General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

Teban54 said:
mass.streetsblog.org

City of Everett Wins Federal Funds to Bridge the Sweetser Circle Barrier - Streetsblog Massachusetts

Federal officials have pledged $1.2 million to let the City of Everett start planning ways to bridge the Revere Beach “Parkway,” a massive highway barrier that divides the northern and southern parts of the city. The study will focus specifically on the massive Sweetser Circle, a 1950s-era...
mass.streetsblog.org mass.streetsblog.org
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Wow, this is potentially huge. If they could add a CR station, even better—imagine the reduction in travel times if you had regional rail frequencies from North Station to Everett, with connections to a SL to Chelsea almost entirely on a busway.
 
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FK4 said:
Wow, this is potentially huge. If they could add a CR station, even better—imagine the reduction in travel times if you had regional rail frequencies from North Station to Everett, with connections to a SL almost entirely on a busway.
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And one look at the map in the article explains why this is critical. There is going to be so much density in the area between the Commercial Triangle and the Exxon Tank Farm development areas. Without transit improvements all those people will be have to be in cars!
 
The 3 week shutdown of the Green Line from Copley to Babcock St., Cleveland Circle, and Brookline Hills, lifted 2 slow zones in the eastbound direction from Kenmore to Copley Station inbound.

Yet the Green Line is now running slower post 3 week shutdown than before the 3 week shutdown (at least in the inbound direction).

It's also worth noting that the T's slow zone dashboard goes back to January 1st, 2023, which means 2 months of offical slow zone data pre-systemwide slowdowns in March 2023. The Green Line trunk had a dozen slow zones in the trunk in January and February 2023. Yet the Green Line today in March 2024, despite having fewer slow zones than January and February 2023, is slower than it was in January and February 2023.

Note that due to the upcoming 4 day diversion of the Orange Line downtown in March 2024, it will skew the numbers with Orange Line ridership dumped onto the Green Line trunk.

Kenmore to Haymarket (Eastbound/Inbound) (Source: https://dashboard.transitmatters.org/)
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North Station to Kenmore (Westbound)
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To add insult to injury, some of the MBTA's buses are getting slower. The 57 bus in January 2024 ran signifcantly slower than it did in January 2023. The slowest 25% of trips by the end of January 2023 took 26 minutes to cross the entire length of Allston-Brighton to Kenmore eastbound/inbound.

By January 2024, 25% of route 57 buses exceeded 30 minutes of travel time for the same corridor, 15% slower year over year, and erasing any commuting time savings from slow zone liftings on the Green Line. These Route 57 buses crept along at a measly 7.5 MPH (12 KMH) in the city of Boston, only slightly faster than walking and slower than cycling.

Oak Square to Kenmore (Eastbound/Inbound) (travel times)
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Oak Square to Kenmore (Eastbound/Inbound), speed in MPH
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Any updates on the spring schedules? The T typically releases them by mid-March I think..
 
bostonbyfoot said:
Any updates on the spring schedules? The T typically releases them by mid-March I think..
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Spring schedules start April 7th, 2024. The T typically releases new schedules 5 - 9 calendar days before the schedule changes (I've tracked initital releases/start dates for the GTFS schedule). This means we will get new spring schedules either March 29th or April 1st/2nd/3rd.
 
I have a friend who is riding the Green Line today and mentioned that (as they were leaving the station) the operator got out of the train to close the front door via some sort of key in a lock located to the left of the front door. It's a Type 7 from what they say. Can anyone comment on why that might be?
 
ulrichomega said:
I have a friend who is riding the Green Line today and mentioned that (as they were leaving the station) the operator got out of the train to close the front door via some sort of key in a lock located to the left of the front door. It's a Type 7 from what they say. Can anyone comment on why that might be?
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At Medford Tufts I’ve seen the conductor open a closed Type 7 train door from the outside via the key method you described. Guessing it’s a security thing.
 
ulrichomega said:
I have a friend who is riding the Green Line today and mentioned that (as they were leaving the station) the operator got out of the train to close the front door via some sort of key in a lock located to the left of the front door. It's a Type 7 from what they say. Can anyone comment on why that might be?
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The Type 8's also have key switches for the center doors on the inside and outside, and the Type 9's also add an interior key switch for the front door. The 7's only have the exterior key for the front door.

