General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

[Teban54]

The Ashmont Branch is only seeing half as many trains each day compared to pre-COVID. Pre-COVID, the Red Line saw 223 roundtrips with 112 roundtrips on the Ashmont branch. Now, since March 2023, the Red Line is only managing to run 127 roundtrips on weekdays only, with at most 64 roundtrips weekdays on the Ashmont branch.

If the Red Line is only running half of the pre-COVID service, that means the tracks would only have a fraction of the beating it would've normally gotten pre-COVID. The Ashmont Branch is only seeing trains every 22 minutes off peak and every 18 minutes rush hour. It's not pre-COVID when it used to be every 13 minutes off peak and every 9 minutes peak. The tracks should last a bit more longer than just 3 months if only half the trains run?

I wonder if this is a case of the T being more stringent with track inspections and more aggressively implementing speed restrictions now, compared to pre-Covid or even a year ago. In other words, I suspect that tracks were deteriorating even more rapidly back then (or at least at an equal rate), but they weren't discovered, reported or publicized. (Whether that's intentional cover-up or sheer incompetence is another question, but that's kind of beyond the point.)

Having a speed restriction show up on the dashboard is better than having the underlying track fault but no speed restriction at all.

 

[Delvin4519]

Why is the Red Line marked at 50 MPH (80 kmh) on OpenStreetMap/OpenRailwayMap?

The maximum speed on the MBTA is 40 MPH. Should the map be edited to change the Red Line to 40 MPH (64 kmh)? Plus the Harvard curve is most likely outright wrong.

OpenRailwayMap

OpenRailwayMap - An OpenStreetMap-based project for creating a map of the world's railway infrastructure.

www.openrailwaymap.org

And it seems the entire Braintree Branch is also all wrong. 50 MPH (80kmh) the entire way on OSM.

 

[Jahvon09]

Healey laying groundwork for new MBTA revenues

“I’m not going to comment on hypotheticals until I see things,” Healey said, referring to the task force report. “But what I’ll say is that I think as governor I have not been afraid to take this head-on and this administration is not going to be about kicking the can down the road, which...

commonwealthbeacon.org

 

[HenryAlan]

Healey said she intends to address a historic pattern of understaffing and under-investment at the MBTA. “Today, we’re about changing that,” she said. “We’re about restoring our legacy. We’re determined to lead once again with transit that makes life better, not worse.”

She is saying the right things, but I had to cringe at that lawyer speak regarding hypotheticals. If she can do what's in this quote, we could be in for some exciting times.

 

[ritchiew]

Healey laying groundwork for new MBTA revenues

“I’m not going to comment on hypotheticals until I see things,” Healey said, referring to the task force report. “But what I’ll say is that I think as governor I have not been afraid to take this head-on and this administration is not going to be about kicking the can down the road, which...

commonwealthbeacon.org

I'm at the point where I think Healey isn't working on fixing the MBTA with the required urgency. This looks bad. She's a year in, and setting up a task force to report back in another year. They'll be coming up with some policy suggestions she could have run on and come into office with. Instead, her biggest goal her first year was cutting taxes. Now, I guess we have to hope she'll fight hard for a tax increase soon before starting a reelection campaign.

Meanwhile, the globe article on the same announcement has these details:

Healey is proposing to use $172 million from the so-called “millionaire’s tax” funds to narrow the T’s budget gap for the fiscal year that starts in July. Even if the Legislature approves her proposal, the T estimates it will need to identify savings of $93 million and spend all $363 million from its rainy day fund to balance its budget, according to T chief financial officer Mary Ann O’Hara’s board presentation last month.

Phillip Eng, the MBTA’s general manager, said the agency will have to do some “tightening of the belt” to get through the next fiscal year, even with the governor’s proposed funding.

I've been trying to keep optimistic, but if the MBTA is blowing through rainy day funds and still tightening their belt, we may not have hit rock bottom yet.

 

[stefal]

To get a report with suggestions by the end of 2024 sounds like a whole lot of nothing will come of this...

(Unless when they're developing the report they realize there should be more urgency here...)

