Fair enough, I just meant something more like "We will be closing the Orange Line 8/19 - 9/19, and the Green Line between Union Square and Government Center on similar dates that will follow shortly"
General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)
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They told the city on Tuesday morning about both closures and were committed enough to appropriate the shuttle bus money, but needed to work out some details on the green line before announcing, no clue why and big agree that is a bad look and confusing for customers.
The orange line shuttles coming from the north will go to government center. The city wanted them to go all the way to back bay but that’s not happening
The orange line shuttles coming from the north will go to government center. The city wanted them to go all the way to back bay but that’s not happening
Equilibria
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So in effect they've split the region in half, with no way to make connections from either Red or Blue at the other Downtown stops, when nothing has actually gone wrong on the Green (that we know of) before GC. So why not cut it at GC?
From their official announcement, it looks like there are a few simultaneous projects they're trying to accomplish during this:
- GLX Medford branch tie-in (affects Union Sq - Lechmere)
- Lechmere viaduct catenary "adjustments" (affects Lechmere - North Station)
- Government Center garage demolition (affects North Station - Gov't Center)
Equilibria
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Oh - I had read earlier that it was supposed to be to Copley. GC is better.
I thought I had seen this and then couldn't find it but now have found it again:
This seems very unfortunate to me. We want to encourage riders to avoid driving into the city and still charging for parking seems counterproductive.
This seems very unfortunate to me. We want to encourage riders to avoid driving into the city and still charging for parking seems counterproductive.
Brattle Loop
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To be fair, very little of what the MBTA's done lately suggests that they are in any way interested in encouraging people not to drive
bigeman312
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Quick map I made in MS Paint. Will be relevant on 8/20.
On Monday 8/22 (if the MBTA sticks to its own timeline), you can add back in the Fairmount Line and the E-Branch to Copley and remove the Green Line between Government Center and Union Square.
On Monday 8/22 (if the MBTA sticks to its own timeline), you can add back in the Fairmount Line and the E-Branch to Copley and remove the Green Line between Government Center and Union Square.
That doesnt answer the question. If every t ansit agency is the company is unable to hire enough drivers, how can Yankee Line do it? Do they have 200 drivers getting paid to sit at home on the off chance the MBTA calls?
Brattle Loop
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They're a charter company, aren't they? They presumably have employees to drive their buses. Presumably they decide that a guaranteed, large contract is better than their usual fare of bus charterings (does make me wonder if any of their smaller customers might get dumped to focus on the OL).
obviously this doesn’t cover all of it but yankee is currently doing the Braintree branch shuttles which will be over before then. Are theyoperating the E line shuttles too? I never get out that way.
Great minds think alike -- I've just been working on one with the bustituted routes included (like I did during the Green Line closure in June). Once the official shuttle routes are announced, I'll finish it and post it here.
bigeman312
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Im looking forward to it! Feel free to download mine and work off of it. Caveat: I definitely didn’t it quick and dirty.Forest Hills should be listed as a Commuter Rail stop on the Providence/Stoughton Line in addition to the Needham Line, for example.
Every transit agency in tbe country is throwing thousands of dollars in signing bonuses for every living person with a commercial drivers license.
I still don't see how they are going to find 200 to 250 additional drivers to work 30 days straight.
Plus, it sounded like Yankee line struggled to get the 60 buses and all the operators for the Blue Linen shuttle earlier this summer. Are there buses available from Canada? Is bus driver a NAFTA visa category?
Brattle Loop
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Do you have information suggesting that they need 200-250 additional drivers, or is that number out of thin air? More to the point, Yankee obviously has buses and drivers (even if maybe not quite 'enough'), I don't see why they'd simply have to add a whole new fleet of people and vehicles to handle a contract rather than, say, use their existing one. (Whether that would force them to cancel other charter contracts is a different question.)
Posting reddit because I'm not going to remake the twitter post myself. Rep. William Straus is now suggesting the FTA take over the whole thing.
I'll be honestly I don't really follow the guy, but I do remember the last time I saw his name on this board, he was called a gaslighter with a context of suggesting to end the MB TA and absorb it into MassDOT. Fed Takeover or State takeover, I'm not sure if he's trying to make fake political bluffs, make it someone else problems, or genuinely see it as solutions.
More critically, I don't know what would actually work to fix it. My gut says the Feds are probably best (Though painful still)
I'll be honestly I don't really follow the guy, but I do remember the last time I saw his name on this board, he was called a gaslighter with a context of suggesting to end the MB TA and absorb it into MassDOT. Fed Takeover or State takeover, I'm not sure if he's trying to make fake political bluffs, make it someone else problems, or genuinely see it as solutions.
More critically, I don't know what would actually work to fix it. My gut says the Feds are probably best (Though painful still)
Don't forget their also closing the union square branch now for 4 weeks.
Using the closure of the Green Line Extension as the excuse to turn the T over to the Feds reads as a knee-jerk reaction (gaslighting may also be at play here a la MassDOT-Run-MBTA wouldn't have crumbling infrastructure if they were in charge). It's allowing the garage to be demolished quicker and safer for riders, corrections that will toss out a long-standing speed restriction, track work that needs to happen for the Medford Branch tie-in, and sound barrier installation. Those all seem like reasonable projects to take advantage of if you're not going to be able to travel through Haymarket anyways. Maybe it could be done quicker (I'm not sure the extent of the sound barrier installation), maybe the track work could've been coordinated before the opening (I don't know the details) but it's not grounds for FTA coming in. What's the FTA going to do about any of those?
bigeman312
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I didn't. As stated in the post above, the Fairmount Line and the E-Branch to Heath are scheduled to reopen before the Union Square branch closes, so I had to pick a time period for the map to be accurate. I picked the time during which the most closures are taking place at once (8/20), for full effect.
Ahh, fair enough I missed that. I thought they overlapped - minor miracles I guess, right?