General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

[The EGE]

Dean Rd's ridership in 2014 was lower than both Englewood Ave and Tappan St, so this choice makes sense from a ridership perspective (though arguably not from a stop spacing perspective). However, several stops on the C have lower ridership than Dean Rd, including Brandon Hall, Kent St and Hawes St, so I wonder what made them decide to keep these stations.

Or could it be the case that some of the other stops may be merged into one like Amory and Babcock on the B, even though they're all mentioned on the report? The exact phrasing (quoted below) would argue against any stop consolidation or relocation, but if Dean Rd is the only consolidation, the word "consolidations" probably wouldn't have been in plural form.

Does anyone recall how the Amory and Babcock consolidations were initially stated?

It's worth remembering that the stops aren't randomly placed - almost all of them are at significant cross streets where much of their ridership will be walking from. Moving stops to midblock, as was done on the B, is often counterproductive by making longer walks for people coming from both the former stops. Merging Kent and Hawes at Amory, and Fairbanks and Brandon Hall, are the only two locations on the C that I think make sense.

I've never been particularly convinced about needing to remove Dean Road. It's not actually that close to Beaconsfield - about a 900 foot walk, the same as to Tappan Street or Englewood Avenue. Moreover, because it's only two stops from the terminal, the only people whose trips it delays are those using Cleveland Circle or Englewood Avenue. I'd rather see improvements further east on the line - in particular, closing some of the closely-spaced grade crossings like Centre and Pleasant - that would benefit more riders and not give anyone a longer walk.

From the beginning of messaging, the B consolidations were messaged as such: "The proposed project would consolidate the BU West, St. Paul, Babcock, and Pleasant stops into two fully accessible stations that will help reduce travel times and improve safety."

 

[ritchiew]

They could also move the tracks to the sidewalk and make the sidewalk the platform.

I think there's a pretty universal agreement among transit experts that center running is better than running along the sidewalk. For a bunch of reasons: People will inevitably park their cars on the tracks for "just one minute" if the tracks are along the sidewalk. When tracks are together in a median, it's easier to let a train get diverted around a disabled train. Trains can go faster if they don't have to constantly watch for someone stumbling off a curb. Transit signal priority is supposed to be easier in the median. Etc.

There are some streetcars that run in the right lane, like in DC or Detroit. They're pretty notoriously slow because they get blocked by parked cars.

 

[bigeman312]

It's worth remembering that the stops aren't randomly placed - almost all of them are at significant cross streets where much of their ridership will be walking from. Moving stops to midblock, as was done on the B, is often counterproductive by making longer walks for people coming from both the former stops. Merging Kent and Hawes at Amory, and Fairbanks and Brandon Hall, are the only two locations on the C that I think make sense.

I've never been particularly convinced about needing to remove Dean Road. It's not actually that close to Beaconsfield - about a 900 foot walk, the same as to Tappan Street or Englewood Avenue. Moreover, because it's only two stops from the terminal, the only people whose trips it delays are those using Cleveland Circle or Englewood Avenue. I'd rather see improvements further east on the line - in particular, closing some of the closely-spaced grade crossings like Centre and Pleasant - that would benefit more riders and not give anyone a longer walk.

From the beginning of messaging, the B consolidations were messaged as such: "The proposed project would consolidate the BU West, St. Paul, Babcock, and Pleasant stops into two fully accessible stations that will help reduce travel times and improve safety."

I agree with your thesis, but with some disagreement on details. This stretch is less of a super-block situation that the recent B-Branch consolidation stretch of Comm Ave, with much more porous access from side streets.

If one wanted to remove Dean Rd, you could shift Englewood Ave to be just east of the Englewood/Beacon intersection without creating a mid-block problem as you describe.

I will grant you that you have a point with respect to Tappan St. In a perfect world, that u-turn is eliminated and the crosswalks from Tappan and Williston become the eastern end of the stop, rather than the western end of the stop, thereby not increasing the walking distance from either street.

Other than that, I agree with the rest:

• Fairbanks St and Brandon Hall make the most sense for consolidation.
• Kent and Hawes can go 2 -> 1. Personally, I think the current location of the Hawes St stop, presumably with platforms lengthened westward is the best solution, but that’s a nit and not a hill I’d die on.
• The other six stops (Cleveland Circle, Washington Sq, Summit Ave, Coolidge Corner, St Paul St, and St Mary’s St) are in the right locations, with the only possible exception being St Mary’s St, but it’s in the best location given the location of the portal, and messing with that is out of scope for this discussion. We definitely see eye to eye there.

