MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

[Arlington]

Bottom line.... shooda built that 3rd HOV tube back in the day.....

Nah, just raise peak hour tolls and use the $ to boost bus frequency & fund D underpass & related SL upgrades.

 

[CSTH]

Nah, just raise peak hour tolls and use the $ to boost bus frequency & fund D underpass & related SL upgrades.

Fair enough! But can we add the (long-promised) Maverick - Fan Pier ferry to the list?

 

[Arlington]

Fair enough! But can we add the (long-promised) Maverick - Fan Pier ferry to the list?

Sure ;-) That's a good idea that (because it is OT here) should be covered in the Seaport Transportation thread.

 

[cozzyd]

It really does back up sometimes (4- 5 pm?), not only in the tunnel but also the onramp onto I-90 E. It's a pretty short segment, so it probably doesn't add more than 10-15 minutes to the trip, which should not make or break anyone's flight (but of course it does for some people). Also, it messes with the SL1 headways, resulting in extremely packed buses from South Station (though that could be fixed in other ways).

 

[CantabAmager]

Another bump, since I enjoyed reading through this thread. As part of a project, I had to make a little database of the MBTA's top bus routes with numbers from the latest blue book (ridership, one-way, n/d route miles), the 2012 RPI scorecard (headways, net cost, schedule adherence), and a ran a few basic calculations from those numbers (weekday ridership per route mile). I only needed the top-10, but just for the sake of comparison I ended up going all the way up to the Top-30 routes systemwide with some extras thrown in. In a separate instance, I started flipping through the latest PMT to see what the MPO had envisioned for improving these routes - I remember the 28x shenanigans and the "eh it's good enough" crosstown routes, but I was wondering specifically how the PMT "BRT-elements" plans will hold up for the Key Routes in particular. Since the MBTA is starting to engage a major round of bus procurements, I think it's an apposite topic.

So specifically, we're talking BRT elements in the PMT's illustrative scenarios (let's just say 'better bus service') for (note, every single top-30 route except for the 93 fails in the "crowding/loading" category, frequency targets are 10min peak headways for Key, 30min peak for locals):

Route | Ridership | Net Cost | Schedule Adherence | Frequency Pass/Fail | Major Tangent Streets

1/CT1: 15405 | $0.63 | 69% | Pass (Key) | Mass Ave
22 : 8600 | $1.05 | 69% |Fail (Key) | Blue Hill/Seaver/Columbus/Talbot
31: 6500 | $1.07 | 77% | Pass (Local) | Blue Hill, Morton
32: 11000 | $1.02 | 69% | Fail (Key) | Hyde Park Ave/South/Centre/So. Huntington
39: 14900 | $0.72 | 71% | Pass (Key) | South/Centre/Huntington
57: 10000 | $0.86 | 65% | Fail (Key) | Tremont/Wash (Brighton)/Cambridge/Comm Ave
66: 14000 | $0.79 | 68% | Fail (Key) | No. Harvard/Cambridge/Harvard/Hunt./Tremont
71: 5,548 | $1.35 | 78%| Pass (Key) | Mt. Auburn
73: 6,424 | $1.75 | 74% | Pass (Key) | Trapelo/Belmont/Mt. Auburn
77: 7,799 | $1.95 | 66% | Pass (Key) | Mass Ave
111: 12,133 | $1.06 | 77% | Pass (Key) | Park Ave/Wash./Tobin/No. Wash

The PMT contains other improved bus service for other routes, but not in the illustrative scenario, some of the glaring exceptions to the ones above amongst them are:

23: 12,527 | $1.00 | 70% | Pass (Key) | Talbot/Wash./Warren/MX
28: 14,057 | $0.80 | 68% | Pass (Key) | BHA/Warren/MX

There are basic plans for rejiggering major bus nodes in Waltham and Lynn on top it of this.

Other top-30 routes that I can't find on the PMT are the: 7, 9, 16, 21, 47, 70, 89 (because of GLX) 15/86/116/117 (Urban Ring), 101, and for obvious reasons the Silver Line.

So what, realistically are the options here? Sure, carpet bombing every on-street parking spot would free up acres of space, but that's not politically feasible in the slightest in my book. I'm also not talking "official BRT", but basic road furniture that favors busses, helps them move through traffic, etc.. Is there anywhere above that's actionable in the near future?

