MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

[HenryAlan]

Prioritizing the 32 makes sense considering that it does have high ridership (much more so than you may expect for what seems like a suburban route)

I'm not sure why you'd say it seems suburban. Most of the census tracts bordering that route are over 15,000 people per square mile, and all of it is at least 7,500 P/SM. That area is very urban and not well served by transit.

 

[Subdivisions]

Sounds like the 32 would be getting articulated buses when Arborway Garage is redone.

I remember a long time ago 2006-2007? They used to run articulated busses on the 32. At the time it was the only other route besides the 39 running 60ft busses (not including the silver line)

 

[Teban54]

I'm not sure why you'd say it seems suburban. Most of the census tracts bordering that route are over 15,000 people per square mile, and all of it is at least 7,500 P/SM. That area is very urban and not well served by transit.

Oh sorry, I was referring to it from a geographical/distance perspective, not from a density perspective. Hence the "seems".

The 32 is a lot more detached from the rest of the Key Bus Routes network and further away from downtown Boston than almost all of them. Its characteristics resemble more of a Wonderland-Lynn route (which is hugely beneficial but does not exist among Key Bus Routes as a singular route), whereas other Key Bus Routes typically serve the inner metro area that largely aligns with the current boundaries of rapid transit lines.

 

[Teban54]

Almost 2 years after the 71 and 73 started boarding in the Harvard upper busway, this is still here:

 

[737900er]

Almost 2 years after the 71 and 73 started boarding in the Harvard upper busway, this is still here:
View attachment 45233

The signage in the main lobby is nearly as bad.

If you turn around there's a poster on the pillar that mentions the improvements they're making to the wire system.

 

[TheRatmeister]

Almost 2 years after the 71 and 73 started boarding in the Harvard upper busway, this is still here:
View attachment 45233

There's still maps advertising of the "Temporary" suspension of E Branch service to Arborway, I'm not sure what else we should have expected.

 

[Koopzilla24]

What do people take the 66 bus for?

• Residents of Allston, Coolidge Corner and Brookline Village transferring to Red and Orange lines (instead of transferring downtown via GL or 57), or other buses at Harvard and Nubian?
• These residents traveling to work along the 66's route, at Harvard, LMA or maybe Nubian?
• These residents traveling between neighborhoods (likely for recreational purposes)?
• LMA and Harvard workers transferring from subway lines (Red north, Green west, Orange south) or other bus routes (from Harvard and Nubian)?
• Or anything that I missed?

Another bit of an info dump:

Since I'm a bit of a transit enthusiast, I like to try to experience a bunch of different routes to commute over the years (yeah...) and I've made some observations on loading patterns and such. The biggest thing I want to address first is there's a bit of an overestimation here of the number of people who live in the city and commute to the small downtown area. There are hundreds of thousands of jobs away from the financial district. Longwood alone is like sold-out Gillette Stadium numbers entering and exiting every day. It isn't directly served by any rapid transit and people are adverse to transfers so thousands take a bus the whole way.

66
The 66 has probably one of the most diverse use demographics of any route I've been on with students, workers, people running errands, and all sorts of trip generators. It essentially serves the route of what should be a rapid transit line connecting such high-demand areas which is why its ridership is so high. This also results in a variety of trips being made on the route at all times. Starting from Harvard, there's typically a good crowd of people but not enough to fill seats. They nearly fill up at Eliot/Brattle Sq but if not, going through Lower Allston they'll fill up before reaching Cambridge Street. There's a mild pax swap at Western Ave with about an even handful boarding and alighting because of both residential density, Harvard's Allston Campus, Trader Joe's, and transfers with the 70. Now already down to standing room between Cambridge St and Comm Ave the 66 gains a bit more people than it loses with the most being at Brighton Ave/Union S Allston. At the exchange with the B there's the largest crowd since Harvard. This is a heavily boarding skewed stop because most people that are going to the B from the 66's catchment would have either walked to a station or taken the 57. Most alighting passengers appear to be students. Since Union Sq the bus has been pretty packed in standing room but now it's absolutely slammed. Luckily heading up to Brookline there are pretty even ons and offs as it's not as commercially or residentially dense. Coolidge Corner is one of the busiest hotspots on the line. About a third of the bus empties but is entirely replaced. Most appear to have Coolidge Corner as their destination but some transfer to the C. A good amount of the boarding passengers are coming from the C. The bus remains filled to the brim picking up as many as can fit though Brookline Village where not many people alight for the D or other reasons, then the first mild relief is felt under Jamaincaway where standing becomes a little less uncomfortable. Not much more action along Huntington because of the E and 39 duplicating until mass exodus occurs either at Fenwood or Brigham Circle on Tremont depending on who wants to cross to Longwood from where. Finally there are usually a few seats open but also a few standees and a few that board at Tremont. Of the remainder most get off at Rox Crossing, then the remainder is split between Madison Park and Nubian.

