General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

Massachoicetts said:
I feel Boston missed a huge opportunity while ridership was down to fix the T...
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I would like to hear more about what fixes you'd like to have seen.

My general sense is that every transit system was limited to basically only being able to 1) accelerate and 2) consolidate work that had already been planned and procured--that is if you hadn't already bought and procured "the parts" (rail, ties, signals...) there was neither the time nor the supply chain to summon them up.

The T did consolidate some shutdowns (and more are coming) . I can't find a good all-in-one place list, but some may be upthread here, since we tend to discuss the board meetings here and thats where things got "COVID-responsive"
 
They did a ton of work, I'm also struggling to find a good consolidated location but from their press release:
  • Track work, harbor tunnel repairs, and additional infrastructure improvements successfully accomplished during a 14-day shutdown of the Blue Line from Bowdoin to Airport in May 2020;
  • Tie replacement work, concrete repairs, Quincy Adams elevator work, track replacement, and bridge inspection work during a 14-day shutdown of the Red Line from Braintree to Quincy Center in June 2020;
  • Track and signal replacement work during 2 9-day shutdowns of the Green Line D Branch from Kenmore to Riverside, which successfully took place in June 2020;
  • Infrastructure work in the area known as the Beacon Junction during a 9-day shutdown of the C Branch from Kenmore to St. Mary’s in June 2020.
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They also just started the full month long C branch shutdown, the Worcester line has been down for over three weeks although unplanned it should be complete with the ATC/PTC cutover by the end of July it looks like, the Greenbush line has also been down for weeks during off peak hours for mysterious maintenance work, and the Franklin line had a couple outages to move ahead some double track work.
 
Yea, theyve been re-beautifying multiple stations across every line, ripping up multiple green line grade crossings, and replacing miles of track on orange green and red. Theyve been doins shit tons of work during this time.
 
Anyone know if any progress has been made (or will be underway) for the Highspeed Line? They shopped the transformation of it, but, so far it seems like they only (somewhat half-assedly) fixed the Central Ave crossing. No promised signaling or gates, though. Anyone know if there is movement on the PCC rebuilds, or any of the proposed Ashmont Station improvements or anything else? I think one of the bigger pieces of feedback was sycnronization between the trolley and red line, which they said they would look into. Seems pretty radio silence since then, though.
 
bakgwailo said:
Anyone know if any progress has been made (or will be underway) for the Highspeed Line? They shopped the transformation of it, but, so far it seems like they only (somewhat half-assedly) fixed the Central Ave crossing. No promised signaling or gates, though. Anyone know if there is movement on the PCC rebuilds, or any of the proposed Ashmont Station improvements or anything else? I think one of the bigger pieces of feedback was sycnronization between the trolley and red line, which they said they would look into. Seems pretty radio silence since then, though.
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The 2 PCC's that have been out-of-service since 2012 are at Everett for overhaul. Body work done in-house, Brookville (small U.S. modern & 'faux'-heritage streetcar builder) does the electrical in 2 phases around both ends of the body work with techs dispatched to Everett to install kits.

Brookville's deadlines for pilot cars are sandwiched around the in-house body work. Last update was many months ago but they apparently did come in last year for the first-phase work. Which probably means the body work is what's running late. Being at Everett they're using regular garage bays, so COVID staffing levels on # of adjacent bays allowed under active repair + COVID-expedited bus repairs while reduced fleet usage allowed for more shop TLC most likely backburnered the body work temporarily. Don't think Brookville's been on-call yet this year because of that, but even if they were the techs would be having trouble with the travel restrictions between here and Brookville HQ outside of Pittsburgh.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
The 2 PCC's that have been out-of-service since 2012 are at Everett for overhaul. Body work done in-house, Brookville (small U.S. modern & 'faux'-heritage streetcar builder) does the electrical in 2 phases around both ends of the body work with techs dispatched to Everett to install kits.

Brookville's deadlines for pilot cars are sandwiched around the in-house body work. Last update was many months ago but they apparently did come in last year for the first-phase work. Which probably means the body work is what's running late. Being at Everett they're using regular garage bays, so COVID staffing levels on # of adjacent bays allowed under active repair + COVID-expedited bus repairs while reduced fleet usage allowed for more shop TLC most likely backburnered the body work temporarily. Don't think Brookville's been on-call yet this year because of that, but even if they were the techs would be having trouble with the travel restrictions between here and Brookville HQ outside of Pittsburgh.
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Fair enough. I vaguely remember the PCC rebuilds supposed to be complete this year (this summer?), but guessing that is going to slip into 2021.
 
bakgwailo said:
Fair enough. I vaguely remember the PCC rebuilds supposed to be complete this year (this summer?), but guessing that is going to slip into 2021.
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Which isn't a big deal because it's not like the 6 active PCC's at Mattapan have been ridden all that hard in '20 with the extremely mild/snowless winter and then months of COVID schedules making it so that no more than 2 cars are in-service at any given time. The fleet hasn't had this much Rn'R between service assignments since the Ashmont Loop rebuild 16 years ago, so it's basically a 'free' year.

