Man, I waited for almost half an hour for the 86 today. I dont know if those schedule upgrades have been made yet, I hope they haven't, because if they have, this is still not a service with frequency that will ever attract spur-of-the-moment riders. We need so much more investment in public transit, it's not even funny.
MBTA Buses & Infrastructure
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Delvin4519
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The Fall 2024 schedule started on August 25th, 2024.
The 86 is scheduled for 30 minute headways weekdays and Saturdays, and 40 on Sundays and evenings.
/begin rhectorical rant
It is getting more and more worrying and concerning the MBTA is STILL, STILL, plowing "full steam ahead" for "December 15th, 2024" of "BNRD phase 1". The latest August 28th, 2024 post shows the MBTA still holding their goalpost in place.
Why is this worrying and concerning? Well, the T has allegedly filled 100 of their 300 or so vacancies over the course of 13 months. Scheduled service levels have hardly changed with half of the routes gaining service and the other half getting service trimmed and cut back. This leaves bus service almost unchanged at ~85-86% of pre-COVID levels for over 13-14 months now, despite over a year of work of filling the vacancies. If it's this bad, surely the T should give an indication it should need additional time, perhaps until April 6, 2025, before beginning BNRD. It would be the right thing to do for the MBTA to ensure all vacancies get filled, every single last vacancy down into the single digits, a full pre-COVID strong force running the buses once again for the first time since 2019, before moving full steam into BNRD.
The T plans to begin BNRD with on the order of 250 or so unfilled vacancies.... Such a disturbing motive. If there's 200 vacancies, 300 below the FY24/25 ceiling, or somehow still 700 below BNRD levels after all this time, you don't have enough operators for BNRD round 1!!! 1,867 as the ceiling from FY24 should mean 1,700-1,750 of those would be on the road (allowing 100-115 to be inactive for various reasons).... restoring a more off peak-peak balanced version of pre-COVID service for non-BNRD routes alongside, improved BNRD round 1 routes.
The T has CANCELLED the board subcommittee meetings YET AGAIN!!! This means the T won't provide an update on their utter disaster of something on the order of 225 vacancies as of July 2024. The T needs to fix their goalposts and aim for 1,750, not 1,560 before beginning BNRD, leaving approx 117 below the budgeted ceiling (last reported for FY24 as 1,867), for various inactive needs.
/end rhectorical rant
Perhaps @StreetsblogMASS may be able to figure out what's going on. This really needs actual answers.
(I'm just frustrated, forum members don't need to reply here (its literally marked as "rhectorical", I already read and saw the guesses/theories when I first posted in the General MBTA thread, but it'd be interesting if StreetsBLOG has comments or not. But, man, an update from StreetsBLOG could add some clarity)
Just two things: the August subcommittee meeting slide, despite being dated 5/29 claims that there are only 103 bus operator vacancies after the July hiring class. With each class being ~100, if they keep that up, it's prima facie reasonable to assume that they'll have the operators they need by December.
Also, it's not adjusted for separations, but it looks like so far this calendar year, state payroll records indicate the T had 1699 folks with the title of Surface Operator. Filtering to those who got paychecks in August (to adjust for separations), I get a total of 1548 folks under the L589 contract with surface operator as their title. Add 100 every 2 a months, and I'd say they're well in the ballpark for operator sufficiency in December for BNRD once the trainees complete the process.
CTHRU - Statewide Payroll Open Payroll
Open Payroll is part of our commitment to improving transparency by providing a guided view through complex financial information.
cthrupayroll.mass.gov
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Delvin4519
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Based on the numbers provided from that URL you provided above. The MBTA needs to fill somewhere between 188 and 329 vacancies in the next 3 months, accounting for separations.Just two things: the August subcommittee meeting slide, despite being dated 5/29 claims that there are only 103 bus operator vacancies after the July hiring class. With each class being ~100, if they keep that up, it's prima facie reasonable to assume that they'll have the operators they need by December.
View attachment 55053
Also, it's not adjusted for separations, but it looks like so far this calendar year, state payroll records indicate the T had 1699 folks with the title of Surface Operator. Filtering to those who got paychecks in August (to adjust for separations), I get a total of 1548 folks under the L589 contract with surface operator as their title. Add 100 every 2 a months, and I'd say they're well in the ballpark for operator sufficiency in December for BNRD once the trainees complete the process.
CTHRU - Statewide Payroll Open Payroll
Open Payroll is part of our commitment to improving transparency by providing a guided view through complex financial information.
So does the MBTA plan on hitting the full 1,750/1,867 headcount by December 15th, 2024? @StreetsblogMASS
The MBTA's graph says they forecast an extra 50 vacancies filled in January 2025, despite a December 2024 starting timeline for BNRD. Does the MBTA expect to run 15% of bus service as cancelled, dropped trips for 6 weeks between December 15th, 2024 and January 31st, 2025; until they fill those 50 extra vacancies? Is the MBTA planning to restore service this winter, or LIMIT service expansion to BNRD routes only, delaying restoration of Fall 2021 service on existing routes? If the MBTA really is forecasting to fill 50 vacancies in January 2025, why not push back BNRD to January, February, or April 2025 after those 50 vacancies get filled?
Literally noting explains this graph other than the MBTA fell to 1500 operators from 1,819. There is no other way to limit service to 85% of pre-COVID levels other than by not having all 1,867 positions filled. BNRD was going to increase MBTA bus service levels from 100% to 120% of pre-COVID service, but the MBTA is only at 85% today. Splitting in 5 phases, that puts BNRD phase 1 somewhere around 102% of pre-COVID levels. Therefore, the MBTA will need to overnight increase bus service from 85% of pre-COVID levels to 102% of pre-COVID levels on December 15th, 2024. Something on the order of 200 - 300 bus operators will all need to start active duty on the week of December 15th, 2024 alone.