Coming back the other way the only real difference is that Nubian starts with most seats full and then it fills to busy standing room at Rox Crossing. In the morning it isn't too busy going up to Harvard until Coolidge Corner when it gets packed but in the evening it's overfilled by the time it leaves Rox Crossing. I took it for 3 evening commutes home from Roxbury during this GL shutdown last week and every single time we skipped all stops that weren't requested from Rox Crossing onward due to being full from front door to back firewall. This included skipping Longwood passengers at Brigham on Huntington and a packed sidewalk waiting under Jamaicaway. And this isn't isolated to the shutdown as it's happened before. This evening load doesn't thin until Comm Ave in Allston but is still standing room only up to Harvard.

Unreliability due to heavy congestion and no transit priority kneecaps any frequency on this route and plagues it with bunching. It's a daily occurrence for there to be up to 3 buses back to back then a 20min gap to the next one. The T needs to seriously improve operations to relieve this and should do what the PVTA does and have one of the bunched buses skip ahead or even when near the end terminus, turn around and go in-service back the other direction.

65
The 65 is a route that really needs all day frequent service. In the mornings from Brighton center seats are already down to less than half just after turning onto Washington St. Every stop going up the hill adds ~5 people filling out the seats until Comm Ave where close to 10 get on bringing the standing space to a cramped level while rarely anyone will have alighted so far. The very next stop at Corey Rd seals the deal and closes out standing room. The rest of Washington St down to Brookline village doesn't have many passengers if any except for sometimes Cypress St. The first alightings typically occur at Brookline Village, Walnut St, and/or Pearl St but it's not that many. Some are staying in the area and others are walking up to S. Huntington and there's a mini 66/65 pax swap at Walnut. From here out essentially everybody alights at Francis, Deaconess, and then Longwood Ave. In the mornings on weekdays I've only gone as far as Park Drive so I'm not sure how many people get on or off going down the rest of Brookline.

Morning buses from Brighton to Brookline Village are very consistent every 10-12 minutes and make this leg of the trip in about 10. The reliability question comes into play at the tail end of the morning rush and throughout the evening because Longwood's massive congestion in all directions is like bus quicksand. This means come the end of the morning the buses have been caught up by ones behind while trying to return to Brighton.

In the evening rush basically everything is reversed except the bus is down to standing room only at Park Drive/Simmons Uni. The stops at Short St and Longwood Ave cram all remaining space on the bus. There's another small 66 exchange of passengers at Pearl on Washington but from there up through Corey Rd barely anybody gets on or off. Overall the 65 isn't a rapid transit feeder or D duplicate but a Brighton-LMA commuting bus.




I have this similar kind of analysis for the 1, 10, 32 (late evening), 34E, 47 (Central to Ruggles),51, 57, CT3, 86 (Reservoir-Harvard), and have hung around Ruggles and Forest Hills to get an idea of which routes are the biggest feeders, but I'm gonna spare adding that here to avoid an essay unless someone is curious about one of those.

 

[bigeman312]

Oh sorry, I was referring to it from a geographical/distance perspective, not from a density perspective. Hence the "seems".

The 32 is a lot more detached from the rest of the Key Bus Routes network and further away from downtown Boston than almost all of them. Its characteristics resemble more of a Wonderland-Lynn route (which is hugely beneficial but does not exist among Key Bus Routes as a singular route), whereas other Key Bus Routes typically serve the inner metro area that largely aligns with the current boundaries of rapid transit lines.

Let’s break this down.

Classifying a bus route based on distance from “Downtown Boston” is a misnomer, given that Boston’s ‘central business district’ includes both Downtown Boston and Back Bay. In measuring proximity, one could use Copley Square instead of Downtown Crossing, but in reality, it makes sense to use both Downtown Boston and Back Bay, and recognize that what an outsider might refer to as Boston’s central business district stretches from roughly 1 Dalton to Bulfinch Crossing. In fact, the key bus route network (if you can even call it that) is more accurately two distinct networks, one oriented towards Downtown Boston (111, 116, and 117) and one oriented towards Back Bay (the other twelve routes).

