest full-service station in the system. Given that it's on the outer part of the Rockport Line, it doesn't seem like a huge opportunity cost, but it still may make sense to explore which runs could be scheduled to run express between Gloucester and Manchester, if they get next to no ridership presently. Fewer West Gloucester and Riverworks stops to serve a passenger or two (or even not slowing down a bit for the flag stop check only to see there is nobody there) could result in real, measurable time savings for Rockport and Gloucester to Boston commuters.
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As long as Beverly keeps clutching Prides Crossing with its cold, dead hands there's never going to be an optimization opportunity here. WG at least is ADA-compliant. Unfortunately Town of Rockport torpedoed any/all opportunity to expand the layover yard, leaving the line artificially over-capacity and presently unable to expand service...which would probably be a better test of the small stops' utilization than more expressing. Also think time savings on the branch are less realistic looking at the (non- Prides) stop roster than all the completely redundant grade crossings on the line, a solid half-dozen of which could be outright closed to curb some speed restrictions. Every town on the branch has fought crossing closures tooth-and-nail for 60 years now. As long as this corridor continues being a NIMBY house of horrors measurable improvements are going to be incremental at best and take outsized effort for their gains. Rockport even screamed bloody murder at full-high platforms, because reasons; I have no doubt Beverly, Manchester, and Gloucester would pull the same.

Newmarket, at 163 daily riders, is real disappointment too. Don't know what else there is to say or do there. South Bay mixed-use development should help. North-South Rail Link would help. Charlie Card use (has this happened yet?) on the Fairmount Line would help.
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Frequencies, frequencies, frequencies. Newmarket ain't a pretty destination for TOD yet--that'll take time--but it does have a solid bounty of bus frequencies at or nearby. By all logic its projected ridership should weight a little heavier to transfers, but if that's not happening it's a flagrant sign that Fairmount frequencies are just too useless to matter for any Yellow Line riders.

Ruggles is now the highest ridership CR station, outside of North Station, South Station, and Back Bay. There are now 4,937 daily riders, up from 3,120 in 2012. The new platform is a key, unheralded project right now. Any proposal to increase service would be a good idea.
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Interesting dilemma since Hyde Park has anemic service, the future looks bleak for it because all South Coast Rail-via-Stoughton proposals would drop HP from Stoughton schedules, Providence is overloaded enough as is, and Amtrak can't expand the Forest Hills-Readville NEC to 4 tracks without blowing up/rebuilding HP on an inferior track layout. Since doing due diligence on Fairmount frequencies would effectively replace HP down the street with a superior-service station, it would seem that there's a neat-and-tidy solve here of adding more high-leverage Ruggles runs and not rebuilding HP at all when it's time to expand track capacity (or reanimating the Readville NEC platforms instead).

Salem and Beverly have a combined 7,756 riders. Imagine the ridership if a N-S Rail Link was constructed and the North Shore had a one-seat ride to South Station and Back Bay. In the meantime: more Beverly short-turns for increased frequency? Beverly-Salem-Lynn-Sullivan-North Station Regional Rail? Beverly-Salem-Lynn-North Station DMU/EMU? Electification + Regional Rail? Beverly <-> Waltham service?
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This is where the single-track Salem platform hurts, and where gorging on that garage to the exclusion of double-track platforms was short-sighted. RER service levels are going to be hard to swing with platform occupancy blocking the tunnel...even if a Salem State U. infill station to the south allows mildly better staging around the tunnel. They should've done the hillside excavation and retaining walls across from the current platform when they had the opportunity, because as a single tack-on project it's probably going to be twice as expensive than it would've rolled into the whole station package.

Easiest way to address this for Urban Rail is to do a Peabody Branch-side 450 ft. platform, since the turnout is inside the tunnel and would allow for free movements while the mainline platform is occupied. Even as just a single-point construction project that does not include a Peabody Sq. extension that would dramatically increase service levels, and open up access to 3-track North St. freight yard as a mini-layover (Pan Am can be compensated for storage by adding a 2nd-track runaround on the South Peabody Branch). Cheap, ROW space is already provisioned. You'd just have to close the tiny 75-space auxiliary lot to run the full-high across the exit grade crossing.

