General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

[shmessy]

Slow Zones, GLX Late with bare-bones stations, person killed on the Red Line with a faulty door, falling ceiling panels at Harvard, automobiles off the edge at Alewife, stairways crumbling, fire on the Mystic River bridge, system-wide line shutdowns, billion-dollar new fare system nowhere to be found, faulty CRRC new subway train car contract..............the list is never ending. I could go on and on.

So, I bring you unbelievably happy news. (Coffee and trains are the BEST combination.) This is the coolest Caffe Nero inside the Wellesley Hills Train Station. (HH Richardson is the same architect as Trinity Church in Copley Square.) The building is wonderful and needs a little love, and I hope the MBTA respects the beautiful building when they improve the station.
Worcester Triple Track Design Professional Services Contract (mbta.com)

I was window treatment shopping in Natick on Saturday, and I just had to stop! EVERY MBTA Station should have a beautiful coffee shop like this.

View attachment 35253

View attachment 35254

THAT is called “Smart Growth”. And one would assume that should be done automatically at almost every train station.

Compare that with the underutilization directly at the new Lechmere Green Line Station (in a dense urban area). Urban planning malpractice.

 

[Delvin4519]

I've gone through and obtained URLs for all historical MBTA bus and subway schedules, for each quarter, dating back to Fall 2017.

The file with all bus and subway schedules is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17NIGxHhHBiHDRu9vmeVMoyxXViVoQp_GkrZ3sV5iQ7k/edit (alt link)

Some notes:
* The MBTA has not always refreshed all bus routes every quarter, there are some quarters that only have refreshed routes where the MBTA adjusted departure and running times.
* I am not sure if the MBTA made Silver Line schedules in fall 2020, as I haven't located the 2 SL files for fall 2020 (yet). Either I haven't found it yet or they didn't publish one.
* There are missing files for Fall 2017, namely 29 bus routes and subway routes. I haven't located the files yet, or they are missing.

 

[Equilibria]

Slow Zones, GLX Late with bare-bones stations, person killed on the Red Line with a faulty door, falling ceiling panels at Harvard, automobiles off the edge at Alewife, stairways crumbling, fire on the Mystic River bridge, system-wide line shutdowns, billion-dollar new fare system nowhere to be found, faulty CRRC new subway train car contract..............the list is never ending. I could go on and on.

So, I bring you unbelievably happy news. (Coffee and trains are the BEST combination.) This is the coolest Caffe Nero inside the Wellesley Hills Train Station. (HH Richardson is the same architect as Trinity Church in Copley Square.) The building is wonderful and needs a little love, and I hope the MBTA respects the beautiful building when they improve the station.
Worcester Triple Track Design Professional Services Contract (mbta.com)

I was window treatment shopping in Natick on Saturday, and I just had to stop! EVERY MBTA Station should have a beautiful coffee shop like this.

View attachment 35253

View attachment 35254

A couple of the HH Richardson stations that have been saved have gotten this treatment - Newton Centre is another though it was more casually accessible when it was a Starbucks than as a diner today.

THAT is called “Smart Growth”. And one would assume that should be done automatically at almost every train station.

Compare that with the underutilization directly at the new Lechmere Green Line Station (in a dense urban area). Urban planning malpractice.

That seems a little unfair, given that the area all around the new station is a construction site still in the process of being developed (and pretty densely).

 

[Java King]

This makes me think of a BBC series from about a decade ago where James May (of "Top Gear") and fellow presenter Oz Clarke spend part of it hopping from station to station on some bit of the national rail network in Yorkshire where each historic station building has a pub. Sounds like an ideal vacation, if you ask me.

OMG.............that is my dream vacation experience!

 

[Java King]

A couple of the HH Richardson stations that have been saved have gotten this treatment - Newton Centre is another though it was more casually accessible when it was a Starbucks than as a diner today.