If you strictly use “Downtown Boston” as your placemarker (and ignore Back Bay) to denote how ‘far out’ things are, you quickly run into obvious counter-examples:

• The Pru is as far out as Widett Circle
• Harvard Square is as far out as Savin Hill
• Cleveland Circle is as far out as Deer Island

This understates the proximity of the western end of the urban core.

In terms of distance from the ‘central business district’ (defined as the span from 1 Dalton to Bulfinch Crossing, where all of Boston’s 500+ ft buildings are), the 32 is comparable to the 22, 23, 28, 57, 71, 73, 77, 111, 116, and 117. That’s all the key bus routes except the 1, 15, 39, and 66, which exclusively serve the heart of the urban core more than is typical of a key bus route.

Rather, these 11 key bus routes (22, 23, 28, 32, 57, 71, 73, 77, 111, 116, and 117) all serve as major feeders of the subway system from dense inner-suburban and urban residential neighborhoods, at least some of which are 3-5 miles from the central business district and underserved by the MBTA Subway system.

The closest parallel to the 32 is the 77. Both meet the rest of the key bus route network at their terminus, a major bus hub and transfer point in general (Forest Hills and Harvard). Both function as an extension of a rapid transit line that terminates too close to the central business district. Both run from roughly 8 to 3 miles out of the central business district. Both serve as replacements for widely-used, well-established streetcar service that was bustituted in the 1950s. Both serve these ‘streetcar suburbs’ that are a mix of urban and dense-suburban when viewed through a 21st century lens. Both serve corridors that were part of their respective rapid transit lines’ extensions’ official plans within the last 50 years. Both saw these extensions/relocations instead built as stub-ends in the 1980s that terminate inside the urban core, with relatively high transit demand existing beyond the terminus.

You could also make the case that the 73 is a better parallel as much of the above applies, but in addition the 73’s lack of connection to Porter (unlike the 77), means that an even higher percentage of inbound riders alight at the terminus to transfer to the rest of the system (like the 32) and outbound riders board at the terminus to transfer from the rest of the system.

 

[TheRatmeister]

Another bit of an info dump:

Since I'm a bit of a transit enthusiast, I like to try to experience a bunch of different routes to commute over the years (yeah...) and I've made some observations on loading patterns and such. The biggest thing I want to address first is there's a bit of an overestimation here of the number of people who live in the city and commute to the small downtown area. There are hundreds of thousands of jobs away from the financial district. Longwood alone is like sold-out Gillette Stadium numbers entering and exiting every day. It isn't directly served by any rapid transit and people are adverse to transfers so thousands take a bus the whole way.

66
The 66 has probably one of the most diverse use demographics of any route I've been on with students, workers, people running errands, and all sorts of trip generators. It essentially serves the route of what should be a rapid transit line connecting such high-demand areas which is why its ridership is so high. This also results in a variety of trips being made on the route at all times. Starting from Harvard, there's typically a good crowd of people but not enough to fill seats. They nearly fill up at Eliot/Brattle Sq but if not, going through Lower Allston they'll fill up before reaching Cambridge Street. There's a mild pax swap at Western Ave with about an even handful boarding and alighting because of both residential density, Harvard's Allston Campus, Trader Joe's, and transfers with the 70. Now already down to standing room between Cambridge St and Comm Ave the 66 gains a bit more people than it loses with the most being at Brighton Ave/Union S Allston. At the exchange with the B there's the largest crowd since Harvard. This is a heavily boarding skewed stop because most people that are going to the B from the 66's catchment would have either walked to a station or taken the 57. Most alighting passengers appear to be students. Since Union Sq the bus has been pretty packed in standing room but now it's absolutely slammed. Luckily heading up to Brookline there are pretty even ons and offs as it's not as commercially or residentially dense. Coolidge Corner is one of the busiest hotspots on the line. About a third of the bus empties but is entirely replaced. Most appear to have Coolidge Corner as their destination but some transfer to the C. A good amount of the boarding passengers are coming from the C. The bus remains filled to the brim picking up as many as can fit though Brookline Village where not many people alight for the D or other reasons, then the first mild relief is felt under Jamaincaway where standing becomes a little less uncomfortable. Not much more action along Huntington because of the E and 39 duplicating until mass exodus occurs either at Fenwood or Brigham Circle on Tremont depending on who wants to cross to Longwood from where. Finally there are usually a few seats open but also a few standees and a few that board at Tremont. Of the remainder most get off at Rox Crossing, then the remainder is split between Madison Park and Nubian.