What station was this at? At a terminal stop like Lake Street or Cleveland Circle, we are supposed to close the doors so as to never leave the train unattended with passengers on board, and this key allows us to do that. But for some reason the "leaving the train unattended" thing seems to go out the window at Riverside, Union, and Medford. That said, in the rare instance I'm at Medford, if there is a train on the other platform that is departing first, I do prefer to close the doors so that way any riders get on the first train to depart.
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Delvin4519 said:
Spring schedules start April 7th, 2024. The T typically releases new schedules 5 - 9 calendar days before the schedule changes (I've tracked initital releases/start dates for the GTFS schedule). This means we will get new spring schedules either March 29th or April 1st/2nd/3rd.
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Yeah - Not sure why spring schedule starts so late this year.
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Where do I even begin with this one? I was sent to Park Street the last two mornings to assist with Green Line passenger flow during the Orange Line diversion and it's been a cluster. The lack of signage indicating which trains go to North Station is pitiful. If I had a penny for every time someone asked "does this train go to North Station" the last two mornings, I'd have a lot of pennies. We have run some extra detail trains from various branches to the North Station turnback but it isn't nearly enough. When I brought up the idea to coworkers and an official about hypothetically extending all B and C trains to North Station I got attitudes of "it would never work" and "we tried that once" "it was awful" "it would be too long of a run with the people we have" "there was too much traffic".

Setting aside the fact that the B and C have never simultaneously terminated at North Station, and also that the Green Line central subway already has too much traffic and yet we don't propose permanently looping the C and/or D at Kenmore or doing anything to actually fix the subway, we also have far more operators than we did even a year ago and I think we could 100% sustain full-time usage of the North Station turnback. Unfortunately, doing so would require OCC to actually do their jobs and dispatch it properly. But it's definitely doable. You could probably even gain that extra time back by giving trains signal priority on the surface, which would save a lot of time (but would require coordination with the city of Boston, and in the case of the C branch, the town of Brookline).

The reality is that there isn't enough Green Line service to North Station, even when the Orange isn't diverted. Even just permanently extending the C back to North Station would be a help, but for the diversion we 100% fumbled the bag by not extending the B and C the two stops to North Station. You can still use the Govy and Park loops as necessary. It can't fix everything, but cleaning up operational inefficiencies could help keep the Green Line moving.
 
nbcoram said:
The Type 8's also have key switches for the center doors on the inside and outside, and the Type 9's also add an interior key switch for the front door. The 7's only have the exterior key for the front door.

What station was this at? At a terminal stop like Lake Street or Cleveland Circle, we are supposed to close the doors so as to never leave the train unattended with passengers on board, and this key allows us to do that. But for some reason the "leaving the train unattended" thing seems to go out the window at Riverside, Union, and Medford. That said, in the rare instance I'm at Medford, if there is a train on the other platform that is departing first, I do prefer to close the doors so that way any riders get on the first train to depart.
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Yeah - Not sure why spring schedule starts so late this year.
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Where do I even begin with this one? I was sent to Park Street the last two mornings to assist with Green Line passenger flow during the Orange Line diversion and it's been a cluster. The lack of signage indicating which trains go to North Station is pitiful. If I had a penny for every time someone asked "does this train go to North Station" the last two mornings, I'd have a lot of pennies. We have run some extra detail trains from various branches to the North Station turnback but it isn't nearly enough. When I brought up the idea to coworkers and an official about hypothetically extending all B and C trains to North Station I got attitudes of "it would never work" and "we tried that once" "it was awful" "it would be too long of a run with the people we have" "there was too much traffic".

