MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

[eber]

this is a 150 second cycle intersection with 5 phases (SB advance, SB/NB, WB Commercial, Endicott St, EB Causeway). none of the approaches are getting 40%.

oh shit, is this "150 second cycle" something you can look up via massdot or something? I would love to add it to my arsenal of "things in my mind that are almost totally useless but pretty cool if i can use it in a scenario that helps save time". or are you basing it off empirical evidence (or extrapolating from 5 phases + 30 seconds per interval)

 

[Highwayguy]

this is a 150 second cycle intersection with 5 phases (SB advance, SB/NB, WB Commercial, Endicott St, EB Causeway). none of the approaches are getting 40%.

Absolutely. Should have clarified my point:

Even with wildly overly generous auto throughput assumptions, if we prioritize moving the maximum number of people, it is mathematically impossible this change is an improvement.

Frankly, the NB parking lane along this entire stretch should have been on the chopping block way before the bus lane, or the second vehicular lane for that matter. IMO the cars vs bus/peds/bikes fight often misses the forest for the trees; the removal of the bus lane and the prior removal of the vehicular lane are great examples of mobility consistently losing the war against on street self-storage units(?).

 

[Delvin4519]

So I would really like some input from some neutral parties here. How bad was the traffic because of this bus lane (and obviously I’m asking about rushhour)? I’m not looking to hear from anyone who’s going to show me traffic counter numbers or who just doesn’t think that any of the bus lane and bike lane stuff has caused traffic to get worse.

Using the MBTA bus timepoints data gives this graph in the northbound direction.

Weekday travel times signficantly worsened in the wake of the COVID pandemic ending in mid-2021 to late 2022. At one point in early 2022, 5-10% of weekday trips were taking longer than 18 minutes to travel outbound between Haymarket and City Square.

There doesn't seem to be any effect on Saturday or Sunday travel times (the middle and bottom rows)

The median time to cross the bridge northbound during rush hour pre-COVID and currently, is about 7 - 8 minutes. In Fall 2021 and early 2022, it climed to around 14 minutes.

Southbound/Inbound data doesn't seem to be impacted that much (though there are some data quality control problems in Fall 2020 and early 2021)

Southbound/inbound travel times seem to decrease on weekdays compared to pre-COVID, but increase on Saturdays

Historically, traffic outbound wasnt typically terrible, but there has only been 1 lane open outbound on the bridge since 2018 (when emergency repairs to the old bridge started). will be interesting to see how it all operates again. its been a long time

The bad news is the MBTA slashed bus service across the bridge by almost 50%, with a new additional service cut and reduction earlier this spring, despite the bridge opening in full. Only half as many buses cross the new bridge nowadays compared to pre-COVID. Instead of 120 buses crossing the bridge in each direction per weekday, it is now just over 60 buses each day,