 

[Teban54]

The T Fixed Dozens of Green Line Slow Zones. Why Is It So Hard to Notice the Difference? - Streetsblog Massachusetts

Two weeks ago, the MBTA reopened the central segment of the Green Line between the Fenway and downtown Boston after a 23-day closure that repaired old track and removed 16 safety-related speed restrictions. That work followed up on a shorter 9-day closure for work on the same segments of the...

mass.streetsblog.org

A great StreetBlogMASS article explaining the relative lack of speed improvements from Green Line slow zone eliminations.

A few things I find interesting or unexpected:

For the first 11 days of February, the average travel time on that same segment [from North Station to Kenmore] had been reduced to a 17 minutes and 43 seconds – just a little better than one minute faster, with an average speed of just 9 miles per hour.

An average speed of 9 mph sounds only slightly faster than the street-running branches, despite having a full grade-separated ROW. I know there are still slow zones near Haymarket, but still.

As the TransitMatters speed data show, there's a lot of variability in travel times on the Green Line. Since it reopened at the beginning of this month, roughly a quarter of trips from North Station to Kenmore were faster than 16.5 minutes, but a similar number of trips took longer than 20 minutes.

In addition to inconsistency among operators, this also highlights the importance of reliability. I suspect many of these 20-min trips were also a result of a trolley running right behind another one that's behind schedule. (You'd expect westbound trains to be more reliable due to no street-running to the north, but I suspect outbound B and C trains are affected by delays they already experienced when going inbound, since the GC loop can't really hold trains.)

MBTA officials also told StreetsblogMASS that the maximum speed limit on the Green Line throughout much of the central subway tunnel is 25 mph, and because the stations are so close to each other, most Green Line trains only hit that speed limit for short bursts before they start slowing down for the next stop.

The permanent 25 mph restrictions really surprised me. Are they due to track/tunnel geometry, or simply because the stations are too close for anything above 25 mph to make sense? I recall F-Line saying the existing Huntington subway (Prudential and Symphony) is one of the fastest on the Green Line system, but the stop spacing there doesn't seem too different from those closer to downtown.

Overall, I feel that much of the three reasons given would point to increased justification for Green Line Reconfiguration. Trains between Prudential, Back Bay and Bay Village will travel on more modern tunnels with faster speeds. And (in most proposals) they'll no longer interfere with delays from street-running routes.

 

[ulrichomega]

The permanent 25 mph restrictions really surprised me. Are they due to track/tunnel geometry, or simply because the stations are too close for anything above 25 mph to make sense? I recall F-Line saying the existing Huntington subway (Prudential and Symphony) is one of the fastest on the Green Line system, but the stop spacing there doesn't seem too different from those closer to downtown.

Surely this is just because the stations are close together, and though the tracks could be rated for higher speeds you don't actually get much benefit from raising the top speed. If you could somehow put the Acela in those tunnels and ignore the track conditions, it might not be much faster than the existing trolleys. There just isn't enough space to actually get up to speed.

 

[TheRatmeister]

I recall F-Line saying the existing Huntington subway (Prudential and Symphony) is one of the fastest on the Green Line system, but the stop spacing there doesn't seem too different from those closer to downtown.

Could it be because the Huntington Ave Subway is only used by E trains, so the gap in the service is larger and therefore train collisions are less of a concern? If that's the case I wonder if GLTPS would allow for increased speed limits in the rest of the central subway.

 

[Jahvon09]

She's also supposed t9o be working on lowering the fares for senior citizens & I guess special needs people as well. Who will win from this debacle?

 

[bigeman312]

The T Fixed Dozens of Green Line Slow Zones. Why Is It So Hard to Notice the Difference? - Streetsblog Massachusetts

Two weeks ago, the MBTA reopened the central segment of the Green Line between the Fenway and downtown Boston after a 23-day closure that repaired old track and removed 16 safety-related speed restrictions. That work followed up on a shorter 9-day closure for work on the same segments of the...

mass.streetsblog.org

A great StreetBlogMASS article explaining the relative lack of speed improvements from Green Line slow zone eliminations.

A few things I find interesting or unexpected:

An average speed of 9 mph sounds only slightly faster than the street-running branches, despite having a full grade-separated ROW. I know there are still slow zones near Haymarket, but still.


In addition to inconsistency among operators, this also highlights the importance of reliability. I suspect many of these 20-min trips were also a result of a trolley running right behind another one that's behind schedule. (You'd expect westbound trains to be more reliable due to no street-running to the north, but I suspect outbound B and C trains are affected by delays they already experienced when going inbound, since the GC loop can't really hold trains.)