Setting aside the fact that the B and C have never simultaneously terminated at North Station, and also that the Green Line central subway already has too much traffic and yet we don't propose permanently looping the C and/or D at Kenmore or doing anything to actually fix the subway, we also have far more operators than we did even a year ago and I think we could 100% sustain full-time usage of the North Station turnback. Unfortunately, doing so would require OCC to actually do their jobs and dispatch it properly. But it's definitely doable. You could probably even gain that extra time back by giving trains signal priority on the surface, which would save a lot of time (but would require coordination with the city of Boston, and in the case of the C branch, the town of Brookline).

The reality is that there isn't enough Green Line service to North Station, even when the Orange isn't diverted. Even just permanently extending the C back to North Station would be a help, but for the diversion we 100% fumbled the bag by not extending the B and C the two stops to North Station. You can still use the Govy and Park loops as necessary. It can't fix everything, but cleaning up operational inefficiencies could help keep the Green Line moving.
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C branch already has TSP. The town of Brookline already implemented it a few years ago.
 
nbcoram said:
Where do I even begin with this one? I was sent to Park Street the last two mornings to assist with Green Line passenger flow during the Orange Line diversion and it's been a cluster. The lack of signage indicating which trains go to North Station is pitiful. If I had a penny for every time someone asked "does this train go to North Station" the last two mornings, I'd have a lot of pennies. We have run some extra detail trains from various branches to the North Station turnback but it isn't nearly enough. When I brought up the idea to coworkers and an official about hypothetically extending all B and C trains to North Station I got attitudes of "it would never work" and "we tried that once" "it was awful" "it would be too long of a run with the people we have" "there was too much traffic".

Setting aside the fact that the B and C have never simultaneously terminated at North Station, and also that the Green Line central subway already has too much traffic and yet we don't propose permanently looping the C and/or D at Kenmore or doing anything to actually fix the subway, we also have far more operators than we did even a year ago and I think we could 100% sustain full-time usage of the North Station turnback. Unfortunately, doing so would require OCC to actually do their jobs and dispatch it properly. But it's definitely doable. You could probably even gain that extra time back by giving trains signal priority on the surface, which would save a lot of time (but would require coordination with the city of Boston, and in the case of the C branch, the town of Brookline).

The reality is that there isn't enough Green Line service to North Station, even when the Orange isn't diverted. Even just permanently extending the C back to North Station would be a help, but for the diversion we 100% fumbled the bag by not extending the B and C the two stops to North Station. You can still use the Govy and Park loops as necessary. It can't fix everything, but cleaning up operational inefficiencies could help keep the Green Line moving.
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It is absolutely ridiculously insane that neither the B or the C go to North Station. With only the D directly serving North Station, the headways from North Station to Kenmore in a 1 seat ride matches that for a single branch (the longest branch), which means atrocious headways.

Riders would often be much better off taking the E from North Station or Haymarket all the way to Copley, then transferring at Copley for Kenmore service. Going eastbound from Kenmore, riders would need to board a Gov't Ctr streetcar to Park or Gov't Ctr, and transfer again for Union/Medford service. However, this makes several commutes just plain awful.

This makes getting from Charlestown, Chelsea, and Malden, to Allston Brighton, a 4 seat ride that takes 1 hour 40 minutes and an extremely unpredictable commute. With the Green Line B and C branches terminating at Gov't Ctr, the extra transfer is needed for 1 stop between Gov't Ctr and Haymarket, or alternatively the 2 stops between Copley and Kenmore.
  • Take the 92, 93, 111, or Orange Line to Haymarket (or if coming from the northside Commuter Rail, to North Station)
  • Transfer x1
  • Take the E to Gov't Ctr, Park, or Copley
  • Transfer x2 (you can do this at Gov't Ctr after riding 1 stop, or do it at Copley to ride the remaining 2 stops)
  • Take the B/C/D to Kenmore
  • Transfer x3
  • Take the 57 to Allston & Brighton
  • (Do it again in reverse for the return trip)