 

[Arlington]

Here is a sweet new site from the Greater Boston BRT Study Group (March 2015) BostonBRT.org:
http://www.bostonbrt.org/the-brt-report

 

[CantabAmager]

Props for the link.

It's a snazzy site, but it's the same old ITDP BRT will save the world shtick. The "it's just like a subway...but on wheels!" is that, annoying, tiring crap they've been pushing for years. Instead of any real groundwork (ok maybe that's outside of the scope of the study) it's just a list of "oh and this route is a high ridership, sorely needed circumferential routing so we should totally implement Gold Standard-BRT here" without actually specifying how it's going to happen. I like the concept of BRT or "quality bus" or whatever - just a more frequent, less impeded bus system - but ITDP drives me f*cking nuts. They can't pass up the opportunity to shit on light rail at any costs, even if it's with screwy, non-cited statistics and has no bearing on the current discussion. AFAIK there are no serious plans to institute light rail over any of the studied corridors (outside of what you can find in the Crazy Transit Pitches thread and the MPO Long Range "Universe of Projects" stuff), with maybe just maybe a Dudley extension of the Green Line. Maybe. And to boot, I spend more time than I should in NTD and MBTA ridership stats, and I've never encountered person per hour per direction metric - it might well be an accepted measurement, but it's uniqueness means it's tough to make an honest comparison. Comparing Bogota, Belo, or Curitiba to American scenarios is disingenuous, the labor costs for construction and operation are significantly reduced while capital expenditure costs are largely fixed which isn't the situation we find ourselves in. Nor are we going whack the middle 2/3 lanes for bus lanes (as much as I would love that to happen) and headhouses.

So what does this report tell us? A few general best practices? That's well and good, but realistically how are these corridors going to prepared for BRT? What's going to happen Mass Ave? BHA? Broadway? BU Bridge? So I'm hyped that there's support behind improvement, but there's nothing that new in the report and not a ton that's Boston-specific - I'm all for best practices, I live in Copenhagen of all places and there's certainly some aspects of the approach to busses and public transit writ-large that I think the US could learn from, but regional/local conditions trump international best practice so I'm not sure what to make of the report....

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

How very mid-90's retro of them.

Looking into the foundation that sponsored this...lots of venture capital money, and trustees who like to collect trusteeships like trophies at various Boston institutions. Most of what they do is focused on Arts & Culture, Education, and Climate Change (this gets grouped under climate change). And Climate Change seems to be a new foray for them, with the thinnest coverage.

It's not bad, but it's well-covered ground and reads like the people behind it were very much novices at trying to sink their teeth into transportation planning. Look at the list of report contributors: architecture and design outfits, transportation architecture and design outfits, smattering of 'usual suspects' community groups. It's exactly the list you would expect to be seduced by high-concept "big ideas!" and uninterested in the mundaneness of the execution. Because you have to talk to an ops expert...or preferably many of them...and a wide swath of actual transit riders to wrap brain around that.

I don't want to put them down too much. It's a new foray for them, and this is what you'd expect out of a 'practice effort'. Step 2 is to start digging into the meatier aspects of it and bring it from high-concept to real-world application on this very messy city. The problem is...with that roster of contributors they're not going to reach Step 2 because it's all a high-concept crowd traveling in the same circles. And that's where every other gee-whiz BRT thinkpiece has stalled out. The urban design groups studying them never look outside their own ranks...because then that means they have to hear the dreaded "bus" word and an earful about operating the boring-old city bus and how boring-old constrained Boston's traffic grid is.

If even one of these livable cities groups had been able to break through to Step 2 on these studies, I'd have some hope for the Barr Foundation here. But none of them have, and Barr's work is about as cookie-cutter as it gets on producing high-concept for high-concept folks' tastes. So...eh...another one on the pile with 1995's glossy BRT brochures buried at the bottom.



At least the actual oil/big-biz backed BRT lobbies who used to funnel money behind these studies as a trojan horse to kill urban transit expansion have all pretty much disappeared. That was a relic of Clinton's 2nd term and Bush's 1st term when there were a lot more pockets to stuff in D.C. by pushing the Bogota model as a distraction to de-fund other transit improvements. Their sway started to dry up when their lobbying brethren all started riding the Acela to work, so there's none of the usual-suspect thinktanks here. Just the 'form over function' designers who want to conceptualize pretty things without thought to how they'd be used. More naive than malicious...but at least there's possibility of reaching Step 2 if the form-over-function folks bring in the right nuts-and-bolts experts for the follow-up. It won't happen, of course, but at least this isn't malicious intent from the start like those BRT working groups of 15 years ago were.




