General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

No final decision was made on Monday, but members of the MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board seemed to be leaning toward eliminating one element of a late-night bus service pilot project that has attracted few riders.

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Several members of the Fiscal and Management Control Board indicated they were in favor of pulling the plug on the third element of the late-night bus pilot while continuing the other two. “The consensus here was category 1 and category 2 are working, but category 3 is really struggling,” said Joseph Aiello, the chair of the control board.
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Meanwhile, MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak said he is continuing to talk with Cubic Corp. about an extended timetable for the new fare collection system it is developing for the T. The company acknowledged recently that the delivery date for the system might have to be delayed, but has given no cause.

One area that might be slowing things down is the complexity of the T’s fare system. Control board officials on Monday discussed all the permutations of existing fares that would have to be programmed into the new system along with the capacity to add new types of fares based on distance traveled or time-of-day travel. It sounded very complex.
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https://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/t-notes-closing-of-hov-lane-on-i-93-hit/

The MBTA fare system is not fucking complex.
 
jass said:
https://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/t-notes-closing-of-hov-lane-on-i-93-hit/

The MBTA fare system is not fucking complex.
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Not even slightly complex. Some of the ones being proposed are quite complex, for example a bus pass giving you discounts on trains and a LinkPass giving you discounts on commuter rail but it's definitely nothing unheard of. London has a far far far far more complex fare system complete with zones, peak/off-peak, out of station interchanges, day caps, in station validators to map trips avoiding zone 1, integration with outside companies, special fares for places like Heathrow, etc.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Some of the ones being proposed are quite complex, for example a bus pass giving you discounts on trains and a LinkPass giving you discounts on commuter rail but it's definitely nothing unheard of.
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The latter is already how the T's fare system works if you do it right, the issue at present is the confusing fare media/explanations means a lot of people don't get to take advantage of those functions with the way they buy a pass.

To illustrate:

A LinkPass is really a crippled version of a Zone 1A Commuter Rail pass that no one should want to purchase in an optimal world without unnecessary fare media issues.

The Zone 1A pass is exactly the same price, but the Zone 1A pass is valid on subway, local bus (same as LinkPass) plus the Charlestown ferry, and Zone 1A.

And with a CR pass, you only have to pay the interzone fare difference if you want to travel further on the CR, not the full fare.

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As for the former, they manage to give you a discount on your subway fare (you just pay the fare difference between the modes) if you ride the bus (pay per ride, CharlieCard) now, so I don't view building in the same discounts to the bus pass product as anything particularly complex.
 
jass said:
https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/05/16/amtrak-is-blocking-mbta-electrification/


Good article worth reading
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I'm confused about what makes this a good article. I don't see any substance here.

They're rambling along about their opinions of Amtrak and not in any way explaining how "Amtrak is blocking MBTA electrification" other than Amtrak not leasing them electric locomotives (which I wasn't aware Amtrak had some large spare fleet floating around), and even that has zero sources provided.
 
Gotta say the artwork at Ruggles is making it look 20x better than the aging grey look.

20190518-165557.jpg
 
Murals won't help Sullivan. What would help it is an entrance on the East Somerville side. I now commute through there a couple days a week and it always pisses me off how much it completely turns its back on the dense residential neighborhood it's right next to.
 
ceo said:
Murals won't help Sullivan. What would help it is an entrance on the East Somerville side. I now commute through there a couple days a week and it always pisses me off how much it completely turns its back on the dense residential neighborhood it's right next to.
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Oh, I know...I lived on Myrtle St. for 2 years and was infuriated daily as I walked down Perkins, saw the station get ever closer and more inviting...then got ready to make the 3-block detour to actually get there.
 
Until several years ago, the MBTA was regularly reporting 210-230k riders per day on the Green Line. Now it's at 150-160k. Has the Green Line really lost one-third of its riders in just several years, or has their reporting changed?

EDIT: Looks like it dropped from 204k in the APTA 2017 Q4 report, to 155k in the 2018 Q1 report. That sharp a change suggests a change in methodology, not an actual massive ridership decline
 
The EGE said:
Until several years ago, the MBTA was regularly reporting 210-230k riders per day on the Green Line. Now it's at 150-160k. Has the Green Line really lost one-third of its riders in just several years, or has their reporting changed?

EDIT: Looks like it dropped from 204k in the APTA 2017 Q4 report, to 155k in the 2018 Q1 report. That sharp a change suggests a change in methodology, not an actual massive ridership decline
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The MBTA has a shocking number of different ways they count ridership depending on who they're talking to... Ever seen the variety of commuter rail ridership data? The CTPS counts seem the most accurate but for their yearly NTD reports they use all sorts of conductor estimates and ticket sales combos.

One can hope that in 5 years with a single unified fare system that has tap on tap off data they'll finally be able to count people... That plus all new trains have APCs and all new buses have APCs and there is a project to install them on CR trains too...
 
New renders for B branch consolidation, construction scheduled to start this fall
green-line-b-station-consolidation-rendering-v2.jpg

green-line-b-station-consolidation-rendering-bicycle-lane.jpg
 
Anyone think they could've been more aggressive with stop consolidation in this area? Going from 4 to 2 is great but the two proposed stations are still only about 0.2miles apart.
 
sneijder said:
Anyone think they could've been more aggressive with stop consolidation in this area? Going from 4 to 2 is great but the two proposed stations are still only about 0.2miles apart.
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I think that with the crush volumes that they do, they needed two stops.
 
sneijder said:
Anyone think they could've been more aggressive with stop consolidation in this area? Going from 4 to 2 is great but the two proposed stations are still only about 0.2miles apart.
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I'd like to see the closure of:
  • BU east
  • Packards Corner
  • Allston st
  • spofford ped x-ing
  • summit ave grade x-ing
  • Mt Hood rd ped x-ing
  • Reedsdale St grade x-ing
  • cummington mall grade x-ing
  • granby st grade x-ing
  • Chiswick Rd
  • Englewood Ave
  • Tappan St
  • Fairbanks St
  • Hawes st

Every single crossing and station slows trains down, all of these are completely unnecessary crossings and stations within 500ft of other ones. Cars can totally do u-turns. In the south we had the concept of "super-junctions" with the same goal, eliminate the number of median crossing left turns.
 
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