 

[Teban54]

If the section between North Station and Lechmere had it's diversion cancelled, how will they get the Lechmere Viaduct's slowzones fixed? Are they just going to let the Lechmere Viaduct's slowzones sit all the way through to November 2024?

https://twitter.com/MBTA/status/1731760148228575645

https://dashboard.transitmatters.org/green/trips/single/?to=70502&from=70514&date=2023-12-04

View attachment 45270 View attachment 45272View attachment 45271

Chill, dude. There are many reasons why a diversion may be canceled (crew shortages, conflicts with one-time local events that may require trains to keep running, etc). That doesn't mean they've given up on fixing it or that they don't plan to do the work in the future, and there have been several occasions where the planned track work was canceled but later rescheduled (e.g. some of the Braintree branch weekend closures, Union Square MassDOT bridge work). No need to think of everything as the worst-case scenario.

 

[Stlin]

I would sincerely hope that if the E branch got some form of grade separation that the 39 would also be able to use it, in the form of some LRT/Bus combo infrastructure. City of Boston is literally in the middle of a transit corridor project, but as of October 23 the segment from Heath St to Brigham circle has notably light touches, "pending further coordination with the T."

But that raises a slightly esoteric question; the type 9s and 10s are designed for level boarding at a 14in platform, vs the 8in "near level" the 8s are. Every GL stop recently built has been provisioned for that increase. Buses can probably deal with the 8in platform, but I can't see them being able to handle 14in without mods? I know Seattle had buses using its downtown transit tunnel until relatively recently, but I think those buses needed substantial mods rendering them unable to flex to other routes? Plus, I feel like bus docking would be an issue with curbs that high.

 

[TheRatmeister]

I would sincerely hope that if the E branch got some form of grade separation that the 39 would also be able to use it, in the form of some LRT/Bus combo infrastructure. City of Boston is literally in the middle of a transit corridor project, but as of October 23 the segment from Heath St to Brigham circle has notably light touches, "pending further coordination with the T."

But that raises a slightly esoteric question; the type 9s and 10s are designed for level boarding at a 14in platform, vs the 8in "near level" the 8s are. Every GL stop recently built has been provisioned for that increase. Buses can probably deal with the 8in platform, but I can't see them being able to handle 14in without mods? I know Seattle had buses using its downtown transit tunnel until relatively recently, but I think those buses needed substantial mods rendering them unable to flex to other routes? Plus, I feel like bus docking would be an issue with curbs that high.

Wishful thinking I know, but ideally E branch reliability is improved and extended back to Arborway, thereby negating the need for the 39.

 

[Delvin4519]

Chill, dude. There are many reasons why a diversion may be canceled (crew shortages, conflicts with one-time local events that may require trains to keep running, etc). That doesn't mean they've given up on fixing it or that they don't plan to do the work in the future, and there have been several occasions where the planned track work was canceled but later rescheduled (e.g. some of the Braintree branch weekend closures, Union Square MassDOT bridge work). No need to think of everything as the worst-case scenario.

IIRC, the Lechmere Viaduct was originally scheduled to be one of the last slow zones to be fixed in the original presentation, meaning that slow zone, as part of being rebult for the GLX, would be one of the longest lasting slowzones in the whole system. Only 2 other Red Line slow zones would be fixed in December 2024 - January 2025, after the original timeline of the Lechmere Viaduct in late November 2024.

The Lechmere Viaduct slow zone would outlast that of even the Red Line's JFK - North Quincy slowzone by a longshot, if it makes it all the way to late November 2024. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/11/01/metro/mbta-eliminates-year-old-slow-zone/

https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/2023-11/GM%20Report%20to%20the%20Board%2011.16.2023%20v6.pdf

 

[Teban54]

Wishful thinking I know, but ideally E branch reliability is improved and extended back to Arborway, thereby negating the need for the 39.

I don't see how one can do any kind of street-running the E to Arborway without screwing up reliability for the entire Green Line:

1. Northeastern to Forest Hills is 3.6 miles, almost as long as the B (4.0 miles), which is already the worst branch on the GL system.
2. The entire ROW south of Brigham Circle, especially south of Riverway, and especially south of Hyde Square, is very narrow and can't even be compared to the ultra-wide B branch. Any dedicated road medians need to remove all parking along the entire route, through many residential neighborhoods, rendering it politically challenging (not to mention I'm not sure if the roads are wide enough to keep the existing bus lanes). The other option is to run in mixed traffic, and if you do that, kiss goodbye to reliability through Jamaica Plain traffic.
3. The route goes through dense residential neighborhoods, especially popular commercial areas of Jamaica Plain, where the heavy pedestrian traffic makes aggressive signal priority undesirable if not impossible.
4. And, perhaps the most relevant to this discussion: The E branch will always have disproportionately higher impacts to the entire Green Line system than the rest of the branches, so its delays (very likely under E-to-Arborway) propagate to the entire line.
   • With today's GL, it has to deal with Copley Junction.
   • With GL Reconfiguration, it's one of the few branches of the Huntington-Tremont-Seaport system that are not grade separated. And the only other ones - Needham, Nubian via Washington, and possibly Design Center - are not nearly as bad.

