MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

I agree that the Rutherford Avenue busway will only be particularly useful when the downtown corridor (and/or bus lanes over the Gilmore Bridge and into Kendall) is implemented. Otherwise, it just duplicates the 92/93 with less surrounding density.

For Rutherford, the question becomes: where do you put the stops? This list has all the likely spots - existing cross streets and so on.
0.00 Sullivan busway
0.26 Mishawum Street / Hood Park Drive
0.43 Baldwin Street / Hood Park Drive
0.53 Essex Street / Bunker Hill Industrial Park
0.76 Dunstable Street
0.90 Community College (footbridge)
1.03 Union Street
1.07 Lynde Street (BHCC lot)
1.13 Arrow Street
1.28 City Square
1.34 Constitution Road

My initial thoughts are in bold. It's relatively close spacing - approximately quarter-mile - but the Orange Line already provides parallel express service. The Mishawum stop would serve the south side of Sullivan Square which is ripe for redevelopment, and the Lynde Street stop could be an infill if/when the adjacent lot is redeveloped.

It also depends on what the overall network in Charlestown looks like - will there still be service on Main Street, or will this busway replace that? If the T101 runs on Main Street as proposed here, then it might be worth having fewer stops north of Community College.

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This seems really half-assed to me. Make an SL plan and implement the plan. Don't build something just for the sake of building something
 
fattony said:
This seems really half-assed to me. Make an SL plan and implement the plan. Don't build something just for the sake of building something
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The problem is that we're facing a "chicken and egg" situation here:
  • SL6 and T101 can't promise to use Rutherford reliably until there are bus lanes
  • Rutherford Ave can't guarantee the bus lane implementation is worth it until there's a bus route actually using it (SL6, T101 or something else)
To make things even worse, SL6 has an otherwise very competitive, popular and much-needed alternative route to Kendall, while SL6 to downtown requires further improvements there that are beyond the scope of either projects. So given the circumstances, unfortunately the best solutions are either "build something just for the sake of building something" like you said and hope a future bus route uses it, or not build anything at all - which is objectively much worse.
 
Is the Bus Network Redesign project still in flight or has it been shelved? The T's website hasn't been updated in some time.
 
mjbellantoni said:
Is the Bus Network Redesign project still in flight or has it been shelved? The T's website hasn't been updated in some time.
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I believe the timeline is to start implementation for 2025? I'm sure someone will correct me on the exact implementation timeline, but yes it is still in flight. There is some concern about having enough driver however (like most operators)
 
KCasiglio said:
I believe the timeline is to start implementation for 2025? I'm sure someone will correct me on the exact implementation timeline, but yes it is still in flight. There is some concern about having enough driver however (like most operators)
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It's still timetabled for around New Year's 2025. Lots remain unknown. Fiscal cliffs, state funding, and other various externalities.
 
lainpimicaja said:
I think this is the latest board update on this - they say December 2024 for launching the service for phase 1: https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/2023-10/Better Bus Project - Board Update October 2023 10.23.2023 5pm.pdf
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Thanks! Other highlights:
  • Blue Hill Ave "major" bus priority project to break ground in 2025
  • A "construction" step for BNRD Phase 1 is noted for Apr-Nov 2024, not sure what's to be constructed
  • "Design & coordination" for BNRD Phase 1 is expected to end in Apr 2024, and I assume by then we'll know what changes will go into Phase 1
 
Not sure if this is the best place for this but saw that the BPDA board adopted the final version of PLAN East Boston (you can see the final draft here). Pages 107-109 have some transformative proposals for the Day Sq area - including a transitway, bus lanes, expanded pedestrian plaza, and a new station for the SL3 and some of the proposed bus redesign routes. This part on page 109 jumped out to me:

"In late 2024, MBTA and the City of Boston will implement near-term changes to Day Square and Chelsea Street to create Day Square Station and the Chelsea Street bus lanes."

Screenshot 2024-01-20 at 9.09.23 AM.png
 
I remember seeing that and being somewhat skeptical of that busway next to Excel Academy. Can that actually work w/ the turn radius of the semis using the Coughlin Bypass? That seems like it creates a pretty tight corner for Logan-bound trucks, but maybe this is one of those things where it'll look better in actual construction drawings.

And IIRC, the apartment building planned for 355 Bennington wants to use that alleyway space between it and Excel for parking garage access.
 
If I'm reading the map right, I think they want to eat into that area to maintain access to the Coughlin Bypass Road, and put the bus traffic to the right of the viaduct legs on the right of your screenshot.
 
Teban54 said:
Thanks! Other highlights:
  • Blue Hill Ave "major" bus priority project to break ground in 2025
  • A "construction" step for BNRD Phase 1 is noted for Apr-Nov 2024, not sure what's to be constructed
  • "Design & coordination" for BNRD Phase 1 is expected to end in Apr 2024, and I assume by then we'll know what changes will go into Phase 1
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It’s weird that the T seems to always leave Roslindale off its maps. There’s a nice spider map in this slide deck of frequent bus service but it doesn’t have Roslindale marked… despite it being one of the most well-served stations for bus.
 
Teban54 said:
Another possibility is that for many people (especially from Cambridge), their destination is in the Back Bay area, so they're not using a Green Line transfer anyway. They could be working or shopping there, and my guess is there's high demand for both, given how there always seems to be a good number of passengers waiting at northbound Hynes at all times. Whereas people taking the 1 between Hynes and points south (most likely BMC) probably aren't going to Back Bay and are instead transferring to GL, and therefore the NB alighting passengers you see immediately enter the station.
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Bumping this discussion from December regarding ridership on the 1 bus, especially between Hynes Convention Center GL station and Cambridge:

I took the 1 bus from Hynes earlier today, at around 5pm on a Sunday. I started waiting when only 2-3 others were on the sidewalk waiting for the bus, and around 30 people eventually boarded the bus by a time it arrived.

