MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

[bigeman312]

I used to work on the block between Belmont and Mt. Auburn streets, just past the split and used either the 71 or 73, whichever one left Harvard Station first. The commute was from Brookline Village, so kind of a trek, but it never seemed to take that long, going D to Red to TT. Just a smooth and easy ride, with convenient transfers.

The 66 was that bad, huh?

 

[DAVE]

How will this affect the overhead wires for the Silver Line? Are they transferring those to BEBs too?

 

[HenryAlan]

The 66 was that bad, huh?

In those days, yes, because it was completely unpredictable. I could wait 5 minutes for it, or I could wait an hour. Whereas the D-Line was usually a 10 minute wait at worst. Now, with all the transit apps, probably the 66 would work better, but it still might have issues with the traffic between Coolidge Corner and Union Square.

 

[Brattle Loop]

How will this affect the overhead wires for the Silver Line? Are they transferring those to BEBs too?

They're getting diesel hybrids that'll run on batteries instead of the wires through the Transitway.

 

[FK4]

In those days, yes, because it was completely unpredictable. I could wait 5 minutes for it, or I could wait an hour. Whereas the D-Line was usually a 10 minute wait at worst. Now, with all the transit apps, probably the 66 would work better, but it still might have issues with the traffic between Coolidge Corner and Union Square.

Yeah, one of the single most positive things that could be done for the whole bus system would be to address--whatever it takes, for gods sake--the bottleneck between Comm Ave and N Beacon, especially the southbound leg. Could be done by banning parking and adding a bus lane, but...

 

[FK4]

So I’ve suggested this a few times in different places on this site that as part of a revitalization of Franklin Park and its main entrance, the T should do something to designate the routes that go there. With the free 28/29 routes the T should figure out a way to emphasize Franklin Park as a destination thru signage and advertisements (“take the free bus to Franklin Park). If they can ever really make both of these routes into BRT, they should name them something more than numbers, too.

 

[737900er]

Has there been any commitment that once the BEBs are purchased for North Cambridge on 71/73 that service will return to the Lower Busway at Harvard or that the BEBs purchased for North Cambridge will have doors on the left?

Looking at the renderings on p24 of the presentation, the buses do not have left-hand doors.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Has there been any commitment that once the BEBs are purchased for North Cambridge on 71/73 that service will return to the Lower Busway at Harvard or that the BEBs purchased for North Cambridge will have doors on the left?

Looking at the renderings on p24 of the presentation, the buses do not have left-hand doors.

They answered "yes" to that as a question in the Feb. 15 community meeting. Presumably this North Cambridge BEB fleet will have lefty doors.

 

[HelloBostonHi]

They answered "yes" to that as a question in the Feb. 15 community meeting. Presumably this North Cambridge BEB fleet will have lefty doors.

I remember it more being a "we're exploring the possibility of left doors during the RFP process" than a full yes. Which was ironic after they spent the first half of the presentation talking about how they were removing trolleybuses to unify the fleet and allow buses to run different routes.

 

[Texasian]

This might be a really dumb question and it may have been asked before. What prevents the MBTA from just reversing the direction of operation in the upper busway? I'm assuming it has something to do with how the portal(s?) interact with the street grid?

 

[The EGE]

Then you have redundant northbound busways, and no southbound.

 

[ceo]

If you reverse the upper busway, you'll have the wrong-side door problem on both levels. Or do you mean reverse the lower one?

 

[Texasian]

If you reverse the upper busway, you'll have the wrong-side door problem on both levels. Or do you mean reverse the lower one?

I meant reverse whichever busway the trolleybuses used to run through.

 

[ceo]

Right now, the 71/73 buses go in the south portal from Mount Auburn St to the upper busway, discharge passengers, go out the north portal, loop around the Common, come back in the north portal to the lower busway, pick up passengers (this is where the wrong-side door issue arises) and head out the south portal. The other buses, e.g. the 77, go in the north portal, discharge in the lower busway (also on the wrong side, but it's less of an issue for discharging), loop around the Bennett St garage and come back in to the upper busway to pick up. If you make the busways both run the same way, all buses will have to both discharge and pick up at the same time, and get to or from their routes through the middle of Harvard Square, which kind of defeats the purpose of a busway.

 

[Charlie_mta]

What is preventing the discharge/pickup of people in the lower busway, using right-hand doors? Many years ago that was allowed in that busway tunnel. Do universal access requirements prevent doing that now?

 

[TrolleybusFoaming]

What is preventing the discharge/pickup of people in the lower busway, using right-hand doors? Many years ago that was allowed in that busway tunnel. Do universal access requirements prevent doing that now?

All other Harvard Busway routes (the 74/75/77/78/96) discharge passengers in the lower busway using their right-hand doors. Although there's a curb cut there, it's probably not great, with buses forced to stop at a certain point on the curb and let passengers off into the wall.

 

[DBM]

By the way, the North Station--Downtown--Seaport BRT corridor proposal is back. First floated in very late 2019--the announcement was linked to upthread here.

So I assume it went into some kind of pandemic hibernation.

Anyway, here it is now--at least, here's BTD inviting people to an open house on it, in late April:

https://www.boston.gov/calendar/north-station-seaport-multimodal-corridor-open-house

Very annoyingly, alleged link to the project page is 404ed--I guess they're trying to draw-out the suspense....

 

[as02143]

All other Harvard Busway routes (the 74/75/77/78/96) discharge passengers in the lower busway using their right-hand doors. Although there's a curb cut there, it's probably not great, with buses forced to stop at a certain point on the curb and let passengers off into the wall.