The permanent 25 mph restrictions really surprised me. Are they due to track/tunnel geometry, or simply because the stations are too close for anything above 25 mph to make sense? I recall F-Line saying the existing Huntington subway (Prudential and Symphony) is one of the fastest on the Green Line system, but the stop spacing there doesn't seem too different from those closer to downtown.

Overall, I feel that much of the three reasons given would point to increased justification for Green Line Reconfiguration. Trains between Prudential, Back Bay and Bay Village will travel on more modern tunnels with faster speeds. And (in most proposals) they'll no longer interfere with delays from street-running routes.

This is all fine and dandy, but the elephant in the room nobody wants to address is why this section is slower than it used to be. All of the explanations put forth have only described why it isn't faster than it is, but none have even remotely addressed why it isn't as fast as it was.

 

[HenryAlan]

Surely this is just because the stations are close together, and though the tracks could be rated for higher speeds you don't actually get much benefit from raising the top speed. If you could somehow put the Acela in those tunnels and ignore the track conditions, it might not be much faster than the existing trolleys. There just isn't enough space to actually get up to speed.

Maybe, but I think the stop spacing might be a bit of a red herring. The distance from North Station to Ruggles is only a few hundred yards longer than NS to Kenmore, and also covers 9 stops. Is the Orange Line also running at 9 miles per hour in that stretch? I think the real issue is tunnel congestion. If so, then modern signaling and perhaps the slightly increased headways available by running longer trains once GLT happens, might increase speeds significantly.

Could it be because the Huntington Ave Subway is only used by E trains, so the gap in the service is larger and therefore train collisions are less of a concern? If that's the case I wonder if GLTPS would allow for increased speed limits in the rest of the central subway.

Yes, I think that's a likely explanation.

This is all fine and dandy, but the elephant in the room nobody wants to address is why this section is slower than it used to be. All of the explanations put forth have only described why it isn't faster than it is, but none have even remotely addressed why it isn't as fast as it was.

They hint at a possible explanation when they mention the human factor. It's possible that the operators haven't adjusted to the new, higher speed limits.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Could it be because the Huntington Ave Subway is only used by E trains, so the gap in the service is larger and therefore train collisions are less of a concern? If that's the case I wonder if GLTPS would allow for increased speed limits in the rest of the central subway.

The T isn't advertising GLTPS as improving the max authorized speed. It's mainly that it cuts down on the number of overly-cautious red signals in the Central Subway due to absolute stops being enforced where they're most needed, meaning the 'choppiness' of the trips between stations will improve markedly and you'll see a lot more 25 MPH max running.

Although there's nothing inherent about it that says they can't raise the speed limits on uncongested track. There's no reason why the added safety protection wouldn't raise D line speeds back to what they were prior to the 2008 fatal rear-ender. That restriction was mainly about NTSB concerns about signal visibility on the stretch where the wreck occurred, and absolute stop protection would close that loophole. There's also nothing inherent about tunnel-running that says a 25 MPH speed limit should be the law of the land. It's most likely that's just continuing Breda derailment paranoia meeting track maintenance standards and too few express runs to truly exploit much 26 MPH-and-above running (the E between Copley and Prudential is probably the prime candidate due to its low congestion, but it's probably too little overall benefit to bother with in the end).

 

[Delvin4519]

I have noticed the Green Line trunk Between Haymarket and Hynes Convention Ctr & Brigham Circle has failed to deliver promised results, with actual data only showing a small fraction of the promised travel time savings.

(The reason I select origin destinations heading to Haymarket is primarily since I need the data to evaluate the amount of travel time to reach the Haymarket Congress St. busway for the bus connection, hence Haymarket is selected as the destination).

To figure out what's going on I had to download each month of data from TransitMatters as the data dashboard regularly refuses to load more than 3 - 9 weeks of data for the Green Line trunk at one time, so I downloaded all data to 2016 to find the slow and fast points for the Green Line trunk.

I then took the data from TransitMatters and converted it into 7 day rolling averages, in order to smoothen out the data and get better trends by reducing the effect of outlier data and weekend travel differences compared to weekdays.

