MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

I had such hope for this solar powered "next two arrivals" sign (77 & 96 at Porter Sq). Was a really cool little setup (can't recall if I posted it when it was newer and working). Now it is dark :-(
 

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^ As I read this, my heart leaped hoping I was reading:
BTD plans to add center running bus lanes on Congress St
 
fattony said:
Center running means they'll need new buses with left-side doors?
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Or they could have right side platforms between the bus lane and the car lane. I don't think they would change the equipment, as all of the affected routes would continue to predominately involve right lane service outside of the Walnut to Jackson corridor.
 
I did some googling and I can see how it works. You split the stops to opposite "far sides" and it doesn't eat eat up excessive ROW width.

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I don't know Columbus Ave well enough to know if this is a reasonable configuration.
 
@fattony yes, that's exactly what I was picturing. The platforms are on the opposite side of the intersection to facilitate easier left turns by cars. This would work just fine for the entire length of Columbus under consideration. It is wide -- 4 lanes plus parking and a median. They would probably have to drop a car lane and perhaps some parking where there are bus stops, but definitely feasible.
 
Update on bus facilities for FMCB today - new Quincy garage targeted for 2024. No mention of location, which annoyed Aiello.

City of Quincy meeting is on 1/29.

Bus Facility Modernization (don't call it Transformation) will have a dedicated staff manager. All new facilities will be designed to house battery-electric buses at some point for an all-battery fleet in the future.
 
Equilibria said:
Bus Facility Modernization (don't call it Transformation) will have a dedicated staff manager. All new facilities will be designed to house battery-electric buses at some point for an all-battery fleet in the future.
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This is good politics. Neighbors despise idling diesels--noise & smell. I imagine every hearing on bus garages keeps coming back to this point. CR has solved it by proposing "shore power" (plugging locomotive into electricity that keeps them warm, rather than running them all night). Bus needed a "our garages are getting cleaner" message (and never really had one, that I'm aware)

Tragi-comic example: Even though Medford's Salem St bus garage was completely irrelevant to the GLX (or even ameliorated by it if more LRTs meant fewer buses), the overnight idling of buses was touted by the mob as the #1 reason not to trust the MBTA's plan to bring electric transit to Medford. (Yes, it is somewhere between crazy and counter-productive, but that's most of politics).
 
Arlington said:
This is good politics. Neighbors despise idling diesels--noise & smell. I imagine every hearing on bus garages keeps coming back to this point. CR has solved it by proposing "shore power" (plugging locomotive into electricity that keeps them warm, rather than running them all night). Bus needed a "our garages are getting cleaner" message (and never really had one, that I'm aware)

Tragi-comic example: Even though Medford's Salem St bus garage was completely irrelevant to the GLX (or even ameliorated by it if more LRTs meant fewer buses), the overnight idling of buses was touted by the mob as the #1 reason not to trust the MBTA's plan to bring electric transit to Medford. (Yes, it is somewhere between crazy and counter-productive, but that's most of politics).
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Heh. Even more hilarious is that Fellsway Garage would outright close and the land would be sold off for private redev if they go plow far enough into the facilities vision to build the linchpin 60-footer Wellington facility that's now been punted to the sketchiest last stages of the Bus Mod plan because the state has seemingly lost all appetite to pay for it.
 
Free buses in Lawrence and Worcester (and Boston) discussed in this nytimes article. I think it makes a lot of sense in small cities where cost is relatively manageable. One thing that they didn’t discuss in the article that I think is critical is tying free fares and increased usage to better bus lanes. There is still a time tax, but have better bus infrastructure coupled with free fares means a more efficient system that becomes the way for everyone!

I do think the free fares for all issue is hard to scale in bigger cities. I think the infrastructure investment has to come first to part with the kind of money, but I’m all for expanding means-tested transit passes. It would be fantastic to have a single MassPass for all systems and if people qualify they get a free or heavily discounted pass across any transit system.

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The problem I see with free bus service:
It seems like lowering the price to match the value (and then give no more thoughts about how to make buses into fast, useful transportation)

I'd rather:
Raising the service levels to make the fares look like bargains
(and give passes to low income people)
 
HelloBostonHi said:
BTD plans to add center running bus lanes on Columbus Ave in JP/Roxbury: https://www.boston.gov/departments/transportation/columbus-avenue-bus-lanes
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Nice, I guess. But what's the plan here? I bet they're gonna do the usual half-ass bullshit of only eliminating select parking spaces, gobbling up the (much-needed) median to leave the roadway even wider than it is already. What they SHOULD do is what any other city would do, which is to note that Columbus is a major fucking artery and in order to function as such, ban parking on both sides, put the buses there, and leave the median as is (and gee, maybe even beautify it a little? Oh, wait, it's basically Roxbury so why would the city do anything like that?)
 
sm89 said:
Wow. Just $500 for 31 buses. Even though they're just scrap, I assumed it would have been higher.
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Does your 16-year old Corolla with 120,000 miles fetch a mint in resale even if you kept it in good condition with no rust spots?