Travelling from Everett, Linden Sq., Winter Hill, or East Medford is even worse. Since they all require a bus transfer at Malden, Wellington, or Sullivan. The travel time for this is probably on the order of at least 2 hours. This is a FIVE seat ride with FOUR transfers, meaning there is no certainity for the range of travel times depending on how long each of the 4 transfers take.
  • Take the 106, 108, 99, 134, 110, 112, 95, 101, 89, 105, 104, or 109 buses from Winter Hill, East Medford, Linden Square, or Everett; to the nearest Rapid Transit stop (in this case, the Orange Line)
  • Transfer x1 to the Orange Line at Malden, Wellington, or Sullivan
  • Take the Orange Line to North Station or Haymarket
  • Transfer x2
  • Take the E to Gov't Ctr, Park, or Copley
  • Transfer x3 (you can do this at Gov't Ctr after riding 1 stop, or do it at Copley to ride the remaining 2 stops)
  • Take the B/C/D to Kenmore
  • Transfer x4
  • Take the 57 to Allston & Brighton
  • (Do it again in reverse for the return trip)
(White the 57 is listed above, the same also apply to the 60 and 65 buses at Kenmore. The 8 and 19 can be accessed at the E branch and Orange Lines, and so can be accessed without the Green Line central subway tunnel transfer penalty from the lack of North Sta./Haymarket service for the C and B branches).
Sure, you could try taking the D, but the wait times are much longer at Kenmore than just taking the first Gov't Ctr streetcar that shows up, and transferring again at Copley, Park, or Gov't Ctr for continued Medford service.

nbcoram said:
I think we could 100% sustain full-time usage of the North Station turnback.
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There seems ot be an unadvertised slow zone in the southbound/inbound direction inside the North Station turnback, and it is not shown on the MBTA speed restriction dashboard. In the southbound direction there is a 5 MPH sign followed by a "RESUME SPEED" sign in quick succession.

In the northbound/outbound direction it is 6 MPH (10KMH), before turning to 15 MPH (25KMH) right at the incline.
 
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nbcoram said:
The Type 8's also have key switches for the center doors on the inside and outside, and the Type 9's also add an interior key switch for the front door. The 7's only have the exterior key for the front door.

What station was this at? At a terminal stop like Lake Street or Cleveland Circle, we are supposed to close the doors so as to never leave the train unattended with passengers on board, and this key allows us to do that. But for some reason the "leaving the train unattended" thing seems to go out the window at Riverside, Union, and Medford. That said, in the rare instance I'm at Medford, if there is a train on the other platform that is departing first, I do prefer to close the doors so that way any riders get on the first train to depart.
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I believe this would have been North Station given the person was there because of the OL shutdown. I also misunderstood them. It was one of the various people helping with the diversion that operated the key to close the door as they were departing, not the operator of the train itself. So it sounds like someone just closed the door from the outside instead of the inside, but I'm still confused as to why the operator couldn't just do that themselves.
 
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nbcoram said:
The reality is that there isn't enough Green Line service to North Station, even when the Orange isn't diverted. Even just permanently extending the C back to North Station would be a help
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It's crazy to me that North Station hasn't seen regularly scheduled C branch service since 2021. It would be great if the C branch ever gets re-extended to North Station.
 
themissinglink said:
It's crazy to me that North Station hasn't seen regularly scheduled C branch service since 2021. It would be great if the C branch ever gets re-extended to North Station.
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To be fair, when the C was at North Station, the D was terminating at Government Center instead. AFAIK, I can't recall when was the last time North Station saw more than two Green Line branches, if ever.

Whether North Station should see more than two branches is another matter.

nbcoram said:
Where do I even begin with this one? I was sent to Park Street the last two mornings to assist with Green Line passenger flow during the Orange Line diversion and it's been a cluster. The lack of signage indicating which trains go to North Station is pitiful. If I had a penny for every time someone asked "does this train go to North Station" the last two mornings, I'd have a lot of pennies. We have run some extra detail trains from various branches to the North Station turnback but it isn't nearly enough. When I brought up the idea to coworkers and an official about hypothetically extending all B and C trains to North Station I got attitudes of "it would never work" and "we tried that once" "it was awful" "it would be too long of a run with the people we have" "there was too much traffic".