For the stretch from Kenmore to Haymarket eastbound, I have got this data. The Green Line trunk is slower than the pre-March 2023 travel times, although it is not as slow as it was around April-May 2023. It is still over 1.5 - 2 minutes slower than Spring 2018, which had the fastest travel times between Kenmore and Haymarket eastbound outside of COVID. Travel times have only decreased by around 2 minutes compared to the peak in October 2023.

Note: There are a few slow zones from Kenmore to just east of Hynes Convention Center.

View attachment 47380

For the stretch from Longwood Medical Area to Haymarket eastbound, travel times are slightly slower then they were in Fall 2022 or Winter 2023. It is also around 1.5 minutes slower than it was in Spring 2018, the fastest travel times outside of COVID. There are zero slow zones Eastbound (EB) from Longwood Medical Area to Haymarket. Travel times have decreased by around 1.5 minutes compared to the peak in October 2023, although peaks in October 2019 and June 2016 are higher (slower) than the slowest travel times in October 2023.
View attachment 47381

Checking back in 5 days later on the stretch from Kenmore to Haymarket EB. Trip times have only decreased by about 18 seconds since my previous post last Thursday. The top 25th percentile has decreased by 29 seconds, and the bottom 25th percentile has decreased by 5 seconds. Average speeds went from 9.6 MPH to 9.7 MPH.

For the stretch from Longwood Medical Area to Haymarket EB, no changes in the past 5 days.

(Source: TransitMatters raw data aggregated into 7 days rolling average)

 

[TheRatmeister]

The Ashmont Branch, which had a 2 week shutdown to fix all of the slowzones on the branch barely over 3 months ago, already has speed restrictions once again.
View attachment 47480
Looks like the shutdown didn't fix everything. If the tracks can't go more than 3 months without new speed restrictions, seems problematic to have speed restrictions this early and this soon after shutdowns lasting half a month?

Fixed in <4 days.

 

[as02143]

Checking back in 5 days later on the stretch from Kenmore to Haymarket EB. Trip times have only decreased by about 18 seconds since my previous post last Thursday. The top 25th percentile has decreased by 29 seconds, and the bottom 25th percentile has decreased by 5 seconds. Average speeds went from 9.6 MPH to 9.7 MPH.
View attachment 47584
For the stretch from Longwood Medical Area to Haymarket EB, no changes in the past 5 days.
View attachment 47583

(Source: TransitMatters raw data aggregated into 7 days rolling average)

Interesting - looks like they're approaching to mid-late 2019 travel time levels - at the quartiles and mean/median. that's a good sign. i'm hopeful that we can get closer to 2017 levels sooner!

 

[nbcoram]

They hint at a possible explanation when they mention the human factor. It's possible that the operators haven't adjusted to the new, higher speed limits.

I do wonder how many of my coworkers actually bother to read the signs sometimes.

 

[KCasiglio]

Green, Blue, and Orange lines on MBTA stopped due to âpower problem,â T says - The Boston Globe

The Green, Blue, and Orange subway lines have come to a dead stop during the Thursday morning commute.

www.bostonglobe.com

“Green Line/Blue Line/Orange Line: Service is currently standing by due to a power problem impacting our stations and signal system,” the T posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, at 6:41 a.m. “Personnel are working to move trains into stations and resolve the issue. Updates will be provided.”


The T first reported the power problem at 6:32 a.m. Thursday.


Meanwhile, and MBTA commuter rail train from Providence has broken down and will need the help of another train to make into South Station — some 90 minutes late, Keolis Commuter Services, the operator of the commuter rail system, said Thursday.

Boston’s horrible, no good, very bad day

 

[JeffDowntown]

Green, Blue, and Orange lines on MBTA stopped due to ‘power problem,’ T says​

As of 6:34 AM total MBTA meltdown.

Green, Blue, and Orange lines on MBTA stopped due to âpower problem,â T says - The Boston Globe

The Green, Blue, and Orange subway lines have come to a dead stop during the Thursday morning commute.

www.bostonglobe.com

 

[Riverside]

Elaborating on the above, looks like multiple stations are without power. This article shows lights out at Haymarket and North Station. Some reports on Twitter suggest all Orange stations from NS to Forest Hills are out. Haven’t seen anything from the other lines. Also not clear why the Red Line is unaffected.

This appears to have been the case for an hour now.

'We apologize for inconvenience, ' MBTA head says after power outage

MBTA officials are pinpointing the cause of the outage and apologizing to riders.

www.wcvb.com