MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

[HenryAlan]

Creating a route connecting Forest Hills, LMA, Fenway, BU, and Cambridge is pretty revolutionary. If they can manage the 39 in a way that keeps it moving, that will be a tremendously important transit corridor.

 

[Riverside]

T39 is probably the one I disagree with the most. Like you said it's looong. For riders on the Forest Hills - Heath Street stretch (which is the whole reason the "old" 39 existed in the first place), I don't think it's a net gain in service. It's basically a forced transfer to the E or backtrack to Forest Hills to get the Orange to get to Back Bay or Downtown, whereas the existing service allowed riders to take any Green train to Copley and transfer. In a vacuum it makes sense, but given the history of the route I don't think this one will fly.

It's certainly a provocative proposal (or as HenryAlan put it, revolutionary). Given how long it is, I almost feel like there must be something they are assuming to improve reliability -- bus lanes, TSP?

Doing some math, just to sanity check: right now (a bit before 4pm on a Monday), Google say the 39 takes 24 minutes from Forest Hills to LMA. Then the 47 takes 21 minutes from LMA to Central. The 91 takes 6 minutes from Central to Union, and the 87 takes 9 minutes from Union to the Porter area. So that's an hour on the dot, though admittedly not during the height of rush hour. Google estimates driving that route to be 52 minutes right now, but if I push the departure closer to 5pm, the estimate goes as high as 1h20m -- and that's for driving.

So, I think there would be challenges to overcome from a reliability perspective, but I'm trying to remain open-minded.

Setting aside north-of-the-Charles for a second, I'm slightly less pessimistic about rerouting through LMA; a lot of 39 riders are going to Longwood itself. Though you are right, it is a notable loss of a one-seat ride, which didn't register with me on my first read-through.

One alternative, if they want to keep the one-seat ride across the Charles, would be to stay on Huntington until Mass Ave and then head north from there. Terminate at Kendall or Central or maybe through-run, I don't know. But you'd maintain a one-seat ride pretty close to the Pru, a short walking transfer to the Orange Line, and equal connectivity to the Green Line (all 4 branches via Symphony and Hynes). You'd also be spending more time on Huntington and Mass Ave, both wide enough to be optimistic for bus lanes.

At the same time, you could keep a "T47" that runs Porter-Union-Central-BU Bridge-LMA-Nubian/Ruggles -- or even double up the T47 and T39 along South Huntington.

But I agree with @HenryAlan -- if they can make the proposed corridor viable, that would be a remarkable service.

 

[737900er]

A few random thoughts on current routes:

15/65: Like the T39, this is loooong. Unlike the T39, I think it's ok to go away from Kenmore. I just fear that these two routes will end up being the new 66 in terms of reliability. It seems like 65 riders mostly use it for the Longwood-Brighton trip, so cutting back to LMA makes sense, and the connection to Orange at Roxbury Crossing would be maintained.
71/73: Their maps have these going around Cambridge Common like they used to in the TT days (3 months ago...), so presumably they're planned to go back to the lower busway. Extending some 71 trips down Pleasant St might make sense too with all the development there, and no longer being tethered to the wires, and the removal of the 558. Given all of the T-level routes that would be planned to be operated into Harvard, at what point does a left-door subfleet at Charlestown start to make sense?
86: Cutting this route up into multiple segments makes sense, which is why it's odd to see other ring-routes being created.
225: Despite the general trend towards consolidation, this seems to get a new variant. I think this is also the only route from @Riverside's "Bronze" network to end up in the 31-60 minute headway group.
238: I like the shortening via 128 to Quincy Adams.
240: This route has never made sense to me. Most ridership comes from south of 128, but it runs all the way to Ashmont though Blue Hills. Would have liked to see a re-route to Quincy Adams on 128.
712/713: I'm not sure what the point of this redesign is. The current structure as radial routes to Orient Heights seems to work well.
SL4/5: Not sure how I feel about the loss of a direct (and accessible) Green connection here.

T Routes: it doesn't seem like there is any drive towards stop consolidation on these routes, which would really help performance, particularly on some of the longer ones.

