MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

That somebody let the 91 get pushed off Prospect was crazy.
It should be that Prospect + Washington = 91.

Now that all the DOT functions are supposedly unified (and Somerville is restoring 2-ways in the U-Sq are) the State DOT should be pushing hard to get the 91 straightened and vastly more frequent.

And demanding contra-flow and signal priority from local traffic departments so that buses can run in dense, sensible corridors.
 
Bus transit Pitches that I think seem reasonable

Route Modifications:
74 (orange): Extended to the Avalon@Lexington Hills residences,
75 (orange): absorbs route 72 schedule, extended to Park Circle

85 (dark blue cutting directly across mid-somerville): Extend along Central and School, and up to the Ten Hills Neighborhood, which is somewhat cut off from the rest of Somerville
Ten Hills - Kendall/MIT via Spring Hill and Union Sq

110 (red): Extend to Davis Sq along Harvard and Warner St's, up the frequency, have an off-peak dogleg to what will be the Ball Sq Station on the Green Line. With this extension you have a crosstown route hitting outlying stations on the rapid transit lines. Davis - Wonderland via Wellington Station and Woodlawn

New Routes:
53 (turqoise) - Newton City Hall - Heath Street Station. This route establishes an east-west bus route through the heart of newton, and connecting to all existing green line branches

61 (silver) Harvard to Kenmore serving Putnam Ave (cambridge) and Boston University.

102 (magenta) Malden Center - Alewife Station serving Medford Sq, West Medford, and Arlington Center

349 (purple/indigo): Waltham Ctr - Alewife Station serving Bently U. - Waverly Sq, Belmont Center, and Fresh Pond

500 (lower dark blue): Oak Sq - Downtown via North Beacon St and Copley Sq. an express variant of route 64, this creates a transit link from the Oak Sq are and the Fanueil/North brighton areas to downtown.

506 (light brown) Belmont Center - Newton Corner (local portion) via Common St, Orchard Street, and Watertown Square, express to Downtown. establishes crosstown service between belmont and watertown, connecting with both the 71 and 73 routes at Cushing Sq

551 (dark green) Waltham Station - Lexington Center via North Waltham.

552 (light green) Cedarwood/exit 26 - Watertown Square via Waltham Ctr. and Pleasant St.

557 (black) Riverside Station - Central Sq. Cambridge via Route 16, Watertown Sq, and Western Ave (additional service between cambridge and watertown on the route 70 corridor, also bringing local bus service to west newton and nonantum)

560 (hint of purple in the left hand corner): Wellesley College - Woodland Station


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Note that the MBTA has an Everett study underway.

http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Portals/17/docs/Everett/Presentationfinal111615.pdf

The "existing ridership" heat map on Page 15 is QED: the low frequency 105 and 97 and their meanderings are worthless as transit and would be better directed into "worth walking to" versions of the 99, 104, 106 and 109. (and install shelters worth waiting at) and then give the routes frequencies where you don't have to wait.

The 110 is a great bus, but could probably be replaced by a new line that is more-oriented to the new SL Gateway in Chelsea (serving the east side of th 110's route) and better service on Broadway (serving the west side of the route)

If I were Military Governor of this town, would reorganize around the zero-car households into just 5 routes:
  1. OL Malden Center - Glendale Square - SL Market Basket (NW - SW axis) - Seaport (covering the 104, 110, & 112 territories and stitched onto the SL Gateway)
  2. OL Malden Center - Salem Street - Linden Square (NW - NE axis) (108 route)
  3. OL Malden Center - Glendale Square - Everett Square - OL Sullivan (104 route)
  4. OL Malden Center - Salem Street - MA 99 Glendale Sq Everett Sq - OL Wellngton (a non-meandering 105)
  5. Linden Square - Glendale Square - Everett Square - OL Sullivan (109 route)

And that's it. In concept, they are a pretty clear grid:

  1. NW - SE (diagonal Malden Orange -to Chelsea Silver)
  2. NW - NE (across Malden to Linden Sq)
  3. NW - SW ("saggy" backwards C Malden - lower Everett - Sullivan)
  4. NW - SW ("perky" backwards C Malden - upper Everett - Wellington)
  5. NE - SW (diagonal Linden Sq to Sullivan Orange)
 
