Cool cool lets ignore the impacts of mining lithium around the world because batteries are so cool
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. . .
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.
