MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

Somerville Washington Street
Hmm, this is actually a continuous bike lane, and just 3 queue jumps for the 86. Think that will be enough?
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Arlington said:
Somerville Washington Street
Hmm, this is actually a continuous bike lane, and just 3 queue jumps for the 86. Think that will be enough?
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I live on one of the side streets in this segment. The backups are mostly at the signals, so the queue jumps might be just enough to speed up the buses. There is a "need" for a left turn lane onto Dane St during rush hour and I wonder how they plan to address that? Signal timing? Split phases? Extended green?
 
That stretch isn't nearly as bad as it used to be. It should be fine.
 
Per NETransit...

Down to the final 5 acceptances for the base order of the New Flyer hybrid 40-footers. As per sighting on 10/4 the +60 option order is already arriving at Everett for testing, so they are moving right along.

The retirement & reassignment shuffle between garages has changed this month now that Charlestown garage has run out of older straight-diesel New Flyer D40LF's to send to Albany garage in 1:1 exchange for retiring Neoplans. The Neoplan retirements have temporarily paused with 15 malingers still at Albany while they triage to pry loose more D40LF straight-diesels from elsewhere. Lynn garage has just received its first-ever hybrids assignment in the form of 15 XDE-40's from the first-gen 2015 batch from Charlestown. Lynn garage is not yet equipped to home-service the hybrids, but is close enough driving distance to Charlestown that the interim plan is to simply triage maint between garages. So they'll be padding out that initial Lynn number a little bit more up to the limit of that temp triage, then sending a couple dozen or more D40LF straight diesels from Lynn to Albany to purge Albany of its last Neoplans.

The reassignments for outright fleet expansion have also began, as Charlestown has also shipped out some of its older '15-batch hybrids to pad out Cabot garage (currently a 75/25 split hybrid & CNG facility) to the max...also backfilling those trades with brand-new acceptances at Charlestown. That means once we get off these COVID recovery schedules the routes in the CBD most in need of service increases will be the first capable of taking advantage of the expanded fleet.

Still no clue how they're going to handle Neoplan retirements at Fellsway garage, which is also un-equipped for hybrids. Lynn and Quincy are the only other garages stocked with enough straight-diesels to bump Fellsway's 84 Neoplans into retirement. Whether Lynn is on-tap for any renovations in FY21 or not (can't find any docs saying so), there's definitely nothing that can be blitzed for rest of 2020 that'll let them substantially increase their hybrid shares beyond the delicate triage with Charlestown going on now. So Bus Ops is already up against the wall for means of flipping Fellsway's to-be-retired roster. And the new Quincy garage still being in tortured approvals with the city means no possibility of shovels-in-ground before Summer '21 at earliest and no facility down there capable of taking hybrids until '22 at the earliest. Will be interesting to see how they handle getting out of this stuck spot clearing out the retirement line while simultaneously accepting +60 wholly gravy fleet-expansion bodies. It's worth an FCMB PowerPoint explainer next time Bus Ops gets an agenda item, because this is a immediate/temporary space crunch of potentially big enough magnitude to cause problems. Problems as mundane as, say, overcomplicating snow removal logistics this winter while every slack space in the garage lots is stuffed full with extra bodies.


Other misc. . .

2 of North Cambridge's 3 high-floor RTS work buses with dummy trolley poles for sleet-cutter duty have been retired, with 2 D40LF low-floors yanked from the revenue roster to be converted into new sleet cutters in time for winter. The last RTS work bus still active for TT territory is, I think, the quasi- wire car equipped with extra telemetry sensors on its dummy poles. Unclear if that one is also up for replacement once the 2 other new converts are finished, or if it's going to stay for the interim. With the sleet-cutter RTS's going to the scrap line the roster of operable high-floors is down to 3 active work units--the remaining sleet-cutter/wire bus, the new-conversion "historic" exhibit bus @ Everett, and the 'new' staff Training Bus--plus 2 stored/inactive work units of TBD status--the Transit Police Command Post Bus and the 'old' (scrap?) Training Bus. If they're intent on doing more work conversions in 2021 of displaced low-floors, a year from now the '94 RTS and '57 GM Historic buses may be the only high-floors left.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
First 8 buses in the hybrid +60 New Flyer option order are now in-service. Wasting zero time plowing through this procurement.
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...and just like that they are one-quarter of the way through the options. 15 of 60 now in-service. Only 1 of 194 on the base order still in-testing.