Even in the event that reliability boosts can be done (i.e., my points #2 and #3 can be solved somehow), I feel that such improvements are better suited for the 39, which does not affect the Central Subway or Tremont St subway.

 

[737900er]

You could maybe do some kind of wraparound service to Kenmore via the D-E connector and avoid the worst of the conflicts, but the whole thing is a century old corridor of OSRs that would be lost.

 

[Delvin4519]

MBTA decision to unexpectedly cancel Lechmere Viaduct work for this week leaves many passenegers confused, some waiting at North Station for shuttles that would never come, and lots of outdated signage left behind.

https://twitter.com/MBTA/status/1731760148228575645

 

[TheRatmeister]

I don't see how one can do any kind of street-running the E to Arborway without screwing up reliability for the entire Green Line:

For the most part, this is only true if we accept as a fact that a surface tram route cannot be reliable.

This is just not true, and lots of places around the world have demonstrated that it's not true, even on busy shopping streets with lots of pedestrians. Yes, it is more difficult, and no it will not be as fast, but it is not impossible.

Actually, you don't need to look outside Boston to see this, you can look at the 39 bus. Even while running in mixed traffic, with single door boarding, lack of signal priority, and frequent stops, it still manages to be more reliable than the E branch is currently, and nearly at the level of the B or D branches. With boarding at all doors, (And preferably off-board fare collection, but that doesn't seem to be on the table at the moment), stop consolidation, signal priority, and median running I do not see why it would be significantly less reliable than any of the other GL branches. So, with that said, let's run through the main problems, and some potential solutions:

1. Street parking: In terms of dealing with NIMBYs, this is the biggest obstacle. But to some extent, removing street parking is only not possible as long as you say it's not. Between using more frequent open streets days to show locals and particularly business owners how it would (mostly not) affect them, providing more and better transit so fewer people need or want to drive, and providing alternative parking options, like underground garages in key areas, this can in fact be overcome.
2. Speed: We're paralleling the OL, it doesn't need to be fast. 10mph is more than enough.
3. Pedestrian traffic and TSP: The solution here is pretty simple. You create pedestrian islands on both sides of the tracks, then signal each direction of traffic separately. Each crossing is now broken up into 3 crossings. Traffic can now be held for pedestrians in one direction, independently of GL service. (Or people can just ignore the signals, this is Boston after all.)
4. Delays: From what I understand turnarounds are not tightly controlled operationally currently, and this is (Generally) the biggest cause of wild headway fluctuations on bus and GL surface routes. This is an organizational problem, and the solution is to build systems to manage it. In terms of other factors, like traffic, pedestrians, long boarding times, etc, you build in sufficient waiting times at terminals as part of the schedule to account for this, and somewhat inflate scheduled travel times knowing that delays happen.
5. Copley Junction: There really isn't an easy solution to this one, but ultimately it's not like this is not a problem currently and it would become a big problem if Arborway service was reintroduced. It's been a problem for the past, 80 years?
6. Delay propagation: Kind of related to the previous point, but essentially the issue is: We don't ever want a B/C/D branch train waiting at Arlington because an E branch train can't leave Copley. But fortunately I think is actually doable. Since the travel time from Park St to Prudential is ~8 minutes, and that's also (roughly) the headway we're trying to target, an operations system could be created so that an E train cannot leave Park St until the train ahead has reached Prudential. It's not 100% foolproof, but it would at least prevent any major delay cascades and holdups in the central subway.

But ultimately: E Branch reliability really, really sucks currently. If the current section can be improved and at least some of these problems fixed, restoring Arborway service won't leave us any worse off operationally than we are now.

 

[737900er]

Could you maybe elaborate on what the advantages of going back to Arborway are? As discussed here, I think the 39 mostly functions as a radial route from JP to Huntington Ave rather than for Copley/Back Bay transfers. Most people have gotten off the bus by the time it gets to those transfer points.

Compare to its bustitution sister the 57 where people are obviously transferring at Kenmore.

If the Huntington Subway is ever built, I could maybe see an argument for running it as the JP Streetcar in the reservation with an extension to Prudential or something like that though (the existing stops are a little closer together than you'd probably want for modern LRT...)

