MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

Not a half measure - bus lanes are more useful than rail on BHA. They allow overlapping services (22, 28, 29, 31) which can run to different terminals for connections. Buses are faster than trains when running at street level, even in dedicated lanes. The only advantages of rail on a surface corridor are capacity (nah, 60-foot buses every 5-10 minutes are fine here) and ability to run onto off-street rights of way (nope - no use through-running with the Mattapan Line, and it's far too long a surface route to go into the subway).
 
1300 series is on the road, so we're one step closer to a trolleybus-less city... Also, despite 1329 being a pretty high number, NETransit gives only 4 buses delivered so far: 1300, 1301, 1308, and 1329.
1674248259631.png

Meanwhile the 3100 series remains off-and-on, currently two on the SL2 and one on the SL3.
 
TrolleybusFoaming said:
1300 series is on the road, so we're one step closer to a trolleybus-less city... Also, despite 1329 being a pretty high number, NETransit gives only 4 buses delivered so far: 1300, 1301, 1308, and 1329.
View attachment 33297
Meanwhile the 3100 series remains off-and-on, currently two on the SL2 and one on the SL3.
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Only those 4 accepted for service, far more have been delivered if you scroll down a bit more:

"Update: Pilot bus 1300 arrived in April 2022 to begin testing. Production deliveries now expected to start in fall 2022, 1301 arrived for testing September 2022, 1308 in November.1302, 1303, 1304, 1305. 1306, 1307, 1317, 1322, 1326, 1329, 1332, 1333, 1334 in December/January"
 
I saw some construction this past weekend in the yard at the North Cambridge garage. Has the T signed a contract for the battery bus boondoggle or is it just being used as a lay down for other construction?
 
RandomWalk said:
I saw some construction this past weekend in the yard at the North Cambridge garage. Has the T signed a contract for the battery bus boondoggle or is it just being used as a lay down for other construction?
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Depends on what you mean by contract. The T put out a procurement bid for the first round of BEB’s last year and were expected to announce the winning bid by the end of last year, but I haven’t heard anything. They currently have 5 New Flyer BEB’s in use on the Silver Line, and I suspect that New Flyer will continue to provide more. They’re the largest city bus provider in North America and have provided the T with all buses built since 2005.

The first step is to upgrade/replace the maintenance facilities to allow for charging and that is ongoing, so contracts have been signed in that regard.

I’m curious, if the alternative is stringing up wires for trolley buses all over the greater Boston area, wouldn’t that be a bigger boondoggle and mean less flexibility for the network? It’s been hard enough to get the state to string wires up on commuter rail lines and there aren’t any abutting storefronts and property owners they need to contend with.
 
Is there a good map showing places that can operate or operate as multimodal hubs where buses can terminate at? I can't seem to find one or define what makes good consistant criteria to define as a "multimodal hub" for buses to terminate at.

This is the best I came up with, it does kinda show how urban development patterns relate to where buses feed into rail and other bus routes.

I simply used MBTA and RTA hubs, where there are either:
1. A town square or center, or a mall, with at least 2 existing bus routes that operate in different patterns terminate at, or,
2. a rail station, busway, or bus hub, with at least 1 existing bus route terminating at, or
3. One or more existing bus routes has to terminate at the site.

In some extreme cases, the terminal may be only 2 regularly scheduled trips as variant services on 2 different bus routes, or 1 bus route at a train station. School trips are excluded.

Since buses usually feed into rail stations, this concerns bus terminals, not where rail lines end. Essentially, it's a map of where do/can buses feed into from out of town, or where can crosstown bus routes start and end, or in a few instances, where buses heading out of town can feed into and collect at.
1675617437400.png
 
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Delvin4519 said:
Is there a good map showing places that can operate or operate as multimodal hubs where buses can terminate at? I can't seem to find one or define what makes good consistant criteria to define as a "multimodal hub" for buses to terminate at.

This is the best I came up with, it does kinda show how urban development patterns relate to where buses feed into rail and other bus routes.

I simply used MBTA and RTA hubs, where there are either:
1. A town square or center, or a mall, with at least 2 existing bus routes that operate in different patterns terminate at, or,
2. a rail station, busway, or bus hub, with at least 1 existing bus route terminating at, or
3. One or more existing bus routes has to terminate at the site.

In some extreme cases, the terminal may be only 2 regularly scheduled trips as variant services on 2 different bus routes, or 1 bus route at a train station. School trips are excluded.

Since buses usually feed into rail stations, this concerns bus terminals, not where rail lines end. Essentially, it's a map of where do/can buses feed into from out of town, or where can crosstown bus routes start and end, or in a few instances, where buses heading out of town can feed into and collect at.
View attachment 33416
Click to expand...
What's the basemap you used, here?
 