Looks like all the scrap buses have been removed from Everett by now as well, so they should imminently be advertising the next 60+ Neoplan scrap contract to help keep the lot clear before snow season. Also a couple pieces of work-roster flotsam and a few incomplete Neoplan body shells to dispose of in this next scrap round.


For the ever-changing garage assignments lots of things are in simultaneous flux:
  • Charlestown (253 buses rostered, 170 non-COVID peak requirement) -- Stocked entirely with the latest ongoing order, with only 45 of the '15-batch XDE-40's left. With 46 newbies yet to be accepted, that means all of the remaining '15-batch hybrids are due to be transferred out to Lynn or elsewhere to free up D40LF straight-diesels for Fellsway.
  • Cabot (203 buses rostered, 160 non-COVID peak requirement) -- Now buffed out to absolute max capacity with all of the '17-batch XDE-40's reassigned here (+55 CNG's not impacted by this order).
  • Albany (147 buses rostered, 75 non-COVID peak requirement) -- Only 10 Neoplans left to be swapped with D40LF's pried from Lynn before their roster reshuffle is more or less done. Nights/weekends revert to Cabot garage so unclear if they're going to drain some '08-batch D40LF's to aid Neoplan retirements @ Fellsway or not.
  • Lynn (105 buses rostered, 69 non-COVID peak requirement) -- Recipient of 15 2015-batch hybrids so far; rest is 19 '06-07 -batch D40LF's and 71 '08-batch D40LF's. Good guess that all the '07-batch ones get swapped to Albany joining the 112 same-order units there, and Albany's post-Neoplan roster rounds out to 160 or so. Lynn would then presumably get up to (all?) of the 45 '15-batch hybrids remaining from Charlestown, for maxed-out roster of up to ~135 buses).
  • Fellsway (87 rostered, 56 non-COVID peak requirement) -- Still 100% Neoplan for now. Unclear what replacement sequence will be; more unclear what future spare ratio would be since all night/weekend service reverts to Charlestown.
  • Quincy (79 rostered, 55 non-COVID peak requirement) -- 100% straight-diesel garage (20 '07-batch D40LF's, 59 '08-batch D40LF's). Maybe some batching reshuffles with Albany/Lynn/Fellsway, but the current facility is height-restricted from taking the roof hump of the new hybrids so type assignment definitely won't change. Nights/weekends revert to Cabot, so spare ratio likely doesn't need to change.

So, in a nutshell, they seem to be regrouping the garage rosters by lump-sum order batches (even though there's 0% functional difference between a '15 vs. '17 vs. '20 hybrid or an '07 vs. '08 straight-diesel). The numbers all add up nicely that way with the +60 expansion order, except for how they're going to TBD make over Fellsway. I can't make much sense of the spare ratios garage-by-garage because so many small variables are in-play (like who absorbs what nights/weekends, who does/doesn't have longer-distance equipment cycling, and which garages the most frequent Key Routes cluster). But generally speaking with Charlestown and Cabot the twin 800 lb. gorillas of the system the roster expansion to those two in particular tells the most overall about how much Yellow Line service levels could increase on Key Routes via the extra bodies once we get off these COVID recovery schedules.


FYI: T Procurement still has an open item for +40 more hybrids, so they may not be done fishing for other cities' declined XDE-40 options exactly like how this ongoing option of +60 extras got laundered on-the-quick from Virginia. They definitely won't do a base order that small, but the XDE-40 is the market leader amongst hybrids with multiple ongoing orders and many of those ongoing orders picking up/declining option-end extras based on what their post-COVID recovery fortunes look like for those cities. Smaller transit agencies will generally have lower recovery ceilings for '21-22 than the big boys and thus less need for option-order buses. Therefore it's quite likely that there'll be a modest-sized batch of pickup candidates coming available in the next year to further pad things out if our COVID recovery numbers (and TBD budget relief therein) trend bullish.
 