Mind you, the tired old Yellow Line bus has a badly needed place in the transportation portfolio needing enormous amounts of service improvements. But the utilitarian city bus is not high-concept enough. Repackaging Bogota is sexy. Implementing the rest of the ops-only late-90's Crosstown bus plan that was supposed to be Urban Ring Phase I is not sexy.

It is, however, the most sensible implementable rubber-tire plan for Boston: a robust express bus network that puts its grunt work into. . .

-- Thoroughfare traffic management: signal timing; turn lane management and re-striping deficient-flowing road layouts such as around turn lanes; bus turnout efficiency (e.g. better-designed bus stop juts/cuts that let the bus turn completely out and completely into traffic without everyone getting in everyone's way); parking management (e.g. buffering corner spaces and spaces around bus stops that disrupt traffic flow); parking enforcement (BTD reform around the double-parkers).

-- Accessibility: better crosswalks; better pedestrian signaling; ADA bus stops and curb juts; bus turnout efficiency and abutting parking space mitigation so the bus is never blocked from reaching the curb; better signage and wayfinding.

-- General-purpose "complete streets" practices: road diets where road diets applicable/necessary; bike lanes (because those in turn help carve out the bus turnouts for reaching the curb with full accessibility and minimal flow disruption); etc.

-- Ops optimization: signaling, as above; dispatch modernization/headway management; stop consolidation/optimization; scheduling flexibility; efficient and logical mixing of locals vs. expresses.


Simple "duh!" Key Bus Route Improvements implemented with full follow-through, and a real express route system that doesn't require special branding...much less special design or vehicles...because it's ubiquitous throughout the city. Like the CT# routes were supposed to be until that was apparently deemed too boring and not- high-concept enough.

 

[Matthew]

Some people (in another thread) have mistakenly believed that BRT could replace the Green Line. Apparently they missed this article by Ari that lays out the geometry constraints quite well:

http://amateurplanner.blogspot.com/2015/06/what-is-actual-capacity-of-brt.html

In short: a 4-lane BRT system can beat a 2-track LRT system in capacity. But a 4-lane BRT system requires a right-of-way that is (over) twice as wide as a 2-track LRT system.

The MBTA Green Line runs inside of a tunnel that is constrained to 2-tracks in many places. Therefore, a 4-lane BRT system cannot replace the Green Line without ripping up half of Boston. I would say that even a 2-lane BRT requires more width than the Green Line has, but let's say it could be done. Unfortunately, the capacity of a 2-lane BRT is pitiful in comparison to LRT. The advantage of LRT being able to trainline multiple passenger cars is quite strong. The Green Line must remain LRT and can never be converted to BRT unless its ridership drops by half or more.

Now, anyone suggesting that the GLX alone could be BRT, while leaving the rest of the Green Line as LRT, is being short-sighted. The whole point of the GLX is that the vehicles can run directly into the Central Subway. A BRT GLX could never do that. Same issue with the Silver Line and the Tremont Street subway.

End of story.

 

[cden4]

Someone needs to figure out how to couple two BRT buses together... or just use these:

http://wonderfulengineering.com/the-worlds-longest-bus-is-here/

Although I'm sure the T would insist on front door boarding...

 

[Shepard]

Can you actually make a 90 degree turn in a double articulated?

 

[citylover94]

Not sure my guess would be no or it would have to be taken very slowly.

 

[tangent]

Some people (in another thread) have mistakenly believed that BRT could replace the Green Line. Apparently they missed this article by Ari that lays out the geometry constraints quite well:

http://amateurplanner.blogspot.com/2015/06/what-is-actual-capacity-of-brt.html

In short: a 4-lane BRT system can beat a 2-track LRT system in capacity. But a 4-lane BRT system requires a right-of-way that is (over) twice as wide as a 2-track LRT system.