I used to live in Newton and remember both the Starbuck's and the current diner. (I hope the diner is still there as I haven't been there in quite a while.) Newton Highlands also had a nice station building, but it was a Doctor's office or something not very commuter-focused. I think Waban also had a restaurant or something nice in the historic train station.

In general, there aren't too many examples of current MBTA train stations with cafes or restaurants. Framingham has a Brazilian Steakhouse that is nice. Route 128 only has a Dunkin and a small cafe. I think I remember West Concord and Concord being really nice with some restaurants.

Is there ANY relatively new train station with a cafe or restaurant besides Newburyport and Anderson?

 

[chrisbrat]

It's not a new station, but Beverly Depot (Communter Rail, not "normal" MBTA) is a decent (if not particularly inexpensive) restaurant/cafe in a similarly nice (not quite as nice) building.

 

[bigeman312]

A true point, but it doesn't change how much it sucked. It's one thing to have to deal with some slow zones or buses on part of the trip, my friends and I have all became pretty adept at adjusting to that. But as one of my friends said "Figuring out the T today harder than any puzzle boda Borg might have" and it was in a lot of ways, this one hopping on a slow moving train, to get on to a shuttle (or attempt to bypass as some did), then slowly move on another train. The trip just sucked. I honestly haven't seen such an experience so many of us at once having a bad time (or course it pretty easy when every line was affected).

So it in short, it sucked and I can see this having consequences in the future.

I just got back from Miami, where I rode multiple multiple Metrobus lines, the MIA Mover, the MetroMover, and Brightline. As a regular T rider, I was blown away by how much better mass transit is in South Florida than the T in every single way. Let that sink in. Boston has significantly worse mass transit than South Florida now.

Throughout the trip, I was gushing/lamenting to my girlfriend about how much better functioning their transit is than ours. While down there, I saw the news about the macro slow zones, which just added fuel to the fire. I was anticipating an abrupt slap to the face upon landing in Boston after experiencing the luxury of mass transit in South Florida and boy was I right.

My trip from the airport to JP on Sunday was absurd, and that's with nearly perfect transfers. To start, I had to decide between the Silver Line to South Station or the Airport Shuttle to Airport Station. The Ted Williams Tunnel was showing a large traffic jam due to the Sumner closure, so I chose the Airport Shuttle. Here's how the trip went:

• Wait curbside for the Airport Shuttle (5 minutes, no big deal in terms of time), reminiscing about the MIA mover and how great and feasible such a system would be for Boston. In Miami (and JFK, Newark, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Cincinnati, etc), people are understandably more willing to hop on the people mover that ushers them from within the airport structure to the rest of the transit system. The curbside bus wait is enough to deter people, and is wholly inadequate compared to our peers.
• Hop on the Airport Shuttle from Terminal A to Airport Station. It's about a 15 minute bus-ride ride total, which is a lot longer and less pleasant than the people movers that exist for other airports that don't have an easier, walkable rail transit connection.
• Wait for the Blue LIne for 6 minutes. No big deal.
• Ride the Blue Line from Airport to Government Center, as instructed, due to the Orange Line shutdown. The trip took 90% longer than usual, owing to the slow zones, with the Blue Line hitting a maximum speed of 22 mph. Yikes.
• Go upstairs where there was a Green Line trolly (C-Branch) waiting for me. Win! Transfers have been god so far.
• Ride the Green Line from Government Center to Copley, as instructed, due to the Orange Line shutdown. The trip took 40% longer than usual, with the Green Line hitting a maximum speed of 25 mph. Not good, but not THAT much worse than the Green Line usually is. I get to Copley 55 minutes after getting to the curbside bus stop at Terminal A, and 50 minutes after departing the Airport on the Shuttle. That's with great transfers and nothing unplanned that went wrong. Yikes!
• The next E-Branch train is not for a while, so I continue to follow the prescribed diversion and walk right onto an Orange Line Shuttle in Copley Square. It leaves moments after I board. There isn't much traffic. I arrive at Ruggles 1 hour and 13 minutes after departing the airport, with great transfers and absolutely nothing unexpected going wrong.
• I arrive at Ruggles to closed fare gates. Why are we collecting fares here? I thought the standard practice was to leave fare gates open at a station with shuttle bus replacement service. I hope that the gate recognizes my payment as a transfer and it did NOT! Great. I get the pleasure of paying two fares for this trip.
• There is an Orange Line train right there in the station, so all I have to do is wait for it to go north a bit to the crossover, chang tracks, then come back southbound to board. This move takes longer than it should, but is low on the list of pressing issues.
• Hop on the Orange Line. Ride it to Stony Brook. That trip only added about one minute due to slow zones. I arrive at Stony Brook Station 1 hour and 27 minutes after departing the airport on the shuttle, with good transfers and absolutely nothing unplanned that went wrong. Nothing about the trip surprised me. It was all exactly what I expected.