Does anyone have any updates on the Harvard Busway renovations?
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Remember when we were promised silver line on the emergency access ramp last year? What happened to that? Did it just die?
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Great question. The SL Tracker still shows the long way (and showed a bus outbound to Logan on it at exactly the moment it coulda been on the ramp)

SL1 | Bus | MBTA

MBTA Silver Line route 741 stops and schedules, including maps, real-time updates, parking and accessibility information, and connections.
www.mbta.com www.mbta.com
 
HelloBostonHi said:

It's the end of OCS on MBTA buses, they plan on replacing the silver line fleet with extended range diesel hybrids (like pilot bus 1294) and North Cambridge routes with full BEBs.
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They'll take down the wires from City of Cambridge's cold, dead hands. They won't go willingly into being the forced guinea pig for BEB range-testing pilots. The lag time between fleet replacement and North Cambridge garage permanent BEB upgrades is squishy enough to get taken for a trojan horse of getting backfilled with hybrids instead if the pilot results are unfavorable.

I mean...ballsy if they want to speed into tearing down the wires. But they're going to have to do way better than this covering their asses over the poison-pill charge or local politics is going to gum this shit right up. Cambridge will accept no out that forces them into hybrid sloppy-seconds as a potential "pilot" outcome. It's either an all-electric implementation ironclad guarantee or GTFO as far as they're concerned...and this plan is bit less than guarantee.
 
Cool cool lets ignore the impacts of mining lithium around the world because batteries are so cool
 

Forging Ahead | MBTA

Official website of the MBTA -- schedules, maps, and fare information for Greater Boston's public transportation system, including subway, commuter rail, bus routes, and boat lines.
www.mbta.com www.mbta.com

Proposed service changes are live on the MBTA website.

A lot of reductions in bus service proposed. Quite a few routes proposed to consolidate or eliminate.
 
jass said:
Cool cool lets ignore the impacts of mining lithium around the world because batteries are so cool
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Forget that. This is a stealth service reduction for Cambridge.

There are only 28 Neoplan TT's in North Cambridge for the 71, 72, 73, 77A...itself a huge reduction from the 50 1976 Flyer TT's that were replaced fifteen years ago. They worked in the reduction by super-extending routes out both sides of Harvard to fashion makeshift 77A headways...at demerit of the 77A being a way wilder crapshoot on headways than it ever used to be. So itself a de facto service reduction. And one that has to...every single day...be supplemented by diesel run-as-directeds from Charlestown because it's too threadbare to cover service baseline.

This proposal aims to cut the wires on those 28 TT's with a replacement of only 35 BEB's...a 20% increase over "not anywhere near enough as-is" but still 30% less than what they had fifteen years ago when the 77A's clock was actually predictable. No BEB installation in the world has yet made do with only a 20% spare ratio...and the T's own study update from a couple months ago said their projections were far off from even that. How is this expected to replace 4 (or, charitably, 2½) routes of TT's when BEB's by their very nature require a much larger (pessimistically, very larger) spare ratio?

Answer: it isn't, because they have no plans to continue running 4 routes at all. The 77A and 72 will be eliminated entirely in exchange for zero frequency increases on the superset 77 and 75. All spares will be needed to cover the BEB charging downtime on the longer and heavily-loaded 71 + longer and hillier 73. Huron Village's bus frequencies go automatically to dogshit with only the sparse 75 left, and the 77's schedule goes to die in extreme Harvard-North Cambridge overcrowding and lengthened dwell times without the critical load-bearing assist from the -A's short-turn.


