Key MBTA Bus Routes

Arlington said:
Here the MBTA's project map of today's designated key bus routes:
ALLROUTES8X11.jpg
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Still little emphasis on North of Boston, only to the South. Car will always reign supreme up here.
 
#1 - Get 60' buses yesterday. Don't switch to 40' buses at 8pm on Fridays ala the #39.
#57 - Remove 1/2 of the stops.
#66 - See the solution for #1.
 
Answer I got about 60' buses is: they don't have enough garage capacity for another route's worth of 60' buses.
 
Matthew said:
Answer I got about 60' buses is: they don't have enough garage capacity for another route's worth of 60' buses.
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Dependent on them doing their recently-studied garage consolidation of the small outer ones (Lynn, Fellsway) and replacing with more capacity at the biggies (large new Wellington facility supplementing Charlestown, Southampton/Widett Circle expansion, potential Riverside, maybe some use of Readville, etc.). All of that was designed to get their yards calibrated for expansion of the crosstown routes with Urban Ring Phase I. If they can get that house in order with an actionable, fundable plan then they've got a good shot at getting a new infusion of 60-footers rather quickly when they purge the last fleet of the mid-90's era high-floor diesels with programmed replacements.

Not an overly burdensome problem to solve. They made a lot of hay last decade redistributing and modernizing the bus facilities, and the bus fleet is arguably the one mode on the system where they've consistently stayed on top of things with fleet renewal. There only needs to be enough abatement of this perpetual funding crisis so they're capable of making a timely decision at all.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Dependent on them doing their recently-studied garage consolidation of the small outer ones (Lynn, Fellsway) and replacing with more capacity at the biggies (large new Wellington facility supplementing Charlestown, Southampton/Widett Circle expansion, potential Riverside, maybe some use of Readville, etc.). All of that was designed to get their yards calibrated for expansion of the crosstown routes with Urban Ring Phase I. If they can get that house in order with an actionable, fundable plan then they've got a good shot at getting a new infusion of 60-footers rather quickly when they purge the last fleet of the mid-90's era high-floor diesels with programmed replacements.

Not an overly burdensome problem to solve. They made a lot of hay last decade redistributing and modernizing the bus facilities, and the bus fleet is arguably the one mode on the system where they've consistently stayed on top of things with fleet renewal. There only needs to be enough abatement of this perpetual funding crisis so they're capable of making a timely decision at all.
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Bertlett Garage is still falling down. on Washington Street near Dudley. They have no money to rebuild but they could level what's left of the buildings there and put strictly just buses there. Change some buses that could be closer to this station depart from here and rework it to fit others are Charlestown, Lynn or others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYbFMVduPmQ
 
Digital_Islandboy said:
Still little emphasis on North of Boston, only to the South. Car will always reign supreme up here.
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I think that's what made the Urban Ring make sense up north: we (North-of-Boston) have too many routes overlapping with too many 1940s-era tendrils and neighborhood milk runs...bad for consolidation, but better if they all can pull on and off of a busway for part of their journey.
 
Arborway said:
#1 - Get 60' buses yesterday. Don't switch to 40' buses at 8pm on Fridays ala the #39.
#57 - Remove 1/2 of the stops.
#66 - See the solution for #1.
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Agreed. And they would do well to remove half the stops for #1 as well.
 
Digital_Islandboy said:
Bertlett Garage is still falling down. on Washington Street near Dudley. They have no money to rebuild but they could level what's left of the buildings there and put strictly just buses there. Change some buses that could be closer to this station depart from here and rework it to fit others are Charlestown, Lynn or others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYbFMVduPmQ
Click to expand...

Barlett's been closed for 9 years. If the property hasn't been outright sold by now, it's the BRA that's holding it up because the T wanted that parcel off the books ASAP.

What they want to do is super-pool the fleets at more of the big garages, and rein in the outer ones for more of a service-hours storage/layover purpose instead of as permanent base. Which makes a lot of sense for labor and maintenance consolidation, and also makes the fleet assignments a lot more fluid. Right now you have maint staff permanently assigned to every outpost...including tiny ones like Fellsway and Lynn. Which means they can only assign certain types of buses out there to match the parts and mechanics onsite, and don't move 'em around very much.

The big shift the recent yard study identified was building a big facility at Wellington that would super-pool with Charlestown and Everett Shops. Existing Orange Line home base with lots of land (can trade horizontal for vertical parking if they want to cannibalize part of the lots), universal highway access, and they can shuffle staff from Everett and Charlestown--which are pretty much in direct eyesight--almost as if it were one office campus. If they did that Fellsway would close entirely, and Lynn would get demoted to day storage staffed by field inspectors.

They're also looking at a little further consolidation near Southampton/Widett Circle for more of that "office campus" labor efficiency, and building another biggie at Riverside for the Pike/128 access and to bootstrap onto the Green Line home base (although Newton and area businesses hate the idea because it starts crowding out the TOD). I think they ought to use part of the unused wasteland at Readville for the same purpose, but they've doubled down on that new eyesore of a Forest Hills facility instead.

But figure they do get their efficiencies and fluidity at these super-nodes. Then they can open more straight-up layover yards on the outskirts that are only remote-staffed, only utilized during main weekday service hours, and don't have to have any permanent infrastructure besides one fueling pad, an inspector hut, and maybe a toolshed with portable lift for emergencies. Dot a few of those remote installations at Braintree, Anderson-Woburn, Waltham, wherever. It's a lot more flexible to do that + a couple "office campus" super-nodes than to have to have every single garage weighed down by the same overhead.
 
Does the 66 need longer buses? Or more frequent buses? From what I recall, the scheduling is horrendous.
 