 

[TheRatmeister]

Could you maybe elaborate on what the advantages of going back to Arborway are? As discussed here, I think the 39 mostly functions as a radial route from JP to Huntington Ave rather than for Copley/Back Bay transfers. Most people have gotten off the bus by the time it gets to those transfer points.

View attachment 45279

Compare to its bustitution sister the 57 where people are obviously transferring at Kenmore.
View attachment 45276

If the Huntington Subway is ever built, I could maybe see an argument for running it as the JP Streetcar in the reservation with an extension to Prudential or something like that though (the existing stops are a little closer together than you'd probably want for modern LRT...)

I'll go over the actual ridership data at some point, but by far the biggest reason is just capacity. The 39 is one of, if not the busiest bus route, and it is constrained in its capacity by using articulated buses. A 2 car GL train can hold ~3-4x the number of people as an articulated bus. In terms of transfers though, it seems like there's a huge number of alightings at Brigham Circle, so it seems like people are transferring to the E branch there, rather than riding all the way to Back Bay/Copley.

 

[Jahvon09]

As part of the Big Dig deal, the T was supposed to bring back the E Line service all the way back to Forest Hills. It neve happened. Instead, they covered up the tracks with gravel & never thought about it anymore!!!!







1111!!!

 

[Teban54]

I'll go over the actual ridership data at some point, but by far the biggest reason is just capacity. The 39 is one of, if not the busiest bus route, and it is constrained in its capacity by using articulated buses. A 2 car GL train can hold ~3-4x the number of people as an articulated bus.

Quickly commenting on this - this gets into the question of:

Should we LRT-ify every (busy) bus route?

The 39 is hardly unique in ridership and capacity needs. 1, 7, 28, 57, 66, 111 etc all have strong arguments for increasing capacity, and many of them are easier to convert to LRT than the 39. In fact, the 1 and 28 receive frequent calls for LRT conversion among transit enthusiasts (I disagree with them for reasons unrelated to this comment). You can even throw in some other bus routes with slightly lower ridership, such as 9, 32, 70, 77, etc.

So if you want to do the 39, why not do them all?

And even if you do want to LRT-ify the 39 due to ridership, another option is to run the 39 as a standalone LRT route that does not through-run with the E branch (similar to LRT-ifying the 28 that does not through-run with an F branch to Nubian). In a world with Huntington subway, you can have the heavy-metro lines run in the subway and LRT39 run in street median that's formerly occupied by the E branch, for example.

In terms of transfers though, it seems like there's a huge number of alightings at Brigham Circle, so it seems like people are transferring to the E branch there, rather than riding all the way to Back Bay/Copley.

I'll come back to your earlier comment, but regarding just this part alone, I doubt that's true.

I've personally seen cases at Riverway where a bunch of people were waiting for the 39, but none of them boarded the E when it arrived. For people transferring to GL, I imagine it's better to do so at Copley, where you get all 4 branches instead of just one. And if people only need transfers to the E, the initial BNRD proposal of completely repurposing the T39 from Brigham Circle wouldn't have received nearly the same amount of backlash as it did.

The alightings at Brigham may be explained just as well by the number of people working in LMA, especially since the 39 is one of the few established "LMA feeder" corridors that employees there may be more willing to live in due to the convenience of transit. If anything, transferring to the E at Back of the Hill, Riverway, Mission Park and Fenwood Rd is much more convenient than Brigham Circle.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Quickly commenting on this - this gets into the question of:

Should we LRT-ify every (busy) bus route?

The 39 is hardly unique in ridership and capacity needs. 1, 7, 28, 57, 66, 111 etc all have strong arguments for increasing capacity, and many of them are easier to convert to LRT than the 39. In fact, the 1 and 28 receive frequent calls for LRT conversion among transit enthusiasts (I disagree with them for reasons unrelated to this comment). You can even throw in some other bus routes with slightly lower ridership, such as 9, 32, 70, 77, etc.

So if you want to do the 39, why not do them all?

Because the traction electricity is already there for the 39 and not for those other routes. The E's former Arborway power trunk is active and actively maintained under the street as a 600V DC interconnect between Green and Orange. So you can subtract most electrification costs from the restoration excepting maybe a slight power boost at the nearest substations, and do the restoration very cheaply with just track, OCS, and stations. Other than the 57, which has a similarly extant (but recently turned off with the end of the trackless trolleys) ex- A-line interconnect with Watertown Carhouse on its route, all of the others require the 600V electrification to be built from scratch at considerable extra cost.