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fattony said:
I can't help but look at our bus network, including the CTs and everything else, and see it as entirely commuter oriented with no regard whatsoever for spontaneous users. Seriously, how are you supposed to take a bus in Boston without having maps and timetables on you at all times? These convoluted, arbitrary routes down minor streets and cutting through low density areas may work great for someone who takes the same bus to the same destination at the same time every day...... I do not use this bus system. Every time I try I get frustrated, exasperated, and arrive at my destination late. You can't tell me this is a well planned transit network.
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FatT -- that's why we have computers and com networks

Eventually [3 to 5 years] there will be dynamically scheduled bus-like vehicles [whether T-run or not] which you will be able to reserve and use get to /from the nearest "hard-route" connecting point

Paper schedules and such are totally obsolete as is the idea of dragging around a nearly empty big box of air

That said there is plenty of room for rationalizing the T's bus routes if the growing network of town and private buses is integrated into the system

For example the 77 and all the buses from Alewife that go to Arlington Heights and beyond such as the 62 and 76 should be consolidated into the 77 extended to Lexington Center with the existing high frequency and a 77X running from Alewife up Rt-2 to Park Circle then Park to Arlington Heights @ the existing 77 frequency

@ Arlington Center, Arlington Heights and Lexington Center transfers could be made to local town buses and private buses
 
Oh, look, it's the same PRT copypasta trollbait re-gifted for a new day. Why not extend the 77 to New Hampshire while we're playing with magic unicorn fart scheduling tech? It's just as reality-based.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Oh, look, it's the same PRT copypasta trollbait re-gifted for a new day. Why not extend the 77 to New Hampshire while we're playing with magic unicorn fart scheduling tech? It's just as reality-based.
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Riff -- er FLine -- same message for you -- for once you are right it was copied and pasted!

Riff -- i've a message for you from Her Royal Majesty
193232d1376740332t-premium-keep-calm-carry-9810-01.png
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Was watching buses in harvard sq today and thought that it would make sense to create a bus only lane for the loop of brattle->eliot. Might not make much of an improvement, but it's congested enough that I think it's warranted... If parking were eliminated on eliot it wouldn't even effect auto traffic. But pergolas more importantly, it would be a highly visible place for bus lane striping that would brand the idea well...
 
FIX THE GODAMN TRAFFIC SIGNAL AT D STREET YOU INCOMPETENT IDIOTS
 
Scipio said:
There's a summary on a recent Boston City Council hearing on transit signal priority. Apparently it's already up and running for a few intersections along the Silver Line (4 and 5 I assume) and for the 57.

https://urbanliberty.wordpress.com/2016/04/28/city-council-holds-hearing-on-transit-signal-priority/
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I'd like some clarification on what Boston terms "transit signal priority" given that this is the same city with a creative definition of "bus rapid transit". They were called on out on some claims about D Street not too long ago.
 
Balerion said:
I'd like some clarification on what Boston terms "transit signal priority" given that this is the same city with a creative definition of "bus rapid transit". They were called on out on some claims about D Street not too long ago.
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That is, in a nutshell, the problem. There isn't a firm definition pinned to a dartboard on what exactly "signal priority" means, what tiers of signal priority there are ranked by escalating importance of the given transit corridor, and who is in charge of being the decider for that priority.

Unfortunately for the T, they are not totally in control of this on city-control streets.

  • In Boston-proper BTD controls the signals everywhere but state roads around highway interchanges and DCR parkways...which tend not to be where many bus routes roam. The state has extremely limited control to impose its own standard of transit priority if BTD has any difference in opinion. Everything must walk hand-in-hand with BTD.
  • BTD is a balkanized mess that has different levels of traffic enforcement for every neighborhood, too many City Councillors stirring the pot, and too much scope creep and hand-tying coming out of community meetings. Meetings which are arguably excessive for decisions like re-timing traffic signals.
Then you have every surrounding town's town-control streets.

  • Brookline has its Beacon Street transit priority initiative they're begging and pleading to get implemented on the C Line. It's tied to their Beacon St. re-signaling. But it's only on Beacon. Other corridors don't have articulated corridor transit plans, or have different ones. Fitting a consistent standard to these is like herding cats when it's the town that decides it.