The MBTA Green Line runs inside of a tunnel that is constrained to 2-tracks in many places. Therefore, a 4-lane BRT system cannot replace the Green Line without ripping up half of Boston. I would say that even a 2-lane BRT requires more width than the Green Line has, but let's say it could be done. Unfortunately, the capacity of a 2-lane BRT is pitiful in comparison to LRT. The advantage of LRT being able to trainline multiple passenger cars is quite strong. The Green Line must remain LRT and can never be converted to BRT unless its ridership drops by half or more.

Now, anyone suggesting that the GLX alone could be BRT, while leaving the rest of the Green Line as LRT, is being short-sighted. The whole point of the GLX is that the vehicles can run directly into the Central Subway. A BRT GLX could never do that. Same issue with the Silver Line and the Tremont Street subway.

End of story.

From what I can find the Green Line only comes close to 10,000 per hour in the underground portion of the main line trunk during peak periods. But if someone can point out better numbers by all means.

And the only thing required to get to 35,000 passengers per hour for BRT is to add a passing lane at the station. Which is a cost consideration.

This conclusion seems about right (and is supported by that graphic):
"There are conditions that favor LRT over BRT, but they are fairly narrow. To meet these conditions you would need a corridor with only one available lane in each direction, more than 16,000 passengers per direction per hour but less than 20,000"
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit

 

[bigeman312]

From what I can find the Green Line only comes close to 10,000 per hour in the underground portion of the main line trunk during peak periods. But if someone can point out better numbers by all means.

And the only thing required to get to 35,000 passengers per hour for BRT is to add a passing lane at the station. Which is a cost consideration.

This conclusion seems about right (and is supported by that graphic):
"There are conditions that favor LRT over BRT, but they are fairly narrow. To meet these conditions you would need a corridor with only one available lane in each direction, more than 16,000 passengers per direction per hour but less than 20,000"
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit

The fact that we are engaging you is ludicrous, but I will. Briefly. "bus rapid transit" is what got us the SL5. Do you know what the capacity of that is? The biggest problem with BRT, right now in the US, is politicians' desire and ability to undermine its potential. That says nothing about it operating in an ideal world (in which it is a much more viable mode but still has shortcomings).

 

[bobthebuilder]

Can you actually make a 90 degree turn in a double articulated?

http://wonderfulengineering.com/the-worlds-longest-bus-is-here/

This state-of-the-art steering system allows the bus to manoeuver just like a 12 meter long bus and can also steer the huge thing backward or forward with ease

12m is about 40 ft, which is the length of your standard transit bus. So it sounds like it should maneuver just as well as anything else the MBTA has on the road.

I test drove a couple 60' articulated buses and they turn about as well as a 35 footer


http://www.autotram.info/en.html

 

[CantabAmager]

From what I can find the Green Line only comes close to 10,000 per hour in the underground portion of the main line trunk during peak periods. But if someone can point out better numbers by all means.

And the only thing required to get to 35,000 passengers per hour for BRT is to add a passing lane at the station. Which is a cost consideration.

This conclusion seems about right (and is supported by that graphic):
"There are conditions that favor LRT over BRT, but they are fairly narrow. To meet these conditions you would need a corridor with only one available lane in each direction, more than 16,000 passengers per direction per hour but less than 20,000"
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit

Tangent, we're dealing with theoretical capacity in a fully-built BRT system with all the operational bells and whistles. That to me, that is ITDP's (the guys who provide the stats upon which much of that wiki article is based on) fatal flaw: over-emphasis on theory, and not reality. Re-read F-Line's post above; BRT is rarely employed for it's pure transit value, it's employed as means by which cities and transit agencies can cop out on making the appropriate infra capital investments. It's an idea for people who like "big ideas", but can't be bothered by implementation. That's why we get theoretical triumph of BRT, but very rarely actual realization of the supposed benefits. If ITDP spent half the time actually developing an implementable model as opposed to trying to shit on light rail, we'd all benefit greatly. As it stands now though, their numbers are specious, bordering on flat-out incorrect - their research is used to dampen support for light-rail projects, but it isn't used in the actual execution of BRT. They provide cover for people who want to save money, and who aren't particularly concerned with transit value beyond what appears on the balance sheet.

EDIT: that report they produced for Boston is point and case, for me. It's heavy on "light rail" isn't a good investment, but it has little to no actual discussion of how these BRT 'corridors' could be implemented. F-Line's optimization ideas are more detailed than anything found in the think piece. It's a "yeah..well...duh"-style report.