Bus world isn't much different from car world in terms of depreciation rates.


The T got its money's worth out of this last batch of RTS's on the property. They've completely replaced the Yellow Line work bus fleet with fresher legs converted out of these remainders, and restocked the parts warehouse for them by scavenging the choicest components out of the remainders. Non-revenue fleet is now in the best long-term shape it's been in decades, and so it's time to scrap the rest.

Since the New Flyer 40-ft. hybrid deliveries have now swelled north of 60 in-service, the Neoplans should start getting yanked from service in batches of dozens any week now. That separate scrap bid will probably get advertised in Feb. or Mar. since at 190+ dispersals it's going to be a long-duration meal for the scrappers.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
The MBTA has finally listed their 1994/1995 RTS buses for scrap, presumably to make space for the holding of outgoing Neoplans that are starting to come out of service.

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Interesting that the T put a bunch of Boeing and Kinkisharyo LRVs on there as well
www.auctionsinternational.com

Scrap Light Rail Vehicles

This item is being sold by auction. Bidding starts Jan 14 and ends Jan 28. Item is located in Newton, MA.
www.auctionsinternational.com www.auctionsinternational.com
 
sm89 said:
Wow. Just $500 for 31 buses. Even though they're just scrap, I assumed it would have been higher.
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That's the first bid, there's still 12 more days of bidding I'd expect it to close a fair bit higher than that.
 
Semass said:
Interesting that the T put a bunch of Boeing and Kinkisharyo LRVs on there as well
www.auctionsinternational.com

Scrap Light Rail Vehicles

This item is being sold by auction. Bidding starts Jan 14 and ends Jan 28. Item is located in Newton, MA.
www.auctionsinternational.com www.auctionsinternational.com
Click to expand...

The Kinkis are the three non-rebuilt 3700-series wreck victims that were used as parts donors for finishing the Type 7 rebuild program. They're all thoroughly stripped of any salvageable parts and body paneling, so have pretty much fulfilled all their final purpose in life and are ready to go.

The other 4 are the three Boeing work vehicles--the re-railer car (holds onboard equipment and a pulley for rescuing derailed trains), the geometry car (mounted with underside sensors to inspect track alignment), and the Engineering/Maintenance of Way car (miscellaneous...trash pickup and transporting crews/tools to 'dirty' jobs) plus one heavily stripped spare Boeing hulk that was kept as a parts source for the work cars. All three of the work cars have been out-of-service for 3+ years now with shot propulsion, for which pretty much no parts still exist for repairing them. They use revenue cars for staging work jobs in place of the MOW car (which has been dead for close to a decade now), just making sure they tarp over the interiors from any dirty stuff and be mindful to clean up after themselves. They rent third-party track geo equipment in place of the geo car, which was the most recent 'new' work car conversion taken from the final batch of revenue-service Boeings in 2007. The re-railer car they kept going the longest by cumbersomely dead-towing it to the scene with a Type 7...but it eventually got too electrically on-the-fritz to even subsist in that role so now they use other means. All of them are highly likely to be replaced with Type 7's pulled from the revenue ranks for conversions, since the supply chain is way more robust for keeping several of those cranking along in the work fleet decades after the rest are retired and replaced. They just need to tame the large and growing Type 8 repair dead line so their reserves are buff enough to yank a few Kinki's for shop conversion while still leaving enough cushion in the interim to initiate regular D Line 3-car trains.

Seashore Trolley Museum already has its one Boeing, but they're so complicated to maintain that--while they hope to get it working well enough for excursions--it's basically not going to be much more than a static display since its proprietary 1970's parts are so much rarer than the simpler and more gearhead-friendly 50-100 year old stuff in their collection. They'd have little interest in these, in part because you can clearly see from the pics that the bodies (especially the MOW car) are fast rotting away. The re-railer and MOW cars are semi-interesting in being the last non-rebuilt Boston Boeings in existence still fitted with their original factory-configuration plug doors and flat roofs. Compare with the pic of the geo car, which went through the '95-96 midlife overhaul program and sports the more typical-appearance folding doors and upgraded roof-mount HVAC 'hump'. MUNI's Boeings retained the original features, however, and have a few preserved examples in museums (plus at least one operating one still in MUNI's historic fleet)...so Seashore doesn't have a lot to gain from taking on this additional refuse.
 
My OCD is usually kept in check, but there's something very wrong about a track geometry car with crooked lettering:
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