  • Cambridge is completely different from Brookline, is completely different from Somerville, is completely different from Everett, Chelsea, Revere, Arlington, Watertown, Belmont, Newton, Quincy.

  • The only way to compel them to stick to a standard is if it's there's state aid making it a requirement. But some re-signal projects are totally municipal in origin, and with some roadway reconstruction projects the MassDOT aid is for the road reconstruction itself while the town share pays for the traffic flow layout and signaling.


...and technical challenges:

  • Signal priority is only possible when a street is outfitted with computer-controlled signaling. Sophisticated signal priority generally a feature only done when the computer signals are wired up such that they can be remotely controlled across a corridor rather than needing to be coordinated signal box by signal box. This is how Brookline wired up Beacon St.; you can see the wireless antennas mounted near every traffic signal. But it's not how other corridors are wired; those can have computers, but they're box-by-box.
  • Many, many streets still have 'dumb' analog signals controlled by old relays or mechanical timers in the signal boxes. This is the biggest impediment to signal priority on the B Line outbound of Carlton St. and 1/CT1 on the Boston side of Mass Ave. Can't time anything without full replacements, and those computer controls are damn expensive. Even the box-by-box ones.


I don't think this gets better until you can wring more of this under centralized control dictated by the state. With funding sources to match for cleanrooming all these heterogeneous traffic light installations into something that can be fitted consistently to a set tier of signal priority.


That's all brutally difficult to do. The Legislature would have to do it, and when the Legislature is prey to hundreds of balkanized local interests...they're going to have zero motivation to do it. To go along with their zero motivation to fund transit.


In Boston-proper it also requires City Hall feeling arsed to rein in and reform the rogue fiefdom that is the BTD so individual neighborhoods stop making a mockery out of consistency of traffic enforcement.




You can fault the T for being very opaque and disorganized. Certainly that infamous D St. light, and the lie they were caught in, is all on them. But while they can and should get their house in order defining transit priority in clear, well-differentiated terms...their hands are still tied on the implementation if every town and every neighborhood can run roughshod over their recommendations virtually at-will. They can be cut some slack for not having any functional control over their destiny. All they can do is be crystal clear on what transit priority truly is if properly implemented so the sell job on their municipal partners is a lot more direct and compelling. And strips out all this mutual suspicion from unanswered questions and unreturned phone calls.
 
Balerion said:
I'd like some clarification on what Boston terms "transit signal priority" given that this is the same city with a creative definition of "bus rapid transit". They were called on out on some claims about D Street not too long ago.
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You have got to be fucking kidding me

'The signal only detected the buses for a certain point during the cycle, however. That meant that there was a limited window for the signal to see that there was a bus waiting to cross — and sometimes buses would get stuck in the tunnel, missing the chance to get detected.

If the timing was wrong, a Silver Line bus could come to a red light, not get detected, and the red light would start counting down another 100-second cycle immediately because it didn’t think there was a bus there.
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And then it took them 12 years to find a solution?

To help prioritize the buses, then, the transportation department now uses a regular cycle for a light.

The green light will flash regardless of whether there’s a bus, which has helped improve trip time.
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THATS NOT A SOLUTION YOU IDIOTS
 
It doesn't help when the T regularly says IN PUBLIC something to the extent of "we would like signal priority but only if it doesn't screw up traffic." When even the T has a cars-first mentality, you know we truly are doomed.
 
cden4 said:
It doesn't help when the T regularly says IN PUBLIC something to the extent of "we would like signal priority but only if it doesn't screw up traffic." When even the T has a cars-first mentality, you know we truly are doomed.
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Cdend -- that's just reality

Think about how far they'd get if they said -- We need Bus Priority -- the hell with the traffic jams

Remember that the average Mass Voter and Taxpayer -- doesn't have anything to do with the T -- not out of malice -- but just the fact that the T using population is a small fraction of the the total even inside Greater Boston
 
whighlander said:
Cdend -- that's just reality

Think about how far they'd get if they said -- We need Bus Priority -- the hell with the traffic jams

Remember that the average Mass Voter and Taxpayer -- doesn't have anything to do with the T -- not out of malice -- but just the fact that the T using population is a small fraction of the the total even inside Greater Boston
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1.3 million riders a day isn't a small fraction of the population.
 
