MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

Bus lanes going in on 2nd Street in Chelsea and Everett for the 104, which is getting a major frequency boost in December.

MBTA Begins Bus Lane Work for NEW Route 104 Bus Service through Everett and Chelsea | News | MBTA

Official website of the MBTA -- schedules, maps, and fare information for Greater Boston's public transportation system, including subway, commuter rail, bus routes, and boat lines.
www.mbta.com www.mbta.com

Not only will this serve the 104, but it will also benefit the eventual SL3 extension:
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New conceptual design is out for the Blue Hill Ave. center-running bus lanes:

mass.streetsblog.org

City of Boston, MBTA Release Refined Designs for Blue Hill Avenue Transit Project - Streetsblog Massachusetts

The City of Boston and MBTA have released new conceptual designs for the Blue Hill Avenue transit project and will host three open houses in Mattapan and Dorchester in the coming month to vet the refined plan with neighbors and bus riders. The new concept-level designs are the first step towards...
mass.streetsblog.org mass.streetsblog.org

PDF of the design
 
devnull said:
New conceptual design is out for the Blue Hill Ave. center-running bus lanes:

mass.streetsblog.org

City of Boston, MBTA Release Refined Designs for Blue Hill Avenue Transit Project - Streetsblog Massachusetts

The City of Boston and MBTA have released new conceptual designs for the Blue Hill Avenue transit project and will host three open houses in Mattapan and Dorchester in the coming month to vet the refined plan with neighbors and bus riders. The new concept-level designs are the first step towards...
mass.streetsblog.org mass.streetsblog.org

PDF of the design
Click to expand...
I'm not sure every T-Mobile needed to be labeled but some details of the project are nice to have. The American Legion Hwy alternate seems rather silly, those stops would be less than 500ft apart. For comparison Allston St and Warren St on the B branch, two stops that I would say are generally considered to be absurdly close together, are around 800ft apart. But apart from those, and actually disclosing the stop names, everything seems pretty complete so I'll add it to the map.
 
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TheRatmeister said:
I'm not sure every T-Mobile needed to be labeled but some details of the project are nice to have. The American Legion Hwy alternate seems rather silly, those stops would be less than 500ft apart. For comparison Allston St and Warren St on the B branch, two stops that I would say are generally considered to be absurdly close together, are around 800ft apart. But apart from those, and actually disclosing the stop names, everything seems pretty complete so I'll add it to the map.
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And yes, changing the map to fit this is a royal pain, in case you were wondering.
 
Since the PDF is extremely slow to open because of all the layers, here's a full-scale (12k x 3.6k) jpg copy, plus the same file split into thirds to be viewable here.

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Now, some actual thoughts:
  • Overall, this looks really good. Stop spacing seems mostly reasonable, and it's amazing to see red lanes the whole length with no gaps.
  • The stop locations aren't quite at major cross streets - Woodrow, Morton, Talbot/Harvard, American Legion (except with the weird alternate), and Seaver. While most transfers will be okay (you might be on the bus a bit longer, but the stops are together in the median), the 28-21 transfer will suck if you're trying to get to Morton Street east of BHA, and walking distance to places on the major cross streets will be longer.
  • Stop spacing is a bit on the long side - averaging about 1,400 feet which is decent, but some distances are 1,800 or more. I would have one additional stop at American Legion (with the next stop moved south to Talbot) and one additional in Franklin Field South.
  • This is really going to establish Warren Street as a bottleneck. The northern section is wide enough, but the southern part isn't. I think having a one-way pair for buses - NB on BHA and SB on Warren - between Grove Hall and Quincy will be the way to do it.
 