Setting aside the fact that the B and C have never simultaneously terminated at North Station, and also that the Green Line central subway already has too much traffic and yet we don't propose permanently looping the C and/or D at Kenmore or doing anything to actually fix the subway, we also have far more operators than we did even a year ago and I think we could 100% sustain full-time usage of the North Station turnback. Unfortunately, doing so would require OCC to actually do their jobs and dispatch it properly. But it's definitely doable. You could probably even gain that extra time back by giving trains signal priority on the surface, which would save a lot of time (but would require coordination with the city of Boston, and in the case of the C branch, the town of Brookline).

The reality is that there isn't enough Green Line service to North Station, even when the Orange isn't diverted. Even just permanently extending the C back to North Station would be a help, but for the diversion we 100% fumbled the bag by not extending the B and C the two stops to North Station. You can still use the Govy and Park loops as necessary. It can't fix everything, but cleaning up operational inefficiencies could help keep the Green Line moving.
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Would there be signal issues at the turnback if 4 branches ran to North Station? Since you mentioned last time that D/E trains to and from Science Park need to wait for the turnback to clear before entering the portal, I'm concerned that having more trains use the turnback may disproportionately affect D/E's performance here.
 
cubbe8 said:
C branch already has TSP. The town of Brookline already implemented it a few years ago.
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Did the town install some system to detect a train? Because the lights on the C are the least bad out of the three main surface branches. I thought Brookline had installed the lights to be TSP-ready if the T had ever gotten on board with it, but from what I had heard the T did not want to implement it on our end. This is an area where I am not sure about the specifics, to be honest.
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ulrichomega said:
I believe this would have been North Station given the person was there because of the OL shutdown. I also misunderstood them. It was one of the various people helping with the diversion that operated the key to close the door as they were departing, not the operator of the train itself. So it sounds like someone just closed the door from the outside instead of the inside, but I'm still confused as to why the operator couldn't just do that themselves.
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Good question.

I have used my key to close doors for operators at Park Street this week but not the front door - always the center doors, or the rear left door when it's left-side or all doors. Perhaps there was some issue with the door toggle switch. Closing the front door with the key with the operator inside seems a bit unnecessary.
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Delvin4519 said:
It is absolutely ridiculously insane that neither the B or the C go to North Station. With only the D directly serving North Station, the headways from North Station to Kenmore in a 1 seat ride matches that for a single branch (the longest branch), which means atrocious headways.

Riders would often be much better off taking the E from North Station or Haymarket all the way to Copley, then transferring at Copley for Kenmore service. Going eastbound from Kenmore, riders would need to board a Gov't Ctr streetcar to Park or Gov't Ctr, and transfer again for Union/Medford service. However, this makes several commutes just plain awful.
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As someone who commutes into North Station regularly, and will be operating on the B and C branches via CR four days a week for spring schedule, this is going to make my life a little more annoying (especially with the Lowell Line construction schedule that was announced with 10 days' notice cutting the train I was hoping to take on Mondays and Tuesdays). Recently I was at Kenmore trying to go home from work via North Station, and I was on a B train being held so a C train could pass. A D train was 2 minutes away. I got off the B, jumped onto the C, and gambled on the C just beating an E (that I didn't know if one existed) into Copley Junction. I figured "hey worst case, I will grab the Union train at Govy". Plan worked to perfection, and I actually probably would have missed the Lowell outbound if I waited for the Union.

This also contributes to post-event crowding at Kenmore, as someone who has taken the Green Line to Sox games. People needing service to Haymarket/N. Station or beyond get screwed. Last time I went to a game I pretty much screamed in excitement standing at the right-side door as I saw a Medford train at Copley Junction waiting for us to pass, I got off the train and hopped on the much emptier Medford train since I had some time to kill.