That's the implicit endgame here: service reductions. The fact that they even talk about reconfiguring North Cambridge garage is a red herring. The Facilities Master Plan study says they no longer can support tiny garages like that if they want flexible equipment cycles...hence the endgame recs for a second "super-campus" @ Charlestown/Mystic River complementing the CBD trio, a West-region reliever in Watertown-or-similar performing similar outlying function as North-region Lynn and South-region "New" Quincy, and outright elimination of misfits Fellsway and North Cambridge. Because Watertown is earmarked for the regional realignment and is attached to the TT network, zeroing out North Cambridge was all-sympatico for the existing network (or at least some interim move of busting down NC to skeleton crew + 1 inspection bay until they find appropriate dispersals for last essential TT functions at that opposite end of the network).

So why float a rebuild all of a sudden ESPECIALLY in light of the challenges thrown down by the last pessimistic BEB assessment? Because they never intend to get that far. The document says temp triaging out of Charlestown, then making up ground later. Well...what ground do they truly need to make up later if only the 71 and 73 are going to exist in this sick rehash of "equal or better" service replacement. It means that when the BEB adoption inevitably disappoints in charging ranges on those resource-intensive Key Routes that the diesel hybrids will slowly bleed into Cambridge air and the BEB's get siphoned to some more appropriate shorter route. North Cambridge will get closed sans replacement and sold off for its real estate once it's shorn of its existence-justifying service margins by these reductions.


Mind you...the buried lede of service reductions already is cause for total declaration of war from City of Cambridge, so this plan is at loggerheads before we even have any debate about pros/cons of bus power plants. That's just the trailing indignity to where this is going to head. On the other side, Cambridge is home to plenty of payback leverage the City can use against the state on other efforts the state maybe wishes it could enact...that kind of being the stakes of Total War. Go after the TT wires with a service cuts trojan horse that broadsides the neighborhoods...get a fistful of opposition next time Tim Murray writes an ill-advised editorial about all the Worcesterites getting jerbs in Kendall steps from a Purple Line stop. That kind of caustic zero-sum game. But, believe me, if you've ever been frustrated by a late/overcrowded/slow 77 before now...nevermind in an -A'less future...you can see exactly why these cuts will get fought by the City with Total War.



Your guess is as good as mind how anyone will sanely operate the Silver Line this way when their lone 60-footer BEB demo unit has been such an utter failure at retaining acceptable duty cycles on even a shortie route like SL2. Although I guess there they've never had trouble throwing good money after bad, so kludges ahoy. . . :rolleyes:



EDIT: Yup...72 is up for elimination in the Forging Ahead plan. 77A run-thrus aren't even mentioned as existing on their paper, so that's also an elimination. There's your service-cut trojan horse rolled up in this sudden N. Cambridge BEB hurry-up that diametrically contradicts the most recent BEB suitability report presented to the Board. Add in the proposed elimination of the 79 from Forging Ahead and the 77 will never be functional at-load again for anyone ever again.
 
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Welcome back to the 1950’s and the game of bustitution bingo.

Trolley wires, even without accompanying rails in the ground, show a degree of commitment that buses (which can be moved on a whim) don’t. I assume that the muckity mucks are using the COVID service reductions as cover to yank that commitment.
 
RandomWalk said:
Welcome back to the 1950’s and the game of bustitution bingo.

Trolley wires, even without accompanying rails in the ground, show a degree of commitment that buses (which can be moved on a whim) don’t. I assume that the muckity mucks are using the COVID service reductions as cover to yank that commitment.
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Ari is not amused. . .

https://twitter.com/x/status/1325960698074198016
 
Aloisi's BS meter going off, too. . .

https://twitter.com/x/status/1326150630264729601

TransitMatters re-tweeting parallel threads about how this doesn't pass the most basic smell test, so expect an official statement soon (which they can pretty much crib verbatim from the Op-ed Aloisi & Alon Levy wrote about TT's & BEB's only a couple months ago, since the key points have already been bottom-lined). Once they're done with more urgent business first blowtorching the whole "Cutting Forward" fiasco.
 
It's also kind of rich that they cite the sorry state of the overhead wires as a reason to rip them out, without mentioning how they got to be in such a sorry state to begin with.
 
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