Bige, I think the SL gets too much shit. Here's what I see when I view SL4/5: it's the most trafficked bus corridor in the city by far (20k per weekday, 1/CT1 gets 15k for comparison). Perhaps that's an argument for why it should be light-rail, but what I see is that even marginal improvements (i.e. bus lanes) can go a long way in improving bus service. It's a good bus - maybe it shouldn't be just a bus, but denigrating the SL-Wash services has the unwanted effect of dampening support for similar project elsewhere in the city. We should be saying: "see, even marginal marginal improvements (since it's not like people or the City actually respect the "bus only" nature of the lanes) can go a long way in improving service". In that sense SL is a success story - I'm sympathetic to the transit/social justice arguments against it, but I do think it's an under-heralded example of what Boston's busses can become.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Bige, I think the SL gets too much shit. Here's what I see when I view SL4/5: it's the most trafficked bus corridor in the city by far (20k per weekday, 1/CT1 gets 15k for comparison). Perhaps that's an argument for why it should be light-rail, but what I see is that even marginal improvements (i.e. bus lanes) can go a long way in improving bus service. It's a good bus - maybe it shouldn't be just a bus, but denigrating the SL-Wash services has the unwanted effect of dampening support for similar project elsewhere in the city. We should be saying: "see, even *marginal* marginal improvements (since it's not like people or the City actually respect the "bus only" nature of the lanes) can go a long way in improving service". In that sense SL is a success story - I'm sympathetic to the transit/social justice arguments against it, but I do think it's an under-heralded example of what Boston's busses can become.

Sorry, Living on SL4/5 I simply cannot agree with this analysis. SL4/5 is no where close to BRT. It is B, and poor B only. Because of the stupid single door boarding, at the high ridership it experiences huge bunching effects, then zero service for 30 minutes plus. The worst case I have documented is five (5) SL4/5 arriving inbound at Tufts Medical simultaneously -- think about what the service level behind them looks like out Washington Street.

BRT is always going to be crap in this town, because we always cheap out and remove the RT part from the equation. SL4/5 is about as close to rapid transit as the horse drawn trolleys on clogged Tremont Street used to be 150 years ago.

 

[CantabAmager]

Sorry, Living on SL4/5 I simply cannot agree with this analysis. SL4/5 is no where close to BRT. It is B, and poor B only. Because of the stupid single door boarding, at the high ridership it experiences huge bunching effects, then zero service for 30 minutes plus. The worst case I have documented is five (5) SL4/5 arriving inbound at Tufts Medical simultaneously -- think about what the service level behind them looks like out Washington Street.

BRT is always going to be crap in the town, because we always cheap out and remove the RT part from the equation. SL4/5 is about as close to rapid transit as the horse drawn trolleys on clogged Tremont Street used to be 150 years ago.

I'm not saying it's rapid transit by any means whatsoever, I'm saying it works better, quicker, and carries more people than any bus corridor in the town (that's not to say it's good, it's saying the rest of the high-ridership lines are even more shite). It's not perfect, but this is what I mean - the bus only lanes are an improvement that should be deployed on other routes, yes the ops regime behind SL might not be at all appropriate, but that's a different complaint from the pure, infra considerations. When all the shitty parts of the SL are bundled together, it eliminates the bus-lanes (which are better) from the conversation for bus improvements in the city.

 

[JeffDowntown]

I'm not saying it's rapid transit by any means whatsoever, I'm saying it works better, quicker, and carries more people than any bus corridor in the town (that's not to say it's good, it's saying the rest of the high-ridership lines are even more shite). It's not perfect, but this is what I mean - the bus only lanes are an improvement that should be deployed on other routes, yes the ops regime behind SL might not be at all appropriate, but that's a different complaint from the pure, infra considerations. When all the shitty parts of the SL are bundled together, it eliminates the bus-lanes (which are better) from the conversation for bus improvements in the city.

We should only bother with more bus-only lanes if we also bother to enforce them. That is another joke about the SL4/5 BRT -- bus lanes (aka: double parking, delivery, turning, driving because I can because they are unenforced lanes)

 

[tangent]

How does it help the cause of more efficient Mass transit to be arguing for solutions that are two to three times more expensive? Silver Line doesn't have enough buses and drivers because of cost. If it were a light rail it would still be on the drawing board because of cost.