Coming back the other way the only real difference is that Nubian starts with most seats full and then it fills to busy standing room at Rox Crossing. In the morning it isn't too busy going up to Harvard until Coolidge Corner when it gets packed but in the evening it's overfilled by the time it leaves Rox Crossing. I took it for 3 evening commutes home from Roxbury during this GL shutdown last week and every single time we skipped all stops that weren't requested from Rox Crossing onward due to being full from front door to back firewall. This included skipping Longwood passengers at Brigham on Huntington and a packed sidewalk waiting under Jamaicaway. And this isn't isolated to the shutdown as it's happened before. This evening load doesn't thin until Comm Ave in Allston but is still standing room only up to Harvard.

Unreliability due to heavy congestion and no transit priority kneecaps any frequency on this route and plagues it with bunching. It's a daily occurrence for there to be up to 3 buses back to back then a 20min gap to the next one. The T needs to seriously improve operations to relieve this and should do what the PVTA does and have one of the bunched buses skip ahead or even when near the end terminus, turn around and go in-service back the other direction.

65
The 65 is a route that really needs all day frequent service. In the mornings from Brighton center seats are already down to less than half just after turning onto Washington St. Every stop going up the hill adds ~5 people filling out the seats until Comm Ave where close to 10 get on bringing the standing space to a cramped level while rarely anyone will have alighted so far. The very next stop at Corey Rd seals the deal and closes out standing room. The rest of Washington St down to Brookline village doesn't have many passengers if any except for sometimes Cypress St. The first alightings typically occur at Brookline Village, Walnut St, and/or Pearl St but it's not that many. Some are staying in the area and others are walking up to S. Huntington and there's a mini 66/65 pax swap at Walnut. From here out essentially everybody alights at Francis, Deaconess, and then Longwood Ave. In the mornings on weekdays I've only gone as far as Park Drive so I'm not sure how many people get on or off going down the rest of Brookline.

Morning buses from Brighton to Brookline Village are very consistent every 10-12 minutes and make this leg of the trip in about 10. The reliability question comes into play at the tail end of the morning rush and throughout the evening because Longwood's massive congestion in all directions is like bus quicksand. This means come the end of the morning the buses have been caught up by ones behind while trying to return to Brighton.

In the evening rush basically everything is reversed except the bus is down to standing room only at Park Drive/Simmons Uni. The stops at Short St and Longwood Ave cram all remaining space on the bus. There's another small 66 exchange of passengers at Pearl on Washington but from there up through Corey Rd barely anybody gets on or off. Overall the 65 isn't a rapid transit feeder or D duplicate but a Brighton-LMA commuting bus.




I have this similar kind of analysis for the 1, 10, 32 (late evening), 34E, 47 (Central to Ruggles),51, 57, CT3, 86 (Reservoir-Harvard), and have hung around Ruggles and Forest Hills to get an idea of which routes are the biggest feeders, but I'm gonna spare adding that here to avoid an essay unless someone is curious about one of those.

Lots of useful information here, thank you very much! I'd be curious to see a similar analysis for the 1, as well as your insights on what routes are big feeders at Ruggles/Forest Hills. (And if you happen to have any anecdotal data or information about what kinds of transfers people make at Nubian I'd be really really really interested in that too.) I'll probably do an analysis of the ridership data on these routes to see how these trends are reflected across an entire week.

 

[Riverside]

I have this similar kind of analysis for the 1, 10, 32 (late evening), 34E, 47 (Central to Ruggles),51, 57, CT3, 86 (Reservoir-Harvard), and have hung around Ruggles and Forest Hills to get an idea of which routes are the biggest feeders, but I'm gonna spare adding that here to avoid an essay unless someone is curious about one of those.

I haven’t even finished reading your analysis of the 65, but I’ll answer your question here: all of them. This is amazing detail and exceptionally valuable. If you don’t want to post them here, I’d be happy to host on my site (with your name/handle and credit etc).