 

[fatnoah]

So many interesting things in this proposal. Way too much to comprehend, even, so I like to look at it through the lens of my commutes of the past 20+ years, most of which were done without a car.

Downtown (55)
I'm one of those brave souls that boarded the 55 bus between Hynes and Park Street. I lived in Back Bay on Comm Ave and the 55 was the daily choice for getting my kiddo to school in Beacon Hill. We'd pick it up in front of the Boylston Entrance of the Pru Mall and ride to the corner of Charles & Beacon. We were such regulars that we didn't notice for a few months when the stop was removed, because the driver would pick us up anyway. We only found out when a new driver on the route drove right by us. It was busy in the AM, but not so much outside of rush hour or on weekends.

Arlington (54)
I commuted from Arlington to Waltham for almost two years via 77 bus, Fitchburg Line, and (at the time) Waltham Citibus. It worked, but traffic in Cambridge made the 77 a long, busy trip and involving the CR really upped the cost. I would have been all over the 54 from Arlington Center to Waltham Center.

Melrose (131 / 133)
I love the addition of east-west options here. My family was a one-car family for our first year here, since the 131 bus & Orange line did a great job getting me to/from work. Extending the 131 to create a connection between Oak Grove and Lynn is pretty interesting. I wonder what that'll do to inbound timekeeping in the morning, as that bus was fairly busy during rush hours. Adding the 133 to Woburn and the connections available there is also pretty interesting.

Somerville (T109 / 86)
T109 to connect Sullivan, Union, and Harvard is a huge win. I rode the 86 every day when I lived in Melrose. Better frequency is already a win, but a service that connects the Red, Green, and Orange lines in a reasonably short trip? Sign me up!

Watertown (71 / 73)
I was in East Watertown, so I'd generally take whichever of the 71 or 73 came first when going to/from Harvard. Anything to make those more frequent and/or get through the backup at Fresh Pond Parkway would be amazing.

Waltham (170/55X)
I'm a veteran of the 170 bus in its form where it started at Dudley Square (as it was called, then) and made it's way through Waltham to Bedford(?). I let car-free me have a reasonable commute from downtown (Orange Line to Back Bay, 171 from there) to my office on Bear Hill road. There were two outbound runs and one inbound run each day, and the inbound run had a +-30 minute window on when it would arrive. There were typically < 10 passengers, and we all got to know each other very well. My favorite part was that about 10 minutes of each trip was spent constantly stopping for people waiting at bus stops only to inform would-be riders that it was the ONE-Seventy, not the Seventy.

While the 170 and/or Commuter Rail were my first options, the 55X buses were my secondary options. Since I was doing a reverse commute, I usually had lots of room and had a great arrangement with one driver. If I didn't complain about him stopping en-route to get lottery tickets, he wouldn't mind making a quick stop so I could get groceries at one of the markets we passed. I have no idea what those looked like at rush hour though. Looks like the 505 replaces the 553/554 and the 556 is replaced by the 61 and change at Newton Corner.

Winchester (132 / 94)
Looks like the 132 goes away, with duties covered by the 94 and a rerouted 95. It's not the Green Line to Woburn, but makes the current three seat (non-CR) ride to the Green Line a one-seat ride. It provides a nice alternative to the Commuter Rail.

 

[The EGE]

• I'm certainly in the minority here, but I don't like the 86 being broken up. It was a very useful and well-used circumferential route, and there was a fair bit of ridership through Harvard.
• The entirely of Somerville gets screwed over here. Not within a few minutes walk to the GLX? Too damn bad.
• Axing the 4 means there's a lot of the waterfront and the North End. I'd like to see the curtailed 11 get extended along A, Atlantic, and Commercial to North Station.
• Waltham loses almost all its direct service to downtown. We'd better see beefed-up CR service with timed bus transfers to make up for that.
• Interesting expansion of the north suburban network - looks a lot like the streetcar days! I'm not optimistic that those frequencies will draw much ridership.

 

[Riverside]

Permanently deleting the 136 and modifying the 137 to run the long way via 136’s old route to Reading. 137 is downgraded from 30 to 60 min service and no longer stops at Oak Grove, lengthening transfers to the OL. Significant downgrade between Malden and Wakefield center from 2019 when 136/137 interlining resulted in sub 15 min peak frequencies.