The EGE said:
Now, some actual thoughts:
  • Overall, this looks really good. Stop spacing seems mostly reasonable, and it's amazing to see red lanes the whole length with no gaps.
  • The stop locations aren't quite at major cross streets - Woodrow, Morton, Talbot/Harvard, American Legion (except with the weird alternate), and Seaver. While most transfers will be okay (you might be on the bus a bit longer, but the stops are together in the median), the 28-21 transfer will suck if you're trying to get to Morton Street east of BHA, and walking distance to places on the major cross streets will be longer.
  • Stop spacing is a bit on the long side - averaging about 1,400 feet which is decent, but some distances are 1,800 or more. I would have one additional stop at American Legion (with the next stop moved south to Talbot) and one additional in Franklin Field South.
  • This is really going to establish Warren Street as a bottleneck. The northern section is wide enough, but the southern part isn't. I think having a one-way pair for buses - NB on BHA and SB on Warren - between Grove Hall and Quincy will be the way to do it.
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Coincidentally I was reading through the Bus Stop Feedback (starts on pg.30) the other day and it may give some insight into the opinions of community members on stop placement. Residents seem very concerned with stops being placed at some major intersections because of the danger of drivers wanting to make turns and speed through lights while people are trying to catch the bus. A decent number of comments seem to not entirely understand what center-running bus lanes mean or how they work though. For example, one comment expresses that "there should be no bus stops in front of businesses. It should be parking spaces for that business. ONLY IF NECESSARY a bus stop should be on front of a business," when a center bus stop on this wide avenue does not preclude street parking. At the same time there are comments saying specific stops shouldn't be in the center, such as Walk Hill. Interestingly, the stop placing at Nazing/Pasadena had the highest "meets need" approval but also multiple "should be at Seaver" comments. There's a fair bit of more stops vs more spacing as well.

All in all, it seems a lot of the weird minor street stop placement stems from the desire to maintain as many car lanes as possible at major intersections to facilitate turning movements without obstructing through traffic flow as well as maintaining as much street parking as possible.
 
Was just poking around the MBTA's project page and there's some more information including this rendering of Walk Hill St that I've never seen before:

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There's also a like to a website that walks through the design and asks you to weigh in on the alternatives at different sections. There's also a cool video rendering of the above image embedded in that website. Here's some highlights from the website - nice that there's so much of an emphasis on ped safety and calming traffic:
  • Center-running bus lanes to support current and future bus service
  • Bus boarding platforms with bus shelters, real-time information screens, better lighting, security cameras, emergency call boxes, new seating, and accessibility upgrades
  • Roadway resurfacing
  • Traffic signal upgrades to prioritize buses
  • At least 14 new crossing signals, providing pedestrians with 40% more opportunities to safely cross the street
  • Crossing distances shortened by about 25% on Blue Hill Ave and by an average of 19 feet on intersecting streets
  • Repaired sidewalks with at least 185 curb ramps upgraded to meet accessibility standards
  • At least 150 new trees along the avenue
  • Over 100,000 square feet of additional public space with opportunities for better street lighting, benches, bike parking, and public art
Re: stop spacing for this concept - measuring out a few of them on Google Maps and they all seem to be within the MBTA's BRT stop spacing guidance (screenshot taken from page 18):
Screenshot 2024-11-09 at 9.23.17 AM.png

The big exception to that rule would be the alternative with the stop by Calder and American Legion. I can see why they'd want to consider another stop near American Legion Highway given that uphill slope by the park. If you've ever biked north along this street, the part from Talbot up to Columbia feels like you're climbing most of the way. You'd want some close stop spacing in areas like that to shorten walking distances for people who can't walk as far.

Let's build this stat!
 
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Charlie_mta said:
Back to the future. It's similar to the original layout of Blue Hill Ave with the trolley reservation down the middle a century ago.
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I'm sure there will be plenty of photos of digging up the old streetcar tracks once construction gets underway, they're almost certainly still down there under the asphalt for the most part.
 
New bus stop signs are going up in preparation for phase 1 of the network redesign. The real test will be if they come back and remove the temporary covers when the new routes launch.
 