Anybody know if the bus routes running on Webster and Prospect St near Union Square are going to be rerouted once those streets go two-way? Tried pinging the MBTA, but haven't heard back.
 
fattony said:
1.3 million riders a day isn't a small fraction of the population.
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Fattony -- how do you get that number -- a year ago the headline on WBUR's website was

400 Million Rides: MBTA Ridership Hit A Record High In 2014

By ZENINJOR ENWEMEKA
Updated March 10, 2015, 10:33 am

BOSTON With increased rides on the subway, buses and the commuter rail, the MBTA had a record 400.8 million trips last year — putting the transit system in line with a nationwide trend in which more and more people are using public transportation.
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Unless the system is part of the "Soylent Green Universe" and just collects the people in one place -- the number of rides is something more than 2X the number of riders

So take 400 M / 2 == 200 M then divide by 250 [50 weeks X 5 days = 250 days] that assumption ignores the smaller number of people using the system on the weekends and gives you a best case scenario for the computation

can't quite make a Million == 800, 000

Total population of Massachusetts estimated in 2015 was 6,794,422

or one in 8.5 take the T every workday

to be sure that's all people in MA not just adults of taxpaying / voting age -- 73% of males were 21 or older

so that would improve the fraction using the T to 1 in 6 for Statewide taxpayers / voters in political terms that is not insignificant nor is it anything close to a majority

If we restrict the universe to taxpaying age adults in Greater Boston of 4.7 million people [using the same 73% for adult fraction] and therefore an adult taxpaying population of Greater Boston of 3.4 Million the fraction of T riders is still only 1 in 4
 
Most people don't drive in Boston, even if they don't ride the T. That's because they don't live or work in Boston.

There are many junctions where far greater numbers of voters ride MBTA buses or trams through those junctions than drive their own cars.

And honestly drivers won't even notice. Transit signal priority is subtle, and if nobody told you about it, you probably wouldn't even know it was in operation.
 
whighlander said:
Fattony -- how do you get that number -- a year ago the headline on WBUR's website was



Unless the system is part of the "Soylent Green Universe" and just collects the people in one place -- the number of rides is something more than 2X the number of riders

So take 400 M / 2 == 200 M then divide by 250 [50 weeks X 5 days = 250 days] that assumption ignores the smaller number of people using the system on the weekends and gives you a best case scenario for the computation

can't quite make a Million == 800, 000

Total population of Massachusetts estimated in 2015 was 6,794,422

or one in 8.5 take the T every workday

to be sure that's all people in MA not just adults of taxpaying / voting age -- 73% of males were 21 or older

so that would improve the fraction using the T to 1 in 6 for Statewide taxpayers / voters in political terms that is not insignificant nor is it anything close to a majority

If we restrict the universe to taxpaying age adults in Greater Boston of 4.7 million people [using the same 73% for adult fraction] and therefore an adult taxpaying population of Greater Boston of 3.4 Million the fraction of T riders is still only 1 in 4
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You know what, you are right. Nobody rides the T anymore, it's too crowded.

By your own calculations, do you still disagree with my original claim? The T riding public isn't a small fraction of the population. It is a substantial fraction of the population.
 
fattony said:
You know what, you are right. Nobody rides the T anymore, it's too crowded.

By your own calculations, do you still disagree with my original claim? The T riding public isn't a small fraction of the population. It is a substantial fraction of the population.
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Fattony -- I guess that is a matter of definition -- 1/8 is a small fraction 1/4 is more substantial

Yet from the standpoint of what actually matters to the taxpayers who vote and who ultimately pay the shortfall between costs and revenues -- Well then even 1/4 is a minority.

This is the probably the most significant justification for my long advocated Metropolitan County concept. It would essentially treat Greater Boston as what it is -- a "City State" and the Metropolitan County would control all of the T and all the rest of the various alphabet soup of State Authorities [overwhelmingly centered on Boston].

Then the voters would be the users and their friends and acquaintances of the Boston-centric facilities---- not people who live closer to Albany or at least Harford.
 
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