In terms of priority (because I’m sure these take a while to write!), I would say (in this order): 47, 1, your observations about FH and Ruggles, 57.

Amazing stuff.

 

[TheRatmeister]

Here's some weekly ridership and load data for the 1, I'll come back with the 66 later. Here's some takeaways:

• The 1 is frequently used by passengers connecting from other buses at Nubian and commuting to BUMC (Mass Ave @ Albany & Harrison). ~3k people per week use it for this purpose.
• Another ~4-5k per week connect from the OL or GL at Mass Ave/Symphony/Hynes to the 1 to commute to BUMC
• Central Sq and Harvard Sq are very close in terms of ridership
• Ridership to MIT and the nearby labs falls short of Harvard/Central at ~3k weekly riders
• By far the busiest section is between Mass Ave Station and Central Sq

 

[Riverside]

View attachment 45280Here's some weekly ridership and load data for the 1, I'll come back with the 66 later. Here's some takeaways:

• The 1 is frequently used by passengers connecting from other buses at Nubian and commuting to BUMC (Mass Ave @ Albany & Harrison). ~3k people per week use it for this purpose.
• Another ~4-5k per week connect from the OL or GL at Mass Ave/Symphony/Hynes to the 1 to commute to BUMC
• Central Sq and Harvard Sq are very close in terms of ridership
• Ridership to MIT and the nearby labs falls short of Harvard/Central at ~3k weekly riders
• By far the busiest section is between Mass Ave Station and Central Sq

Any chance you could export this to CSV and attach it here? Would love to play around with the conditional formatting etc. Thanks so much for wrangling this data!

 

[Teban54]

Another bit of an info dump:

Since I'm a bit of a transit enthusiast, I like to try to experience a bunch of different routes to commute over the years (yeah...) and I've made some observations on loading patterns and such. The biggest thing I want to address first is there's a bit of an overestimation here of the number of people who live in the city and commute to the small downtown area. There are hundreds of thousands of jobs away from the financial district. Longwood alone is like sold-out Gillette Stadium numbers entering and exiting every day. It isn't directly served by any rapid transit and people are adverse to transfers so thousands take a bus the whole way.

66
The 66 has probably one of the most diverse use demographics of any route I've been on with students, workers, people running errands, and all sorts of trip generators. It essentially serves the route of what should be a rapid transit line connecting such high-demand areas which is why its ridership is so high. This also results in a variety of trips being made on the route at all times. Starting from Harvard, there's typically a good crowd of people but not enough to fill seats. They nearly fill up at Eliot/Brattle Sq but if not, going through Lower Allston they'll fill up before reaching Cambridge Street. There's a mild pax swap at Western Ave with about an even handful boarding and alighting because of both residential density, Harvard's Allston Campus, Trader Joe's, and transfers with the 70. Now already down to standing room between Cambridge St and Comm Ave the 66 gains a bit more people than it loses with the most being at Brighton Ave/Union S Allston. At the exchange with the B there's the largest crowd since Harvard. This is a heavily boarding skewed stop because most people that are going to the B from the 66's catchment would have either walked to a station or taken the 57. Most alighting passengers appear to be students. Since Union Sq the bus has been pretty packed in standing room but now it's absolutely slammed. Luckily heading up to Brookline there are pretty even ons and offs as it's not as commercially or residentially dense. Coolidge Corner is one of the busiest hotspots on the line. About a third of the bus empties but is entirely replaced. Most appear to have Coolidge Corner as their destination but some transfer to the C. A good amount of the boarding passengers are coming from the C. The bus remains filled to the brim picking up as many as can fit though Brookline Village where not many people alight for the D or other reasons, then the first mild relief is felt under Jamaincaway where standing becomes a little less uncomfortable. Not much more action along Huntington because of the E and 39 duplicating until mass exodus occurs either at Fenwood or Brigham Circle on Tremont depending on who wants to cross to Longwood from where. Finally there are usually a few seats open but also a few standees and a few that board at Tremont. Of the remainder most get off at Rox Crossing, then the remainder is split between Madison Park and Nubian.