Those routes alight passengers there. The challenge is that the 71 and 73 board almost all their pax there.

 

[bigpicture7]

I know this is just a blog post (from yesterday, 4/14) and tough to verify some of what's in here, but it supposedly summarizes an SL extension working group meeting from earlier this week and I've not seen this written up elsewhere (if there's a better summary, please share):

MBTA to Analyze 6 Alternatives For New Silver Line Service to Everett

The MBTA has narrowed its options down to 6 potential new routes for new Silver Line bus rapid transit service to Everett, and in hopes of supporting an alternative through Charlestown, City of Bos…

mass.streetsblog.org

First reaction, similar to some sentiments in the post itself, is that those headways are too long, even for an initial pilot.
Second reaction is that any additional service to Kendall from the north is welcome, but please let's do this right.

 

[Riverside]

Hopefully the recording of the session will be posted publicly soon. Let's review the six options on the map:

• SL3
  • Chelsea to Malden Center
    • significant street-running on Ferry St
  • Chelsea to Wellington
    • significant street-running on Route 16
  • Chelsea to Sullivan Square
• SL6
  • Glendale to Kendall via E Somerville
  • Glendale to Kendall via Community College
  • Glendale to Haymarket via Rutherford Ave

Let's also review the specific pieces of infrastructure discussed here:

• Bus lanes on Alford Street Bridge across Mystic River
• Bus lanes on Broadway to Lynn St
• Bus lanes on Rutherford Ave

In terms of where bus lanes have so far been proposed, there is a clear winning route: Glendale to Haymarket via Rutherford Ave; this route would run almost entirely in dedicated bus lanes.

That list of proposed bus lanes may not be exhaustive. The SL3 alts might see bus lanes between Chelsea and Everett Sq, and perhaps the SL6 alts would see bus lanes southwest of Sullivan; I guess we'll need to wait for the full recording to know for sure.

The article also mentions the possibility of local bus routes using the Silver Line bus lanes as well. Let's review those:

• Bus lanes on Alford Street Bridge across Mystic River
  • 104, 105, 109
• Bus lanes on Broadway to Lynn St
  • 97, 110, 112 (partial)
  • 104, 109 (majority)
• Bus lanes on Rutherford Ave
  • none
  • the following routes originate north of Sullivan and could potentially through-run to downtown if high reliability could be assured: 104, 105, 109, 95, 101, 89

We can see that the SL6 alignments overlap heavily with existing routes. In particular, the 104 and 109 layer on top of each other to form (pre-covid) ~8-min headways, indicating high demand along this corridor. No existing route runs between Sullivan and Lechmere, but EZRide does link Lechmere and Kendall roughly along the proposed alignment.

The SL3 alignments have much lower overlaps with existing bus routes. No routes mirror the Chelsea-Malden or Chelsea-Sullivan alts. The 112 broadly mirrors the Chelsea-Wellington alt; the 112 is low-frequency (45 min headways even at peak) and operates highly circuitously through Chelsea.

Let's momentarily set aside the question of routing, and instead approach this from the perspective of the capital investments under review here. The SL6 alignments reflect existing rider patterns, and build on an existing network of routes which would all see improved reliability and travel times with the construction of dedicated bus lanes. The SL3 alignments do not closely adhere to any existing routes, and have much less evidence of demand.

It's also unclear whether the SL3 alignments would provide speedier service to Everett. SL3 from Chelsea Station to South Station is timetabled in the morning rush at 35 minutes. Let's assume (perhaps generously) that an extension to Everett Sq adds 8 minutes, bringing total travel time from Everett to Downtown to 43 minutes.

By contrast, going from Everett Sq to State via the 109 + Orange today takes 25 minutes; according to Google, at least one 104 bus through runs from Sullivan directly to State as a 92 bus, and is able to complete that journey in 38 minutes. Meaning: the Everett Sq-Sullivan-Haymarket journey today -- without bus lanes south of Sullivan and with 20 min worth of local stops in Charlestown -- is already competitive with an SL3 extension, which already has bus lanes, and which needs to contend with the unreliability of the drawbridge and the Ted Williams Tunnel. The improvements described here would undoubtedly shorten that runtime further.

Finally, it's worth pointing out that an SL3 extension will be limited to rolling stock that can operate in the Transitway underground; a separate SL6 extension would not, and therefore would have greater operational flexibility. (An SL6 service to Haymarket would also be easy to extend to South Station via Congress St, and integrate to the SL4.)

So, I say, build the bus lanes first, and then figure out changes you want to make to the routes. Bus lanes on Broadway and the bridge serve routes that sorely need them now, and which could integrate with a new Glendale-Downtown service to provide high-frequency headways within Everett. These would also leave open the door for subsequent SL3 extensions to Glendale, Sullivan, or even further south.

Bus lanes on Rutherford would enable one-seat rides from Everett to downtown; Everett is the only community that directly borders Boston which does not have a (regularly scheduled) one-seat ride to downtown. Lanes on Rutherford can also be leveraged for a service to Kendall, either now or in the future.

By contrast, the SL3 alignments rely more heavily on mixed-traffic running, use a more circuitous route to reach downtown, integrate poorly into the existing network, and will have kneecapped reliability due to the drawbridge, Ted Williams Tunnel, and more limited rolling stock.

1) Build the bus lanes, reflecting present and validated rider demand
2) Institute SL6 from Glendale to downtown or Sullivan, and combine and coordinate SL6, 104 and 109 schedules.
3) See where things go from there