It is amazing how visiting a city with functional mass transit (Miami) really puts things in perspective. When that city is Miami (and not Tokyo, lol), it really nails the point home. The MBTA has failed. Given that I believe mass transit is part of the life-blood of a functional city, Boston has failed. It's quite pathetic.

 

[bakgwailo]

I used to live in Newton and remember both the Starbuck's and the current diner. (I hope the diner is still there as I haven't been there in quite a while.) Newton Highlands also had a nice station building, but it was a Doctor's office or something not very commuter-focused. I think Waban also had a restaurant or something nice in the historic train station.

In general, there aren't too many examples of current MBTA train stations with cafes or restaurants. Framingham has a Brazilian Steakhouse that is nice. Route 128 only has a Dunkin and a small cafe. I think I remember West Concord and Concord being really nice with some restaurants.

Is there ANY relatively new train station with a cafe or restaurant besides Newburyport and Anderson?

Not sure if we are counting subways stations, but Forest Hills has Mike's Donuts and the convince store. Always seems like a big miss on the MBTA to make a bit of money and enhance passenger experience by not devoting more space to restaurants and what not in stations (subway or otherwise). Winter St concourse always seemed like an interesting spot for a few joints. I'd point to Japan's stations as great examples where you can even find Michelin star places tucked away in stations.

 

[king_vibe]

I just got back from Miami, where I rode multiple multiple Metrobus lines, the MIA Mover, the MetroMover, and Brightline. As a regular T rider, I was blown away by how much better mass transit is in South Florida than the T in every single way. Let that sink in. Boston has significantly worse mass transit than South Florida now.

Throughout the trip, I was gushing/lamenting to my girlfriend about how much better functioning their transit is than ours. While down there, I saw the news about the macro slow zones, which just added fuel to the fire. I was anticipating an abrupt slap to the face upon landing in Boston after experiencing the luxury of mass transit in South Florida and boy was I right.

My trip from the airport to JP on Sunday was absurd, and that's with nearly perfect transfers. To start, I had to decide between the Silver Line to South Station or the Airport Shuttle to Airport Station. The Ted Williams Tunnel was showing a large traffic jam due to the Sumner closure, so I chose the Airport Shuttle. Here's how the trip went:

• Wait curbside for the Airport Shuttle (5 minutes, no big deal in terms of time), reminiscing about the MIA mover and how great and feasible such a system would be for Boston. In Miami (and JFK, Newark, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Cincinnati, etc), people are understandably more willing to hop on the people mover that ushers them from within the airport structure to the rest of the transit system. The curbside bus wait is enough to deter people, and is wholly inadequate compared to our peers.
• Hop on the Airport Shuttle from Terminal A to Airport Station. It's about a 15 minute bus-ride ride total, which is a lot longer and less pleasant than the people movers that exist for other airports that don't have an easier, walkable rail transit connection.
• Wait for the Blue LIne for 6 minutes. No big deal.
• Ride the Blue Line from Airport to Government Center, as instructed, due to the Orange Line shutdown. The trip took 90% longer than usual, owing to the slow zones, with the Blue Line hitting a maximum speed of 22 mph. Yikes.
• Go upstairs where there was a Green Line trolly (C-Branch) waiting for me. Win! Transfers have been god so far.
• Ride the Green Line from Government Center to Copley, as instructed, due to the Orange Line shutdown. The trip took 40% longer than usual, with the Green Line hitting a maximum speed of 25 mph. Not good, but not THAT much worse than the Green Line usually is. I get to Copley 55 minutes after getting to the curbside bus stop at Terminal A, and 50 minutes after departing the Airport on the Shuttle. That's with great transfers and nothing unplanned that went wrong. Yikes!
• The next E-Branch train is not for a while, so I continue to follow the prescribed diversion and walk right onto an Orange Line Shuttle in Copley Square. It leaves moments after I board. There isn't much traffic. I arrive at Ruggles 1 hour and 13 minutes after departing the airport, with great transfers and absolutely nothing unexpected going wrong.
• I arrive at Ruggles to closed fare gates. Why are we collecting fares here? I thought the standard practice was to leave fare gates open at a station with shuttle bus replacement service. I hope that the gate recognizes my payment as a transfer and it did NOT! Great. I get the pleasure of paying two fares for this trip.
• There is an Orange Line train right there in the station, so all I have to do is wait for it to go north a bit to the crossover, chang tracks, then come back southbound to board. This move takes longer than it should, but is low on the list of pressing issues.
• Hop on the Orange Line. Ride it to Stony Brook. That trip only added about one minute due to slow zones. I arrive at Stony Brook Station 1 hour and 27 minutes after departing the airport on the shuttle, with good transfers and absolutely nothing unplanned that went wrong. Nothing about the trip surprised me. It was all exactly what I expected.

It is amazing how visiting a city with functional mass transit (Miami) really puts things in perspective. When that city is Miami (and not Tokyo, lol), it really nails the point home. The MBTA has failed. Given that I believe mass transit is part of the life-blood of a functional city, Boston has failed. It's quite pathetic.

The MBTA Orange Line alone has a higher ridership than Miami-Dade Transit across all modes. I'm sure the monorail at Disney works wonderfully too.

 

[#bancars]

For all the woes the MBTA is facing, for now I'm grateful we don't seem to be plagued with the widespread antisocial behavior (namely, open drug use) that is affecting systems like LA, Philly, and Minneapolis.

L.A. riders bail on Metro trains amid 'horror' of deadly drug overdoses, crime

Commuters have abandoned large swaths of a Los Angeles Metro train system plagued by crime and the scourge of drugs.

www.latimes.com

 

[Riverside]

I just got back from Miami, where I rode multiple multiple Metrobus lines, the MIA Mover, the MetroMover, and Brightline. As a regular T rider, I was blown away by how much better mass transit is in South Florida than the T in every single way. Let that sink in. Boston has significantly worse mass transit than South Florida now.

Throughout the trip, I was gushing/lamenting to my girlfriend about how much better functioning their transit is than ours. While down there, I saw the news about the macro slow zones, which just added fuel to the fire. I was anticipating an abrupt slap to the face upon landing in Boston after experiencing the luxury of mass transit in South Florida and boy was I right.

My trip from the airport to JP on Sunday was absurd, and that's with nearly perfect transfers. To start, I had to decide between the Silver Line to South Station or the Airport Shuttle to Airport Station. The Ted Williams Tunnel was showing a large traffic jam due to the Sumner closure, so I chose the Airport Shuttle. Here's how the trip went:

• Wait curbside for the Airport Shuttle (5 minutes, no big deal in terms of time), reminiscing about the MIA mover and how great and feasible such a system would be for Boston. In Miami (and JFK, Newark, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Cincinnati, etc), people are understandably more willing to hop on the people mover that ushers them from within the airport structure to the rest of the transit system. The curbside bus wait is enough to deter people, and is wholly inadequate compared to our peers.
• Hop on the Airport Shuttle from Terminal A to Airport Station. It's about a 15 minute bus-ride ride total, which is a lot longer and less pleasant than the people movers that exist for other airports that don't have an easier, walkable rail transit connection.
• Wait for the Blue LIne for 6 minutes. No big deal.
• Ride the Blue Line from Airport to Government Center, as instructed, due to the Orange Line shutdown. The trip took 90% longer than usual, owing to the slow zones, with the Blue Line hitting a maximum speed of 22 mph. Yikes.
• Go upstairs where there was a Green Line trolly (C-Branch) waiting for me. Win! Transfers have been god so far.
• Ride the Green Line from Government Center to Copley, as instructed, due to the Orange Line shutdown. The trip took 40% longer than usual, with the Green Line hitting a maximum speed of 25 mph. Not good, but not THAT much worse than the Green Line usually is. I get to Copley 55 minutes after getting to the curbside bus stop at Terminal A, and 50 minutes after departing the Airport on the Shuttle. That's with great transfers and nothing unplanned that went wrong. Yikes!
• The next E-Branch train is not for a while, so I continue to follow the prescribed diversion and walk right onto an Orange Line Shuttle in Copley Square. It leaves moments after I board. There isn't much traffic. I arrive at Ruggles 1 hour and 13 minutes after departing the airport, with great transfers and absolutely nothing unexpected going wrong.
• I arrive at Ruggles to closed fare gates. Why are we collecting fares here? I thought the standard practice was to leave fare gates open at a station with shuttle bus replacement service. I hope that the gate recognizes my payment as a transfer and it did NOT! Great. I get the pleasure of paying two fares for this trip.
• There is an Orange Line train right there in the station, so all I have to do is wait for it to go north a bit to the crossover, chang tracks, then come back southbound to board. This move takes longer than it should, but is low on the list of pressing issues.
• Hop on the Orange Line. Ride it to Stony Brook. That trip only added about one minute due to slow zones. I arrive at Stony Brook Station 1 hour and 27 minutes after departing the airport on the shuttle, with good transfers and absolutely nothing unplanned that went wrong. Nothing about the trip surprised me. It was all exactly what I expected.

It is amazing how visiting a city with functional mass transit (Miami) really puts things in perspective. When that city is Miami (and not Tokyo, lol), it really nails the point home. The MBTA has failed. Given that I believe mass transit is part of the life-blood of a functional city, Boston has failed. It's quite pathetic.

If I'm doing the math right, it took you about 30 min to arrive at Government Center, yes?

If so, Google Maps suggests that your journey would have been only 24 minutes longer if you had walked to Stony Brook from Government Center: https://goo.gl/maps/DWrK99A8dxQFVcSL6

 

[Java King]

For all the woes the MBTA is facing, for now I'm grateful we don't seem to be plagued with the widespread antisocial behavior (namely, open drug use) that is affecting systems like LA, Philly, and Minneapolis.

I totally agree! I rode the Los Angeles Metrorail from LAX to Norwalk back last summer. At Norwalk, I grabbed an Uber to Anaheim. I thought it would be nice and easy, and the metro map made it seem like a no-brainer if you were heading East. It was OK, but it was mid-day around 2pm. There were a LOT of sketchy people, and I didn't feel very safe with luggage. I saw several people talking to themselves, and one person got off the train and started screaming. I was VERY, VERY happy to have Boston's MBTA at that moment in time.

 

[Java King]

It's not a new station, but Beverly Depot (Communter Rail, not "normal" MBTA) is a decent (if not particularly inexpensive) restaurant/cafe in a similarly nice (not quite as nice) building.

View attachment 35256

That looks amazing! Do you know if the food is any good? I'll definitely have to make a trip to the North Shore to check this out. Thank you.