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I was wondering what these "bags" they kept mentioning for covering the new signs were gonna look like and that is not at all what I expected.
 
Koopzilla24 said:
I was wondering what these "bags" they kept mentioning for covering the new signs were gonna look like and that is not at all what I expected.
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Me too - I've seen vinyl bags at a few other stops - is this one made of .... cardboard? plastic?
 
Something I've been thinking about since the T released the new subway map, going into effect with BNRD Phase 1: the T, at long last, is finally recognizing that the Silver Line is sui generis.

"Sui generis" is a fancy term that basically means "in a class by itself". Wikipedia provides a range of examples, in biology, art, law, philosophy, and politics, all of them sharing the common element of being impossible to squarely fit into any established category, and unlikely themselves to create a new category with additional exemplars to follow.

The MBTA's visual language around the Silver Line in their new map points to this recognition. Notice that the Silver Line no longer sits in the Rapid Transit section of the key; it no longer gets its own version of the "shields" marking the end of the Red Line, Blue Line, etc. It is thinner than the rapid transit lines... but not as thin as the Frequent Bus Routes, from which it is also distinguished. Its stop labels are smaller than the Rapid Transit labels, but larger than the Frequent Bus Labels.

I hesitate to overinterpret this shift, but it does prompt some mild optimism in me that perhaps the T will be more honest with itself that the Silver Line, by and large, does not meet the standards of BRT. And honest about the fact that the Silver Line is now a melange of thirty years' worth of proposals and semi-finished projects, resulting in a complex system unto itself that cannot be fully described with standard terms, but which must be understood in its specific details and context. I do believe that the Silver Line can make useful contributions, if used appropriately; hopefully, this marks a turning point in the T's understanding of this bizarre little system it has spawned, setting aside unrealistic expectations about what they want the Silver Line to be, and instead accept and embrace whatever it is that we find the Silver Line to actually be.

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(It's like what every parent should remember: don't focus on the way you wish your children were; instead, accept and embrace your children for who they are.)
 
Riverside said:
Something I've been thinking about since the T released the new subway map, going into effect with BNRD Phase 1: the T, at long last, is finally recognizing that the Silver Line is sui generis.

"Sui generis" is a fancy term that basically means "in a class by itself". Wikipedia provides a range of examples, in biology, art, law, philosophy, and politics, all of them sharing the common element of being impossible to squarely fit into any established category, and unlikely themselves to create a new category with additional exemplars to follow.

The MBTA's visual language around the Silver Line in their new map points to this recognition. Notice that the Silver Line no longer sits in the Rapid Transit section of the key; it no longer gets its own version of the "shields" marking the end of the Red Line, Blue Line, etc. It is thinner than the rapid transit lines... but not as thin as the Frequent Bus Routes, from which it is also distinguished. Its stop labels are smaller than the Rapid Transit labels, but larger than the Frequent Bus Labels.

I hesitate to overinterpret this shift, but it does prompt some mild optimism in me that perhaps the T will be more honest with itself that the Silver Line, by and large, does not meet the standards of BRT. And honest about the fact that the Silver Line is now a melange of thirty years' worth of proposals and semi-finished projects, resulting in a complex system unto itself that cannot be fully described with standard terms, but which must be understood in its specific details and context. I do believe that the Silver Line can make useful contributions, if used appropriately; hopefully, this marks a turning point in the T's understanding of this bizarre little system it has spawned, setting aside unrealistic expectations about what they want the Silver Line to be, and instead accept and embrace whatever it is that we find the Silver Line to actually be.

View attachment 57843

(It's like what every parent should remember: don't focus on the way you wish your children were; instead, accept and embrace your children for who they are.)
Click to expand...
I'd argue this map swings way too far the other way though. The transitway is rapid transit quality, and should be should with the same level of importance. IMO that's by far the worst problem with this map, which is saying a lot given how many poor style choices have been made and the other minor factual errors present. The more I look at it the more I hate it.
 
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