Well, I think this is worth us clarifying (and this goes for @The EGE's comment as well): all of the frequencies they are giving are "base all-day frequencies" -- i.e. "15 min or better all day from 5am to 1am". So when they say the 137 is "every 60 min or better all day from 5am to 1am":

1. It doesn't actually foreclose higher peak frequencies (which they note, "Some routes run more frequently at peak")
2. It reflects the current schedule, which does indeed see 16-min headways at peak, 20-30 min headways off-peak, 40-50 min on Saturdays, and 90 min headways on Sundays

So basically this proposal would mean improving those Sunday headways, and extending service later at night.

I should also note that, if I recall correctly, the pre-covid 136/137 interlining did indeed yield sub-15 min headways -- for like a hot second in the morning. I think it was a window of less than an hour where those frequencies actually occurred.

To be clear, I'm not necessarily advocating for their particular proposal with the 137, but I think it's easy to misunderstand what they are presenting there.

 

[737900er]

• I'm certainly in the minority here, but I don't like the 86 being broken up. It was a very useful and well-used circumferential route, and there was a fair bit of ridership through Harvard.
• The entirely of Somerville gets screwed over here. Not within a few minutes walk to the GLX? Too damn bad.
• Axing the 4 means there's a lot of the waterfront and the North End. I'd like to see the curtailed 11 get extended along A, Atlantic, and Commercial to North Station.
• Waltham loses almost all its direct service to downtown. We'd better see beefed-up CR service with timed bus transfers to make up for that.
• Interesting expansion of the north suburban network - looks a lot like the streetcar days! I'm not optimistic that those frequencies will draw much ridership.

I was just thinking that there is no cross-Somerville route in this proposal. Something like extending the 86 (or another Harvard route) to Magoun might be interesting, although there are few routes that could be used.

With Waltham, I think the idea is that people will just take a more consistent 505, but until a schedule is published it's hard to say what that will look like. I suspect that ridership has not recovered on the 550-series routes. You can tell how ripe Waltham is for Regional Rail just looking at that proposed map though.

 

[Riverside]

• I'm certainly in the minority here, but I don't like the 86 being broken up. It was a very useful and well-used circumferential route, and there was a fair bit of ridership through Harvard.
• The entirely of Somerville gets screwed over here. Not within a few minutes walk to the GLX? Too damn bad.
• Axing the 4 means there's a lot of the waterfront and the North End. I'd like to see the curtailed 11 get extended along A, Atlantic, and Commercial to North Station.
• Waltham loses almost all its direct service to downtown. We'd better see beefed-up CR service with timed bus transfers to make up for that.
• Interesting expansion of the north suburban network - looks a lot like the streetcar days! I'm not optimistic that those frequencies will draw much ridership.

Re 86: I will say, I always am surprised when I look at the ridership data for this route, because you are right -- there's a surprising amount of ridership through Harvard. I do wonder how much of these proposals are deliberate "first rounds", recognizing that the final compromise will be somewhere in the middle.

As for Somerville: I realize now that my tone may have been a bit unclear, but yes -- the before and after of the Somerville/Charlestown map highlights this redesign's general trend away more lower-frequency-more-diffuse routes in favor of consolidation into higher-frequency trunks. Whether that is a good thing or not is a separate question, but it's very clearly on display in that map.

@737900er created a fantastic visualization in Tableau a few weeks ago. Looking at it, I can see why some of the choices were made. For example, the 80 -- in addition to doubling GLX -- is a lower ridership route. Likewise, the stretch along McGrath going in to Lechmere (which would now be without service for the first time in over a century) only has a handful of stops, and is hardly breaking any ridership records.