Coming back the other way the only real difference is that Nubian starts with most seats full and then it fills to busy standing room at Rox Crossing. In the morning it isn't too busy going up to Harvard until Coolidge Corner when it gets packed but in the evening it's overfilled by the time it leaves Rox Crossing. I took it for 3 evening commutes home from Roxbury during this GL shutdown last week and every single time we skipped all stops that weren't requested from Rox Crossing onward due to being full from front door to back firewall. This included skipping Longwood passengers at Brigham on Huntington and a packed sidewalk waiting under Jamaicaway. And this isn't isolated to the shutdown as it's happened before. This evening load doesn't thin until Comm Ave in Allston but is still standing room only up to Harvard.

Unreliability due to heavy congestion and no transit priority kneecaps any frequency on this route and plagues it with bunching. It's a daily occurrence for there to be up to 3 buses back to back then a 20min gap to the next one. The T needs to seriously improve operations to relieve this and should do what the PVTA does and have one of the bunched buses skip ahead or even when near the end terminus, turn around and go in-service back the other direction.

65
The 65 is a route that really needs all day frequent service. In the mornings from Brighton center seats are already down to less than half just after turning onto Washington St. Every stop going up the hill adds ~5 people filling out the seats until Comm Ave where close to 10 get on bringing the standing space to a cramped level while rarely anyone will have alighted so far. The very next stop at Corey Rd seals the deal and closes out standing room. The rest of Washington St down to Brookline village doesn't have many passengers if any except for sometimes Cypress St. The first alightings typically occur at Brookline Village, Walnut St, and/or Pearl St but it's not that many. Some are staying in the area and others are walking up to S. Huntington and there's a mini 66/65 pax swap at Walnut. From here out essentially everybody alights at Francis, Deaconess, and then Longwood Ave. In the mornings on weekdays I've only gone as far as Park Drive so I'm not sure how many people get on or off going down the rest of Brookline.

Morning buses from Brighton to Brookline Village are very consistent every 10-12 minutes and make this leg of the trip in about 10. The reliability question comes into play at the tail end of the morning rush and throughout the evening because Longwood's massive congestion in all directions is like bus quicksand. This means come the end of the morning the buses have been caught up by ones behind while trying to return to Brighton.

In the evening rush basically everything is reversed except the bus is down to standing room only at Park Drive/Simmons Uni. The stops at Short St and Longwood Ave cram all remaining space on the bus. There's another small 66 exchange of passengers at Pearl on Washington but from there up through Corey Rd barely anybody gets on or off. Overall the 65 isn't a rapid transit feeder or D duplicate but a Brighton-LMA commuting bus.




I have this similar kind of analysis for the 1, 10, 32 (late evening), 34E, 47 (Central to Ruggles),51, 57, CT3, 86 (Reservoir-Harvard), and have hung around Ruggles and Forest Hills to get an idea of which routes are the biggest feeders, but I'm gonna spare adding that here to avoid an essay unless someone is curious about one of those.

Thank you so much for this incredibly detailed analysis. I have more to say on this (and @TheRatmeister's follow-up on the 1) that I may get back to weeks later, but of the remaining routes you listed, aside from what others have already mentioned, some of my own curiosities are:

• 86: The T seems to think not many people take the bus beyond Harvard, as seen by how the 86 is truncated to Harvard in the BNRD and the T109 takes over Harvard-Sullivan. However, community reaction of this change seems to suggest otherwise. Also, I'm curious whether people take it all the way from Harvard to Sullivan as a RL-OL connection, or if they use it to get to Union Sq Somerville from either rapid transit lines.
• 10: I wonder why it seems to be the South Boston bus route with the lowest ridership despite offering reasonable crosstown connections (and also doesn't bode well for any potential improvements to South Boston that connect at Andrew). Do people prefer the 9 which connects to RL closer to downtown? The BNRD does do a 8-10 swap and sends the 10 to Ruggles, which will hopefully improve its utility.
• CT3: This is the lowest on my priority list for sure.

 

[TheRatmeister]

Any chance you could export this to CSV and attach it here? Would love to play around with the conditional formatting etc. Thanks so much for wrangling this data!

There's no conditional formatting, just a few formulas and some manually colored cells. I'll still try and compile everything once I've got the 66 added.

 

[Riverside]

There's no conditional formatting, just a few formulas and some manually colored cells. I'll still try and compile everything once I've got the 66 added.

No no, sorry sorry, I meant, can you export it to CSV so I can import it and play around with some conditional formatting?

 

[Teban54]

According to their project page, the Summer St pilot bus/truck lane program started on Monday, December 4.