Delvin4519 said:
Is there a good map showing places that can operate or operate as multimodal hubs where buses can terminate at? I can't seem to find one or define what makes good consistant criteria to define as a "multimodal hub" for buses to terminate at.

This is the best I came up with, it does kinda show how urban development patterns relate to where buses feed into rail and other bus routes.

I simply used MBTA and RTA hubs, where there are either:
1. A town square or center, or a mall, with at least 2 existing bus routes that operate in different patterns terminate at, or,
2. a rail station, busway, or bus hub, with at least 1 existing bus route terminating at, or
3. One or more existing bus routes has to terminate at the site.

In some extreme cases, the terminal may be only 2 regularly scheduled trips as variant services on 2 different bus routes, or 1 bus route at a train station. School trips are excluded.

Since buses usually feed into rail stations, this concerns bus terminals, not where rail lines end. Essentially, it's a map of where do/can buses feed into from out of town, or where can crosstown bus routes start and end, or in a few instances, where buses heading out of town can feed into and collect at.
View attachment 33416
Click to expand...

I wonder how many stations there are, like Airport and Quincy Adams, that have good busway facilities that don't see any terminating services too.
 
Aprehensive_Words said:
What's the basemap you used, here?
Click to expand...

The basemap is simply a more accurate urban/rural classification map found here. Specifically, it uses approximate settlement characteristics built up MSZ to mark urban development at a global scale, so it can't be used to find major streets/highways/arterials or where zoning lots/buildings/parks are locally. I find it to be more accurate than using census blocks, population density, or job density, since it doesn't include parks when calculating metrics, it calculates each point directly at a global scale. There's 2 options to view any global city at 10m resolution, the other which marks higher contrast for rural developments.
 
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RandomWalk said:
Stringing wires would at least make it clear where the transit is. As the bus network redesign has shown, the ease of yanking a bus can have serious negative impacts on areas within a transit network.
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Couldn't a bus lane do the trick?
 
No. Paint and flex posts are temporary, and they have a way of morphing into another lane for drivers. Separated busways are a possibility.
 
BosMaineiac said:
I’m curious, if the alternative is stringing up wires for trolley buses all over the greater Boston area, wouldn’t that be a bigger boondoggle and mean less flexibility for the network? It’s been hard enough to get the state to string wires up on commuter rail lines and there aren’t any abutting storefronts and property owners they need to contend with.
Click to expand...

Strategically used wire could have helped out a lot of routes with 50-mile off-wire range ETBs. They had the perfect route to do a trial on -- the 77 -- but didn't bother.
 
I have found the Silverline well patronized between SS and Courthouse (commuting this week) but what’s the deal with the stalled rehab of Courthouse station?
 
737900er said:
Strategically used wire could have helped out a lot of routes with 50-mile off-wire range ETBs. They had the perfect route to do a trial on -- the 77 -- but didn't bother.
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That’s not a bad idea. I wonder if they’re just banking (praying) on battery technology improving enough to make those obsolete. It definitely would’ve been worth a pilot program though
 
How feasible/beneficial would it be to run key bus routes with the highest ridership as overnights from 1-5am like the Owl buses in San Fran? Or even just on Friday-Saturday overnight so people can get home from clubs, bars, work safely without sometimes sketchy Uber and Lyft. The 23, 28, 57, 66, and 1 seem like good candidates and I’d imagine it’d be nice for those employed at these late-running establishments that have to be at them later than anyone else to know there’s a transit option to get home.
 
Delvin4519 said:
The MBTA somehow has less buses now than it did in 1972, despite 50% more people living in greater Boston.

MSN

www.msn.com

Additional reporting from StreetsBLOG Mass. https://mass.streetsblog.org/2023/01/25/advocates-set-an-agenda-for-salvaging-the-ts-troubled-buses/
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I mean it's 1,121 vs 1,200 buses, and the total number of buses doesn't tell the story as the MBTA today also has some buses with higher capacity than in 1972. Also in 1972, you don't have the rerouted OL out to Malden (I guess I'd call the OL into the NEC a wash), nor do you have the Red from Harvard out to Alewife, nor the final leg of the RL out to Quincy Adams/Braintree. Nor did you have the expanded 6-car trains on the RL and BL. This is to say that there was also increased capacity (and range) on the subway systems that pick up capacity, too, since 1972. Not saying that the MBTA shouldn't have invested and purchased more buses for today, just that I am unsure if it is as dire as the reporting makes it out to be.
 
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