On the other hand, eliminating the 88, having the 90 bypass Sullivan, and not providing a Green Line connection for the 90 (now the sole Highland Ave route) does pretty much mean that you have to walk to a GLX station. Again, a compromise could be some mild diversions to provide better connectivity to GLX, such as:

• T101 to Ball Square by continuing on Broadway, turning north on Boston Ave, back east on Harvard and then resuming the route
  • If memory serves, bus lanes are proposed on Broadway, so this diversion wouldn't have to cost a lot of time
• the new 90 to Gilman Square by turning on School St (a few different ways to go after that, but nothing wild necessary)

(And yeah, while I'm encouraged by the creativity of having the 90 bypass Sullivan -- presumably in order to speed service beyond to Everett and Chelsea -- that strikes me as a pretty high cost. The new 90 is far removed from both the T101 and the new 87, so there's no good access to Sullivan.)

Re Waltham: just to make sure I'm following, Waltham lost most of its direct downtown service when the pandemic began, right?

 

[WestMedford]

My few thoughts:

The 90 route seems way too long and disparate. I get the goal to connect Chelsea and Arlington with a one stop ride to Assembly but seems like this would make more sense as two bus routes with Assembly as the hub.

The new 100 routing west of I-93 I can’t make sense of. Understand it’s making up for the loss of the 710 “mini-bus” route and the 134 along Winthrop Street, but how is it supposed to work in practice.. as a cross town Medford residential route? Seems odd.

I love the new 94 funneling Woburn/Winchester/West Medford local service to GLX Tufts. This is a hyper local comment but although it is the most direct routing, how do they expect a bus inbound to take that weird right turn from Playstead onto Salem, cross the Lowell line tracks, then immediately turn left onto Harvard St? That has my safety radar at Spinal Tap 11. Would be awesome if the theory worked but man that’s a tough right left jog. Same thing almost on the outbound jog too.

 

[TrolleybusFoaming]

I love the new 94 funneling Woburn/Winchester/West Medford local service to GLX Tufts. This is a hyper local comment but although it is the most direct routing, how do they expect a bus inbound to take that weird right turn from Playstead onto Salem, cross the Lowell line tracks, then immediately turn left onto Harvard St? That has my safety radar at Spinal Tap 11. Would be awesome if the theory worked but man that’s a tough right left jog. Same thing almost on the outbound jog too.

On the other hand, the interactive map shows the 94 skipping Harvard and going down High to Boston, so who knows what the actual route is.

 

[stick n move]

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[WestMedford]

On the other hand, the interactive map shows the 94 skipping Harvard and going down High to Boston, so who knows what the actual route is.
View attachment 24442

Oh geez I meant High, not Salem Street . Let’s just call it Route 60 . Yes that is the exact danger zone.

You are right the interactive has the 94 curving around High to Boston St like it does now vs cutting through via Harvard Ave. But that Playstead angle, better illustrated in this map, is sharp.

 

[Roxxma]

I love the new 94 funneling Woburn/Winchester/West Medford local service to GLX Tufts. This is a hyper local comment but although it is the most direct routing, how do they expect a bus inbound to take that weird right turn from Playstead onto Salem, cross the Lowell line tracks, then immediately turn left onto Harvard St? That has my safety radar at Spinal Tap 11. Would be awesome if the theory worked but man that’s a tough right left jog. Same thing almost on the outbound jog too.

I do sort of get that, and think the 94 extension looks good, but commuters in Burlington and Billerica (and probably parts of Bedford and Wilmington) might not be so keen on losing the 352/354 express buses. The two have been combined since the pandemic, and are pretty well used, even to the end of the line. My brother and sister-in-law have a business at Chestnut and Cambridge (3A) Streets in Burlington, next to the terminus of the 350, 354, and LRTA 13 bus, and they get a fair amount of business from people who commute on those buses (and occasional illegal parkers, when the commuter parking lot at the Presbyterian church across the street fills), and are always fine letting people waiting for rides hang out in the store during inclement weather, and offer their bathrooms to the bus drivers. The workarounds (Red Line to the 350 or extended 94) to get from Downtown will add a lot of time to current commutes, even with the (thankfully) shortened 350. A better solution may be to start an all-day 352 and/or 354 at Wellington or Malden Center and then run express on 93 (via massDOT's shoulder bus lanes) to Montvale Ave (354) and 3A via 128 (352). That will provide express service and have the added benefit of bypassing 93 south of Medford.