And even if you do want to LRT-ify the 39 due to ridership, another option is to run the 39 as a standalone LRT route that does not through-run with the E branch (similar to LRT-ifying the 28 that does not through-run with an F branch to Nubian). In a world with Huntington subway, you can have the heavy-metro lines run in the subway and LRT39 run in street median that's formerly occupied by the E branch, for example.

The way it was done pre-1985 is that Arborway turned at Park St. and ran at a loose fixed headway during the service day using lower-capacity PCC's. But Huntington Ave.-proper was doubled-up by 2-car LRV Lechmere-Heath turns to serve the heaviest demand. I don't see why something similar would be impossible to mount in a post-GLT universe where traffic moved at a more orderly and predictable pace between Copley and Park. The whole corridor doesn't need supertrains at an LMA-serving appetite. You can break the line into an inner turn and an outer turn like they had perfected in the old days.

 

[Teban54]

The way it was done pre-1985 is that Arborway turned at Park St. and ran at a loose fixed headway during the service day using lower-capacity PCC's. But Huntington Ave.-proper was doubled-up by 2-car LRV Lechmere-Heath turns to serve the heaviest demand. I don't see why something similar would be impossible to mount in a post-GLT universe where traffic moved at a more orderly and predictable pace between Copley and Park. The whole corridor doesn't need supertrains at an LMA-serving appetite. You can break the line into an inner turn and an outer turn like they had perfected in the old days.

Well, if we're settling for lower-capacity trains and lower frequencies for the "E outer" Arborway-(somewhere) branch, doesn't this cancel out the "biggest reason" of capacity that @TheRatmeister mentioned in the first place? And without GL Reconfiguration, I'm not even sure if the Central Subway has enough capacity to support what's basically 5 branches (B, C, D, E outer, E inner).

 

[737900er]

Because the traction electricity is already there for the 39 and not for those other routes. The E's former Arborway power trunk is active and actively maintained under the street as a 600V DC interconnect between Green and Orange. So you can subtract most electrification costs from the restoration excepting maybe a slight power boost at the nearest substations, and do the restoration very cheaply with just track, OCS, and stations. Other than the 57, which has a similarly extant (but recently turned off with the end of the trackless trolleys) ex- A-line interconnect with Watertown Carhouse on its route, all of the others require the 600V electrification to be built from scratch at considerable extra cost.

If you were picking between the 39 and the 57, would it make more sense to do the 57 corridor instead? The data seems to indicate that 57 is more oriented to the Central Subway than the 39.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Well, if we're settling for lower-capacity trains and lower frequencies for the "E outer" Arborway-(somewhere) branch, doesn't this cancel out the "biggest reason" of capacity that @TheRatmeister mentioned in the first place? And without GL Reconfiguration, I'm not even sure if the Central Subway has enough capacity to support what's basically 5 branches (B, C, D, E outer, E inner).

1 Type 10 car will have the seating of 1-1/2 Type 7/8/9 cars, so that's approximately 66 seats. Vs. 50 on a 60-footer articulated bus. Is that not enough capacity increase?

And I think you're overestimating the traffic apocalypse in the subway. The 39 runs at 8-9 minute peak frequencies, less than the 6-minute target frequency on the E. It doesn't take a lot of complex math to square the turns. If you ran each turn at 9 minutes peak, you'd have 4-1/2 minute headways on the branch through the Copley-Park stretch...a 1-1/2 minute tightening from the 6 target (good for the LMA!). GLT is definitely worth that much bandwidth from the law-and-order it imposes on the chaos Kenmore-in, so no alt-trunking with GL Reconfig should be required to implement it. Again...this was done before for many decades, including when the A and D were running together. It doesn't take voodoo to implement.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

If you were picking between the 39 and the 57, would it make more sense to do the 57 corridor instead? The data seems to indicate that 57 is more oriented to the Central Subway than the 39.

I don't know if that power interconnect is still going to be there with the retirement of the Cambridge TT's. If the infrastructure gets ripped out in Cambridge you may need to build a new substation on the revived 'A' any which way. It's going to be there permanently on the E because the power balance between the E and the outermost Orange Line depends on it.

As for ridership and trip destinations..."why not both?" If you did 4.5 minute headways to the Packards (thus covering 4.5 out to Harvard Ave. between the two closeby stops), and 9 minutes on the branches you can probably fit that too into a more orderly post-GLT universe Kenmore-Park. Maybe extend some C's up Chestnut Hill Ave. to BC to compensate for the frequency reduction up the hill to the lesser stops. It likewise doesn't take voodoo to re-implement, but YMMV on where that slots in the build pecking order.