 

[Java King]

It's not a new station, but Beverly Depot (Communter Rail, not "normal" MBTA) is a decent (if not particularly inexpensive) restaurant/cafe in a similarly nice (not quite as nice) building.

I just looked on Google Street View and was a little disappointed with this HORRIBLE 1950's/60's addition that clearly does NOT respect the original architecture of the train station. However, the interior looks amazing from your photos. I'm assuming this 1-story Frankenstein is the kitchen?

 

[chrisbrat]

That looks amazing! Do you know if the food is any good? I'll definitely have to make a trip to the North Shore to check this out. Thank you.

It's not a world-beater, but it's good/decent old-school grub.

 

[sneijder]

If I'm doing the math right, it took you about 30 min to arrive at Government Center, yes?

If so, Google Maps suggests that your journey would have been only 24 minutes longer if you had walked to Stony Brook from Government Center: https://goo.gl/maps/DWrK99A8dxQFVcSL6

I think the point is that when faced with this trip (airport to JP), only a masochist, transit die-hard, or broke student would use transit. Anyone with a bit of money in their pocket would save literally a hour by taking a uber.

 

[Stlin]

80 Thoreau, at Concord Depot, is also an excellent restaurant though it has little to no original station charm. I will also recommend the Union Station Brewery in Providence, in the 1890s station building - lots to look at there.

Also, I will say one of the less ... graceful... things you can do to a historic station building is what happened to Littleton Depot, which is now home to a stove restoration shop, which means it's constantly surrounded with a bunch of scrap.

If I recall correctly, most of these commuter rail stations, that are now retail, were sold off by the B&M during it's service cuts prior to being acquired by the MBTA... Arguably, that may have bettered their chances of being preserved in the days before the rail lines returned, but it's annoying when there's this beautiful building at stations that isn't available to commuters. Unfortunately, while it's not in the cards anytime soon, I'd love to see many of these restored as more commuter oriented spaces rather than retail stores.

In essence, a Starbucks, or any sort of café is more welcoming to a morning commuter waiting for a train than a clothing retailer, a sit down restaurant less friendly to someone just passing through. Hopefully, with regional rail, the volume of traffic passing through incentivizes serving that audience.

 

[HenryAlan]

Not sure if we are counting subways stations, but Forest Hills has Mike's Donuts and the convince store. Always seems like a big miss on the MBTA to make a bit of money and enhance passenger experience by not devoting more space to restaurants and what not in stations (subway or otherwise). Winter St concourse always seemed like an interesting spot for a few joints. I'd point to Japan's stations as great examples where you can even find Michelin star places tucked away in stations.

Quite a few of the SW Corridor stations have some sort of connected food service. In addition to Mike's at Forest Hills, there is a Subway at Mass Ave., Dunks at Ruggles, Domino's and the delightful falafel place at Roxbury Crossing.

 

[fatnoah]

I just got back from Miami, where I rode multiple multiple Metrobus lines, the MIA Mover, the MetroMover, and Brightline.

I'm not surprised that Miami transportation quality might be better. They're running at 1/4 the budget of the MBTA to move about 1/4 as many people with far less and far newer infrastructure. A few minutes on The Google shows that T's debt service alone is almost equivalent to the entire Miami-Dade transportation department budget. This isn't to say that we shouldn't be running things much better, as we absolutely should be. Hopefully the current situation is a wake-up call for the Commonwealth that we can and should have better transit.

 

[dhawkins]

A couple years ago I stopped into the Palmer Mass railroad station restaurant. It's a H.H Richardson building with a great original interior with the open ceiling trusses and the like. The restaurant/ tavern had the usual New England menu. It looks like the name has changed but it seems to be the same type of food. Steaming Tender The station sits in the edge of downtown in a large gravel parking lot along the tracks. The Acela went by at full speed when we were outside in the parking lot. Scared me a bit, was not expecting an Acela to go by. I doubt the area has changed much since it's original construction.