Among at least 20 of these riders, only three (3) came from the Green Line subway entrance. The remaining 17 walked up from elsewhere: I suspect most of came came from the north (Newbury St) rather than the south (Boylston St), but I'm less certain about that.

(The other 10 riders kind of popped up out of nowhere when the bus arrived, so I'm not sure where they came from. It was a pretty chaotic scene, as the wheelchair ramp was used and people started boarding through the back door without paying, making it hard to keep track. While they might possibly come from a Green Line train that just arrived, I find it unlikely, as GL was running normally and frequently during the 10 minutes I was there.)

Obviously, the sample size is very small, but this would give credence to the hypothesis that at least for Sunday afternoons, most riders boarding the 1 bus at Hynes (#3 or #4 highest ridership stop on the route) may not come from a Green Line transfer. Instead, the 1 bus likely serves more local, point-to-point demand between Cambridge and the area around Hynes.

Implications:
  • The 1 bus likely serves a completely different crowd from what an Urban Ring is expected to serve. People probably don't consider the Copley area as Urban Ring territory.
  • On the other hand, I don't think connecting to Hynes is necessary, either. If these riders come from Newbury St shops, enhancing connectivity between Cambridge and Copley may yield greater benefits. In that case, people may use Hynes only because that's where the bus goes to, not because that's their precise destination.
    • (If many of these riders are going west towards Fenway instead, that would indeed argue that Hynes is necessary. However, I'll note that Hynes GL station only has 64% of Copley's ridership in 2013.)
Note that while many of these riders are young adults that may plausibility be students shopping at Newbury, only 3 people got off at MIT. They may still be Harvard students. I didn’t take the bus beyond MIT.

I plan to do more detailed field analyses -- both structured and casual -- on the 1 bus and several other bus routes soon.
 
FK4 said:
It’s weird that the T seems to always leave Roslindale off its maps. There’s a nice spider map in this slide deck of frequent bus service but it doesn’t have Roslindale marked… despite it being one of the most well-served stations for bus.
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If you are talking about the "current frequent service" map on page 9, the reason for no Roslindale buses being included is that the T defines frequent service by route, not by corridor. Even though the Roslindale Square to Forest Hills bus corridor enjoys some of the highest frequency bus service in the entire system, none of the individual routes qualifies as "frequent", even though the collective effect is very frequent. I think the MBTA is trying to avoid implying that, say, the 50 is a frequent service (and rightly so), while ignoring the 50's contribution to the overall Washington St. experience.
 
So what becomes of the mix of buses on Bypass Rd? Will the Airport parking shuttle bus, for example, use the Day Sq or the bypass lanes?

lainpimicaja said:
Not sure if this is the best place for this but saw that the BPDA board adopted the final version of PLAN East Boston (you can see the final draft here). Pages 107-109 have some transformative proposals for the Day Sq area - including a transitway, bus lanes, expanded pedestrian plaza, and a new station for the SL3 and some of the proposed bus redesign routes. This part on page 109 jumped out to me:

"In late 2024, MBTA and the City of Boston will implement near-term changes to Day Square and Chelsea Street to create Day Square Station and the Chelsea Street bus lanes."

View attachment 46933
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HenryAlan said:
If you are talking about the "current frequent service" map on page 9, the reason for no Roslindale buses being included is that the T defines frequent service by route, not by corridor. Even though the Roslindale Square to Forest Hills bus corridor enjoys some of the highest frequency bus service in the entire system, none of the individual routes qualifies as "frequent", even though the collective effect is very frequent. I think the MBTA is trying to avoid implying that, say, the 50 is a frequent service (and rightly so), while ignoring the 50's contribution to the overall Washington St. experience.
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Yeah totally, I get that (and abandoned a brief attempt at mental gymnastics to visualize an alternative to this method to emphasize the Rozzie corridor)—but, there should be some way to do this (honestly, branding actually does work if done right, and if a few more improvements could be made to Washington, there could be some sort of renaming like "Roslindale Corridor" or something that was shown on the map—and might make taking the bus more appealing to some.

At any rate, on the same page, in the panel for future service to the current map's right, it extends the West Rox buses but doesnt designate Rozzie. Probably just an oversight, that will be corrected if and when the future map becomes a reality.
 
Personally, I think line width is the best way to show frequency. If a bus route runs at a 5 minute frequency, show the route at 12 points (or 12x whatever minimum width would be). Washington Street, in this case, would be about 18x the width of a once an hour frequency route, but I think it would be fairly clear that it was due to multiple routes sharing the corridor, as the more narrow branches move off in different directions from Rozzie Square.
 
Another issue with a corridor like Washington St to Roslindale is that, AFAIK, the different bus routes are not coordinated (maybe except 35 and 36). For most passengers, waiting 20 minutes for 2 buses back to back is much worse than waiting 10 minutes for one bus, even though they have the same combined capacity; and is not substantially better than a single bus route running every 20 minutes.
 
The static PDF map of the Bus Network Redesign does give the combined 35/36 between Forest Hills and West Roxbury the same visual treatment as the frequent-service "T" routes (which I believe also implies that headways are coordinated on the shared section). Other combined corridors getting the same treatment are the 220/222 between Quincy Center and North Weymouth and the 442/455 between Wonderland and Lynn.

These unfortunately don't show on the interactive map because that shows each route as an individual unit.


Screenshot 2024-02-06 at 13.49.34.png
 
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