 

[737900er]

In general this seems to be a pretty aggressive assault on Express buses.
They basically all get cut except 501, 504, and 505 (which would run local from West Newton to Newton Corner now)
170, 325, 326, 352, 502, 503, 553, 554, 556, 558 which are currently suspended on the express segment would get axed.
354, 426, 428, 450 would get axed.

 

[lainpimicaja]

In general this seems to be a pretty aggressive assault on Express buses.
They basically all get cut except 501, 504, and 505 (which would run local from West Newton to Newton Corner now)
170, 325, 326, 352, 502, 503, 553, 554, 556, 558 which are currently suspended on the express segment would get axed.
354, 426, 428, 450 would get axed.

Yes, but the trade-off seems to be much worth it, especially in Medford. They get two new high frequency routes (T101, T96) with connections 7-days a week, virtually all-day to the OL, RL, and GL. Express buses are expensive and provide a very limited amount of service needs.

 

[RandomWalk]

One problem with cross-Somerville routings is that the north-south roads are not particularly kind to a 40 ft bus. Back in the day, they had the 35 ft sub-fleet for Spring Hill.

 

[lainpimicaja]

One problem with cross-Somerville routings is that the north-south roads are not particularly kind to a 40 ft bus. Back in the day, they had the 35 ft sub-fleet for Spring Hill.

North-south service through Somerville is definitely a need and lacking here. Something like what's included below in red might be a service idea to consider: essentially a Haines Square to Central Square high frequency route via Fellsway, McGrath, and Prospect - stitches together Medford, Somerville, and Cambridge and provides a crosstown connector for neighborhoods in the eastern part of Somerville. Would be conditional on McGrath re-do including some major, high quality bus lanes, but that definitely seems to be on the table and something Somerville would be interested in. The area around Union Square / Inner Belt is gonna be like a mini Kendall Sq in a few years. This could really help tie in parts of east Medford that have poor rapid transit access despite being geographically closer to the OL.

 

[tysmith95]

Regarding north shore transit, I think it's a loss that route 451 no longer serves Salem. Without commuter rail fare integration it makes that route less appealing.

Anyhow, not sure why 451 and the Beverly shuttle aren't combined into one. It doesn't make sense to have both with different routes serving the same area.

 

[Teban54]

One alternative, if they want to keep the one-seat ride across the Charles, would be to stay on Huntington until Mass Ave and then head north from there. Terminate at Kendall or Central or maybe through-run, I don't know. But you'd maintain a one-seat ride pretty close to the Pru, a short walking transfer to the Orange Line, and equal connectivity to the Green Line (all 4 branches via Symphony and Hynes). You'd also be spending more time on Huntington and Mass Ave, both wide enough to be optimistic for bus lanes.

At the same time, you could keep a "T47" that runs Porter-Union-Central-BU Bridge-LMA-Nubian/Ruggles -- or even double up the T47 and T39 along South Huntington.

But I agree with @HenryAlan -- if they can make the proposed corridor viable, that would be a remarkable service.

How about letting T39 take over the proposed 55 extension from LMA (Brookline Ave) to Kendall/MIT? Then run T47 exactly as you proposed.

I'm not sure if 55's route is suitable for articulated buses, and 55's current ridership in Fenway may not justify T39's capacity. But if feasible, this would maintain connections from Jamaica Plain to Mass Ave and Hynes Convention Center Station (with enough GL branches for good frequency, and close to Copley).

 

[737900er]

The T finally issued their RFP for the BEBs with a base order of 45 (for Quincy) and options up to 360.

One interesting tidbit is an option for 100 buses with left doors (35 for North Cambridge and 65 more). I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the redesign, but I wouldn't be surprised if it does. The garages that would get buses under this order would likely be Quincy, North Cambridge, Arborway, and Fellsway. I can't see Quincy needing buses with left doors and North Cambridge would be full of left door, so there must be some idea at Arborway or Fellsway to use them. Certainly, many of the Harvard routes like T66, T77, T109, 75, 78, 86 could use those (although I have a hard time seeing some of those routes assigned to Arborway or Fellsway), so I imagine there are other ideas floating around to make use of them too.

MBTA’s New Electric Bus Order Could Support More Center-Running Busways Regionwide

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