BostonUrbEx said:
Does the 66 need longer buses? Or more frequent buses? From what I recall, the scheduling is horrendous.
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All of the above?


The 66 needs signal priority above all else. The scheduling is horrendous because it can never make a schedule on-time.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
All of the above?


The 66 needs signal priority above all else. The scheduling is horrendous because it can never make a schedule on-time.
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The 66 is two buses every 20 minutes during peak times. Traffic is horrendous along Harvard Ave. Once it passes Brookline Village and gets onto Huntington Avenue it is pretty predictable in timing thereafter.

The thing about the 66 is it gets a lot of North-South traffic by people who are avoiding downtown Boston. It is one of the only MBTA routes that move in a general north-south direction. It crosses many train routes and buses as a result. More frequent buses ends up in bus bunching since the bus in front can't move any faster than the traffic it is in and therefore the buses will be bunched for the entire rest of the night. I feel instead of on-the-hour, twenty minutes past, and twenty-minutes of the hour it should move every quarter hour...
 
The 66 bunches due to massive overcrowding.

If you're going Harvard to Roxbury Crossing, better off moving radially on the rapid transit lines.
 
jass said:
Timeline:

In 2009/2010, the MBTA was awared SHOVEL READY stimulus money to improve the bus routes.

Goal: 2011.

Its now 2013 and the process to move signs (and thats all it is folks, moving signs) has STILL not been done.

The route 39 curb extension thing? That was a separate project: Implementation date of 2006.

And you folks thought Kenmore was bad...
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100% construction drawings went out to bid in April. Award was made a couple weeks ago. Construction starts this week. Kenmore was under construction for several years. This has been in planning for a couple years. Not a valid comparison in terms of disruption to MBTA customers.

What do you mean "move signs" Jass? This project consists of new sidewalks, bus shelters, bike racks, wheelchair ramps, etc.
 
AmericanFolkLegend said:
100% construction drawings went out to bid in April. Award was made a couple weeks ago. Construction starts this week. Kenmore was under construction for several years. This has been in planning for a couple years. Not a valid comparison in terms of disruption to MBTA customers.

What do you mean "move signs" Jass? This project consists of new sidewalks, bus shelters, bike racks, wheelchair ramps, etc.
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I sympathize with Jass: Most of what will actually speed passenger trips is plain-old stop consolidation and berth lengthening--the sign moves. To me, its a shame that the cheap, effective sign-moves were held up by the fancy, expensive stuff on the sidewalk.

The sidewalk stuff (curb bump-outs, shelters and benches) will improve trip quality, its true, but speeding buses through stop consolidation actually speeds trips and has the potential to provide faster, more-frequent, higher-capacity service with the same number of buses. Sign moves were the big win here (more frequent service at fewer stops is the "real" way to improve people's trip--on both the sidewalk and on the bus).

First Rule of Buses: The most treasured amenity at a bus stop is a bus stopping.
 
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Arlington said:
I sympathize with Jass: Most of what will actually speed passenger trips is plain-old stop consolidation and berth lengthening--the sign moves. To me, its a shame that the cheap, effective sign-moves were held up by the fancy, expensive stuff on the sidewalk.

The sidewalk stuff (curb bump-outs, shelters and benches) will improve trip quality, its true, but speeding buses through stop consolidation actually speeds trips and has the potential to provide faster, more-frequent, higher-capacity service with the same number of buses. Sign moves were the big win here (more frequent service at fewer stops is the "real" way to improve people's trip--on both the sidewalk and on the bus).

First Rule of Buses: The most treasured amenity at a bus stop is a bus stopping.
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Gotcha. I misunderstood Jass's post. Did the sign work get pushed back into this contract so that the MBTA could fund with stimulus money? If that's the case I can't really fault them for looking for more funding with their finances in such disarray.
 
Arlington said:
Want Key Bus treatment? Convince your neighbors on your Key Corridor to give up their lame buses and combine them into a Key Bus.
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Alternatively, we revamp the route designation system. Every bus that runs from Forest Hills to Rozzie Square via Washington becomes the 34X, with the X denoting the post square branching, so there would be 34A through 34J. In the key routes map, you would simply see 34 listed on that corridor, and people would understand that any 34 bus on that stretch goes from Rozzie to Forest Hills.

[edit]By the way, 10 bus routes overlapping like that is ridiculous, and an obvious sign that rapid transit is needed for that corridor.
[/edit]
 
HenryAlan said:
Alternatively, we revamp the route designation system. Every bus that runs from Forest Hills to Rozzie Square via Washington becomes the 34X, with the X denoting the post square branching, so there would be 34A through 34J. In the key routes map, you would simply see 34 listed on that corridor, and people would understand that any 34 bus on that stretch goes from Rozzie to Forest Hills.

[edit]By the way, 10 bus routes overlapping like that is ridiculous, and an obvious sign that rapid transit is needed for that corridor.
[/edit]
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What it says to me is they need to trim some branches and build a high-frequency limited stop bus that is worth walking to (rather than counting on a branch to meander by)

I think I'd rather tack an "F" after the route number if it terminates at Forest hills (inbound) or an "R" on the route if it goes to Rozzie Sq (or maybe just a W for Washington Street)

My problem with the 34X type route numbers is how does a rookie rider know if they were on a 34A in one direction, whether a 34G will get them back home? (the only safe thing ends up being waiting for a 34A...at which point you'd be better off with unique numbers)

Anyway, you're right that Washington St needs Key Corridor treatment. Sadly the "mid 30s" split the ridership and made themselves un-Key.
 
If they're going to get underway this week, they're not showing much sign of it.

To move bus stops is going to require notifications to be posted at the current locations and I haven't seen anything posted at all.
 
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