 

[Koopzilla24]

86: The T seems to think not many people take the bus beyond Harvard, as seen by how the 86 is truncated to Harvard in the BNRD and the T109 takes over Harvard-Sullivan. However, community reaction of this change seems to suggest otherwise. Also, I'm curious whether people take it all the way from Harvard to Sullivan as a RL-OL connection, or if they use it to get to Union Sq Somerville from either rapid transit lines.

It’ll take a bit to type up more detailed analysis on my computer of these routes. But from my phone (on the 65 headed to Brighton, 2 back to 2 both standing room only leaving Longwood Ave) I can say about this I’ve only taken the 86 on a weekday beyond Harvard a couple times so I’m not the most qualified there but there’s a handful that remained that boarded along Chestnut Hill Ave and Market St in Brighton. I take the 86 the full length all the time on weekends both ways though and there was a lot more activity in that segment on those days. The primary trip generators appeared to be Harvard-Union Sq and Union Sq-Sullivan pairings. At Sullivan I see more people transferring to or from other bus routes rather than heading into the orange line or coming out of it. I’d assume its the best way to get from Malden and points north of the Mystic to Harvard or Union Squares. I take it from Brighton because it’s much faster than going Green downtown and transferring up (by 15+ min) even with Cambridge congestion. I’d imagine others who work up there do the same.

 

[Koopzilla24]

I haven’t even finished reading your analysis of the 65, but I’ll answer your question here: all of them. This is amazing detail and exceptionally valuable. If you don’t want to post them here, I’d be happy to host on my site (with your name/handle and credit etc).

In terms of priority (because I’m sure these take a while to write!), I would say (in this order): 47, 1, your observations about FH and Ruggles, 57.

Amazing stuff.

I'm gonna separate them into one or two routes for each post here depending on how much detail I have but feel free to repost them on your site as you please no need for credit. I just make these observations for fun to satisfy my own curiosity.

Milesintransit has a ton of detailed bus route trip reports on his site that are much better written and detailed than I hash out here but most date back to 2015 so are a bit outdated. I've only lived in the city for 4 years now so my observations are all post-pandemic shutdown for perspective.

 

[Koopzilla24]

Continuing on bus rider observations:

1
The route 1 is very similar to the 66 in its pattern of stopping in high demand density areas then mostly residential in between while also checking off the rapid transit connection box. The difference with the 1 is its dynamic paralleling the Red Line through much of Cambridge.

Beginning at Harvard at seemingly any time of day there’s always a good chunk of people boarding. It varies from half seats full to eating into standing room depending on what looks to be what other buses have dropped off recently or the status of the Red Line. The bus riders themselves range across any type you can think of from families with babies in strollers to solo teens to college students and staff. This is where the interesting dynamic between the two is first evident. North of Central on Mass Ave til Harvard, traffic dramatically thins out. After clearing Mt Auburn the 1 runs smooth to Central. This makes the bus competitive with the Red Line but more notably cheaper so it draws more of the non-suited clientele including myself. There’s also the decent sized draw for people going to MIT that makes more sense just taking the 1 rather than walking from Kendall. Anyhow after departing Harvard with between a 30-60% load there are steady small groups of people that board on the way to Central, most of which board at Putnam and Bay probably because at Lee and the Post Office you might as well walk to Central for other routes or the Red Line if you’re leaving Cambridge. At Central, without fail, the 1 fills right up. This is likely because it’s where the Downtown and Back Bay paths diverge. This is also where the 1’s dynamic changes as it now takes on the roll as the sole North-South transit option for an incredibly densely populated section of the city. Leaving Central the 1 is almost always full front to back. A handful do get off either because their destination is Central itself or they’re transferring to the 70 or 47. Leaving central, all stops through MIT have folks waiting to board. If the 1 is lucky, Sidney and Vasser will only have like a few people each but typically Vasser especially has close to 10 waiting on its own. Everyone squeezes on and the next stop at MIT up to about 10 will alight and a few will get on. I usually see a net decrease in passengers on board at MIT but it could be different at other times. (Note: the M-2 is free for Harvard students and staff and parallels the 1 from Harvard to MIT so Harvard students often take that between schools) Despite this decrease the 1 is still standing room only with most of it taken up. Over the bridge and into Boston Marlborough street is another toss up stop. It’s close enough to Boylston that it can often make more sense to walk if the bus is over 5min away, but it’s also a very high density area where everyone who needs to head further south of Boylston may all be out at the same time. At Boylston a decent number get off but I don’t see a lot of people backtracking to Hynes. I’d imagine the Parcel 12 construction’s relocation of the stop has made that transfer less convenient for folks and they’d rather go to Kenmore or Copley for service downtown or out to the branches (This is in contrast to the wall of people that go from Hynes to the 1 northbound that I’ll get to later). With the bus holding strong at standing room only, the next couple stops at St. Botolph/Christian Science Center and Huntington/Symphony resume the trend of equal exchange. More people get off than on at CSC and more get off at Hungtington. Mass Ave is a hot transfer spot however, and I watch a healthy chunk (5-10) head out and beeline right into the OL station. At the same time a smaller handful board and standing becomes a little less cramped. The rest of Mass Ave down to Harrison is a light few each stop on and off leaving towards alighting. There’s basically no Silver Line transfer at Columbus either direction. The first big alighting is at Harrison Ave. About half the bus empties for BMC. Another smaller chunk wait for Albany but traffic can be so bad for that one block it’s better to walk usually. These stops are primarily hospital staff and patients but there’s also some folks from Mass n Cass that get on and off here. The last bit to Nubian is a few off at Hampden and a bit more at that tropical foods store. The rest are going to Ruggles St. or mostly the end of the line.