Everett does, BTW, still have a couple garage bays with tracks in them because they do general component heavy-repair work for the rapid transit div. including the diesel & unpowered work equipment. There's no power to actually move the PCC's out into the parking lot on those tracks, but they are indeed sitting on steel rail flanges while they're in the bays and can be pushed/pulled a few feet on steel wheel to get moved on/off the lifts.
 
In general, do we care that the T has RFIs out for
"dedicated rail, self-propelled, ... Crane Cars" for the Red, Orange, and Blue lines, and OCS cars for the Green and Blue Lines? Notably, the RFIs reject any hiRail options, which I would assume would be better for both Off The Shelf-ness and operational flexibility?

That said, I suppose it's a good thing that the T is looking to expand and refresh it's MoW capabilities.
 
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Stlin said:
In general, do we care that the T has RFIs out for
"dedicated rail, self-propelled, ... Crane Cars" for the Red, Orange, and Blue lines, and OCS cars for the Green and Blue Lines? Notably, the RFIs reject any hiRail options, which I would assume would be better for both Off The Shelf-ness and operational flexibility?

That said, I suppose it's a good thing that the T is looking to expand and refresh it's MoW capabilities.
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They want hybrid for tunnel duty...diesel gensets that can either power down their RPM's for better ventilation, or battery-electric. But otherwise be as portable as hi-rail trucks. There aren't many buying options of that type out on the market yet because the requisite fuel tech is newer, so they're casting a wider net than usual and have had this RFI on a very wide-open deadline.
 
There was a Rider Oversight Committee meeting 5p to 7p today, covering GLX and other topics
Anything happen?
 
This is kind of silly, but does anyone know a good way to get Google to correct their transit line routings? I had submitted one request almost a year ago but nothing's come of it.

For instance, between Tufts Medical Center and Back Bay, their Orange Line continues down Washington and loops at the Pike, while the actual platforms are at an angle underneath the YMCA (hence the headhouse on Tremont and Oak):
orange line.PNG


And their Blue Line is a huge mess - instead of going from Government Center straight down State Street to the emergency exit at the end of Long Wharf, they draw a wacky line that travels down Milk Street and passes directly beneath Old City Hall. When I first noticed this, I thought it was because they had remapped the "primary" State Station marker to the Devonshire entrance (for some reason), but they've now moved it back to the Old State House and it didn't fix the line.
blue line.PNG
 
MjolnirMan said:
This is kind of silly, but does anyone know a good way to get Google to correct their transit line routings? I had submitted one request almost a year ago but nothing's come of it.
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May not be a big deal since the MBTA's website has a mapping tool which appears to have the correct drawing.
 
jklo said:
May not be a big deal since the MBTA's website has a mapping tool which appears to have the correct drawing.
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Could you link to that tool that you like?

I have found that Google maps changes fairly readily if you (re)submit feedback giving them a link to an official site where they can fact check

(I am not saying if Mjolnir did it right/wrong, but it seems worth resubmitting periodically, and maybe I have higher reputation points with Google because I did a lot of early Google maps editing when they permitted the General public to edit directly)

Another way to submit things to Google maps is to edit them in openstreetmap first and point out in your Google submission "make it look like this."
 
Google has always been terrible about this. Kind of stupid, since the data is easily available and they have the railroads depicted accurately. I can't find it now, but I saw a blog post once from the makers of the Transit app about how they went to some effort to do this right.
 
ceo said:
Google has always been terrible about this. Kind of stupid, since the data is easily available and they have the railroads depicted accurately. I can't find it now, but I saw a blog post once from the makers of the Transit app about how they went to some effort to do this right.
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Yeah I swear the lines the MBTA uses on their website are published in their GTFS feed, a data format literally designed by Google, yet for some reason they draw their own routes instead...
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Yeah I swear the lines the MBTA uses on their website are published in their GTFS feed, a data format literally designed by Google, yet for some reason they draw their own routes instead...
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I wonder if it is a copyright issue? Maybe transit apps get to use the MBTA data, but not Google?
 
Google did have accurate lines at one point, several years ago. Not sure what algorithm changed to cause the screw-up.
 
ceo said:
I can't find it now, but I saw a blog post once from the makers of the Transit app about how they went to some effort to do this right.
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George_Apley said:
Google did have accurate lines at one point, several years ago. Not sure what algorithm changed to cause the screw-up.
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Incredibly, at the time writing of the Transit App blog that ceo mentioned, it looks like both locations were rendered correctly on Google:
1_w6ffiQqAGbSAS4DvLFNHrQ.png

vs now:
google_boston_now.PNG
 
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