Aside from baseball games, only 1 branch from Kenmore to North Station causes real problems for daily commuters as you mentioned. And it's not like this is a new problem - prior to the C getting cut back, the D looped at Govy and the B at Park. It's like there is some aversion to running more than 2 branches to North Station. (When the C ran to North Station, there was nothing past there due to GLX construction, so only having 2 branches made sense; now that we have 2 terminals beyond North Station it's a different equation.)
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Delvin4519 said:
There seems ot be an unadvertised slow zone in the southbound/inbound direction inside the North Station turnback, and it is not shown on the MBTA speed restriction dashboard. In the southbound direction there is a 5 MPH sign followed by a "RESUME SPEED" sign in quick succession.

In the northbound/outbound direction it is 6 MPH (10KMH), before turning to 15 MPH (25KMH) right at the incline.
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I looked at our internal system recently during a boring overnight at Inner Belt. No slow zones there -- a lot of the Turnback is just a slow area by design. There are just some speed signs that they have been too lazy to properly address which leads to inconsistent speeds by operators (there is a notorious one from Boylston to Arlington westbound, where it's 25 but there is tape all over the signs and one was previously covered up by a trash bag. I used to do 10 over here till I checked the internal system for the first time and many people still do. There is also a new area of ambiguity just before Kenmore eastbound coming out of Beacon Junction; after the switch the speed 20 signs are gone so people don't know if it's 6 (Beacon Junction speed), 10, 20, or 25.

As for the Turnback itself - Northbound it's 15 from the end of the platform all the way to the double red, then 6 as you mentioned from the double red signal at the first switch to the incline. Southbound it's 15 until just before you dive into the underground area, then 6, then 5 over a walkway from the official's office to the storage/turnback tracks, then the resume speed sign you mentioned then a 15 sign that is covered up which, surprise surprise, leads to a lot of inconsistency.
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Teban54 said:
Would there be signal issues at the turnback if 4 branches ran to North Station? Since you mentioned last time that D/E trains to and from Science Park need to wait for the turnback to clear before entering the portal, I'm concerned that having more trains use the turnback may disproportionately affect D/E's performance here.
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You are correct that a train needs to mostly clear the area of the turnback for a train at Science Park to get the signal; however, this only applies to a train on the normal through tracks (something I may have failed to mention). If there is a train on the middle tracks, they need to push a button before getting the signal to proceed and setting Signal 712 (Science Park) to hold red. With proper dispatching, you can tell the trains to hit the button right as a D/E is passing so the B/C can follow them right out, and slot them before the next D/E. A redesign of the signal system is not a bad idea either to allow trains to get closer to the switching area.

It's a problem that can be overcome with good dispatching, and potentially re-working the signal system. More scheduling discipline would be necessary too. We have the tracks at the Turnback to make it work. If you get bunching, you'd always still have the Govy loop in your back pocket, or you can extend one to Union or Medford.

I would suggest extending all B/C trains to North Station during the summer and fall schedules as a trial program. Give it a serious shot, and adjust strategy as needed. If it's truly an operational issue to have two branches using the turnback with two running through, then cut one (but not both!) back to Govy. The B is the natural candidate, but with how busy of an area Comm Ave is, I'd almost rather make the C the short one.
 
Question: How many people commute from North Station (whether from Commuter Rail or Orange Line North) to Kenmore and further west? In other words, how strong is the demand for a one-seat ride from North Station to the B/C/D branches?

(Not doubting the need, just curious.)
 
Teban54 said:
Question: How many people commute from North Station (whether from Commuter Rail or Orange Line North) to Kenmore and further west? In other words, how strong is the demand for a one-seat ride from North Station to the B/C/D branches?

(Not doubting the need, just curious.)
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It's heavily weighted towards the LMA, for which the current service pattern of the D and E is intended. Ridership between North Station and the B, C, and the rest of the D isn't much. It would be nice to have the C run to North Station to untangle its headways from the B and to spread the load of North Station-Copley ridership, but it's not desperate at this point.
 
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