Going back up northbound everything is the same but in reverse. I’ve done this direction south of boylston in the evenings only so I’m not confident of the morning loads to BMC but I’d imagine they’re significant, but in the evenings the standing room only section begins at BMC. It can go either way with Albany and Harrison. A decent chunk of these passengers alight at Mass Ave OL station. The main difference on the Boston side of the river in this direction in the evenings are Huntington/Symphony and Hynes. Symphony typically has a solid 10ish people while at Hynes you will struggle to walk down the sidewalk with how many people are standing waiting for the 1. CSC the stop before also has a few (~5) people waiting which does not bode well for Hynes. Between 5-10 people will get off and head right into the station but there’s at least 20 waiting to board. Multiple times the driver has had to say “doors are closing there’s no more room. You’ll have to wait for the next bus.” After crossing back into Cambridge, this time there’s a good amount of people alighting at MIT and a handful getting on. It’s usually an equal exchange or a net negative. Vasser st follows as usually equal or positive. Central is a big alighting with a small boarding relieving standees a bit. Going up to Harvard people lightly trail off down to seating capacity or less by Trowbridge with the rest staying to Harvard.

Overall the route appears to be a general use high demand transit corridor ripe for higher capacity transit, but it also is a key connector to BMC and the 5 universities along the route. On top of that, it’s the only real direct way to go between Back Bay and Cambridge.

 

[FK4]

The worst leg of the 66 is the loop around Union Sq Allston. The 66 desperately needs an alternative to get from Lower Allston to Brookline without that horrendous lap.

Ive railed forever that there is a major problem with north-south transportation access and that includes a glaring need to facilitate auto traffic flow as well. The West Station / redevelopment by Harvard should absolutely have had the state step in and squash BU's resistance to flow through Babcock. There should be at least TWO roads that go from Brookline, across Comm, and connect directly into Harvard. I know people just wish the state would go to war against cars but no amount of wishing will get rid of them and the access across town between LMA-Coolidge-Allston-Harvard&Central is truly abysmal. The roads are narrow, there are hundreds of lights, and actually allowing more direct flow of all traffic would significantly mitigate the bottlenecks we have all across the area that surrounds this slice of the metro pie.

I think the next worst leg of the 66 is Tremont St in Mission Hill. Unsurprisingly, this is another area where lack of any central intelligent planning has led to all traffic to be funneled onto either Ruggles or Tremont. Smith is terminated. You have Mission Hill on the other side. So there's the same problem.

A better transportation infrastructure would recognize that redundancy for both cars and transit is the only way to go. In Boston there is this local control that refuses to allow streets to actually get from A to B because local councils fight and fight and for some reason are allowed to get their way. But instead of going from A to B, our roads go from A to [a few blocks and several left and right turns toward] B. This is what leads to the worst snarls across the region, and many of them could be dealt with fairly simply.

Like: the state says, hey, there is a major, major bottleneck all across Brookline/Allston and we are literally wiping the map clean to build an entire new network. Gee, why would we not actually connect two major and dense areas that only have been separated because of bad planning?