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Not heavy in lines, but heavy ridership on those lines. And horribly plagued with delays in traffic. (Need to fix the Revere stretch too, though).
1.5 mile, center-running busway proposal for the Lynnway:
State Agencies Seek to Transform the Lynnway With New Bike Path and Bus Rapid Transit - Streetsblog Massachusetts
The project would remove car lanes on the Lynnway to create center-running bus lanes with transit signal priority, a shared use path, improved bus stops, and safer crosswalks along a 1.5 mile corridor along Lynn's harborfront.
I have a better idea. Extend the blue line to Salem, and speed up local commuter rails around the proximal north shore. Major bus termini get moved to the BLX stations. Then, take those same two lanes of traffic from the Lynnway and make a wide parkway with greenspace and bikeways on both sides (keep the autos to the middle). And eliminate as many curb cuts as possible.1.5 mile, center-running busway proposal for the Lynnway:
State Agencies Seek to Transform the Lynnway With New Bike Path and Bus Rapid Transit - Streetsblog Massachusetts
The project would remove car lanes on the Lynnway to create center-running bus lanes with transit signal priority, a shared use path, improved bus stops, and safer crosswalks along a 1.5 mile corridor along Lynn's harborfront.
No one would deny that that is a better idea. Likewise, no one would deny the exercising 60 minutes a day is a better idea that exercising for 10 minutes a day. That doesn't mean that exercising for 10 minutes a day is a bad idea -- especially if you currently are getting no exercise at all.
Right. My concern is that improving bus transit generally elicits a knee-jerk positive response amongst transit and urbanist people, but that such projects might actually lock out better changes in the future. The Melnea Cass project is a glaring example, and of course a bit different because the proposal was to actually widen the hardscape. Nonetheless, a Lynnway busway, once constructed, is never, ever going away. The Lynnway is a road that has great potential for a boulevard, but it’s too high capacity to accommodate both a true greenscape AND busway. Moreover, the real transit issue in this area is the lack of high capacity transit. Perfect should not be the enemy of the good, but in this case I fear this project would prevent a better future use of this corridor, as well as waste money on a project that misses the mark. If they want to just close a lane on each side for buses only, fine. That’s easy and would be effective and temporary. Don’t throw money at fancy busways when the solution never will be buses alone.
I share the concern about a 1/2 way solution, but there are additional considerations. Some time before the next millennia, transit needs to be improved there.
IMG_1033 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_1034 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_1036 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_1037 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
IMG_1039 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
That does look a mess but yes there are two contracts underway for Courthouse Station, there's "Courthouse Leak Repairs" and there's the "Courthouse Second Headhouse"They seem to be making a (BIGGER) mess of the Courthouse Station. Anyone know what is happening? I hope they fix the water leaks.
Now none of the escalators are operational. Thanks MBTA for your great customer service (NOT!!!) *Sarcasm*
If I remember correctly one of the big problems was poorly designed sump pumps which routinely get clogged and fail, which to me sounded an awful lot like a design fault from whichever engineering firm did the original designs
I think there is a general engineering design failure in Boston underground transportation construction.