Note that so long as Swampscott and (TBD, as above) Riverworks/Lynnport had their platforms raised you would have level boarding and be able to use automatic-door railcars on this Salem urban rail route. Beverly Depot's platforms are a considerably bigger P.I.T.A. to raise because of the historic depot building...hardly impossible, but much more expensive than average. And also: Beverly Draw opens to rec boat traffic a lot during the summer because of the yacht clubs on the Bass & Crane Rivers. Not enough to seriously disrupt rail traffic, but there would be a few hiccups in the 15-min. frequency churn of urban rail if that were overlaid with 30-min. regional rail to Rockburyport. Unless more traffic modeling is done around bridge openings it's probably a safer assumption to draw the line on intra-128 service at Salem and/or Peabody and do a cleaner plot of regional rail over the bridge. (Note: Saugus Draw, on the other hand, is much sparser for boat traffic and shouldn't disrupt anything.)

Providence, Attleboro, Mansfield, Route 128, and the Providence Line as a whole continues to serve a huge chunk of the Commuter Rail ridership. Any increased service would be a good use of resources. Electric locos serving a Providence-Mansfield-128-Ruggles-BB-SS Regional Rail would be a great step. DMU/EMU service to 128 would also be awesome and welcome.
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NEC would need to be quad-tracked from Forest Hills to 128, and 128 Station turned into twin-island platforms to suit. There's actually room there to add up to 6 platform tracks, a configuration that would only be needed for the NSRL where northside trains would be terminating at Westwood on some pairings.

The RER study considers some Westwood turns, including possible extension of the Fairmount Line to 128. Problem with that is the need to re-engage Amtrak dispatch at Readville on the NEC connector, which has potential to hiccup some 15-min. headways when Amtrak has priority. We won't really know if the modeling adds up there until Amtrak says so. An alternative would be extending to Dedham Corporate instead, since that would stay under unified T dispatch. Only challenges are that the inner Franklin Line is a freight clearance route with mini-high platforms. Dedham Corp. can easily be spread wide with a center passing track (which in turn can be used as a pocket for turnbacks) to go full-high because the adjacent Route 128 bridge is generously wide. But to do the same at Endicott to raise those platforms requires chopping down a swath of trees on the outbound side and potentially enflaming Dedham's notorious NIMBY's. Maybe float a Fairmount-128 trial balloon benchmarking either/or routings, and see how loud they scream???
 
A couple of small notes:

1) after a particularly rough week last week, the Red Line seems like it's doing things a little differently. At least at Davis, it seems they've slightly improved headways. I'm noticing that trains are coming closer together, and the digital display boards are showing 2 minute spacing. Until recently, you only saw the time after the first train departed Alewife - the second would always say "stopped 1 stop away." Now you get times again for both trains (like it used to be, but even more accurate now). Has anyone else noticed this?

2) Minor gripe, but I've been noticing bad (or altogether not working) cell phone reception between Central and Davis the past two weeks (I'm AT&T). For a while, there was a dead zone between Central and Harvard, but this is longer than I've experienced. Anyone else have this issue?
 
Equilibria said:
MassDOT's presentation just now on Mattapan HSL options didn't even evaluate Red Line conversion, only LRV or bus options.

Sounded like the preferred option is to maintain the PCCs until the mid/late 2020s and then shift the now-new Type 9 Green Line vehicles over once the Type 10s come online.

Don't appreciate the lack of imagination shown by not considering the Red Line, though.
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A RL conversion is certainly a nice idea and may make sense, but it's also a pretty substantial undertaking. LRT conversion is a cheap by definitely helpful upgrade. It also keeps options open for some kind of M Line extension. I'm okay with this for now, but yes, a RL study should also happen.
 
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