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HenryAlan
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The article you linked to was also the first I had heard about the idea. On the one hand, as somebody who tries to pay a lot of attention to this sort of thing, I wonder about the outreach given my prior ignorance. On the other hand, it's not quite close enough to where I live for any targeted outreach to have pointed in my direction. My assumption is that the process is just beginning, which is why there hasn't been much outreach. Groups like those organizing the petition tend to use outreach and transparency complaints as part of their toolkit. If we are at the beginning of the process, it's an easy pitch to make, even if the outreach will nevertheless happen over the next year or so.
Koopzilla24
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Where were you picking it up? If you don't mind me asking. Now that school's completely back in session this section of the 86 and 66 routes is actual hell.
All scheduling on those routes goes completely out of the window regularly in the evening rush. Constant cancellations and 10-20min delays are commonplace. I'm not even sure how you'd tackle it other than doing bus/bike lanes and only one general lane in each direction. The Soldier's Field double intersection is so bad and poorly planned that it'll be a problem no matter what. Honestly, eliminating exits from Soldier's Field and left turns onto it, sending those cars around Eliot, would probably be better for traffic flow with some lane and signal tweaks.
Delvin4519
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FWIW I decided to pop into TransitMatters to see what they got.
Here's the 86 in the southbound/westbound direction past Harvard.
The 30 minute wait either happened at 1:20pm or 3pm
If it's eastbound/northbound, then it could happen anytime during rush hour. There's even a 45 minute wait at 1pm to spice things up.
subway1500
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Similar rant: the 34/34E has taken a disproportionate hit from multiple rounds of the post-2021 service cuts, and it almost feels like someone in Scheduling is trying to single-handedly kill ridership.
For those who are not familiar, the 34/34E averages ~5K riders/day as of Apr 2024, which is comparable to the 86, 70, and 77.
From the December 2021 version of the MBTA map, the 34 was scheduled at ~11min headways in the AM/PM peaks, and the 34E at ~20min headways.
Fast-forward to today, the 34 is now scheduled with 24min headways in the AM peak, 35min (!) headways in the PM peak, while the 34E is at ~25min for both AM and PM peaks. Across all other time periods, service has been reduced as well.
One might think there's a few possible explanations for this:
Besides the terrible scheduling, T dispatchers add to the problem. Whenever there is a disabled Arborway bus, especially on a less-frequent route like the 14 or 52, dispatchers tend to pull vehicles from the 34/34E to plug the gap -- they seem to be under the impression that the 34/34E still has the same frequency as 2021 (and pre-Covid). What this means for the rider is a 20+ minute wait suddenly turns into 30+ on the main trunk, and 50+min at Dedham Mall.
To make matters worse, the T has disclosed that as part of BNRD, service will be reduced even further. The "Bus Priority Toolkit" (released Oct 2023) shows a significant decrease in bus service in the future state, from 119 trips/day to 101 trips/day (a further 15% cut) on the 34/34E/40 routes:
It's also important to note: the 34/34E are not going to be designated as high-frequency as part of the BNRD. Sure, the 35/36 will be, but that is meaningless because of the "-67" above -- at the end of the day, total service on the Forest Hills-Roslindale Sq corridor will decrease 20% (from 335 to 268 trips per day).
All this to say: it's worrying that the T can (and has) butchered a major bus route, and the BNRD is only going to make it worse -- especially if they can't fill in the personnel gap.
For those who are not familiar, the 34/34E averages ~5K riders/day as of Apr 2024, which is comparable to the 86, 70, and 77.
From the December 2021 version of the MBTA map, the 34 was scheduled at ~11min headways in the AM/PM peaks, and the 34E at ~20min headways.
Fast-forward to today, the 34 is now scheduled with 24min headways in the AM peak, 35min (!) headways in the PM peak, while the 34E is at ~25min for both AM and PM peaks. Across all other time periods, service has been reduced as well.
One might think there's a few possible explanations for this:
- Ridership has declined and no longer warrants the frequency. Not true: current ridership is ~5k/day, which is the same as the 86, 70, and 77. Proportionally, this is ~80% of pre-Covid levels, which is consistent with the rest of the bus system.
- Ridership is a bit elastic on the Forest Hills-Roslindale Sq corridor. Could be true, but the data does show steady ridership on the 34/34E despite the cuts. Also, the other routes on that corridor have seen only cuts too, so regardless, riders are worse off.
- Trip coordination has improved. Also not true; somehow, it's actually gotten worse. There are now gaps of 20-30 minutes outbound from Forest Hills in the afternoon (e.g., 3:58 to 4:27pm, 6:35 to 7:00pm, 7:05 to 7:30pm - see below).
Besides the terrible scheduling, T dispatchers add to the problem. Whenever there is a disabled Arborway bus, especially on a less-frequent route like the 14 or 52, dispatchers tend to pull vehicles from the 34/34E to plug the gap -- they seem to be under the impression that the 34/34E still has the same frequency as 2021 (and pre-Covid). What this means for the rider is a 20+ minute wait suddenly turns into 30+ on the main trunk, and 50+min at Dedham Mall.
To make matters worse, the T has disclosed that as part of BNRD, service will be reduced even further. The "Bus Priority Toolkit" (released Oct 2023) shows a significant decrease in bus service in the future state, from 119 trips/day to 101 trips/day (a further 15% cut) on the 34/34E/40 routes:
It's also important to note: the 34/34E are not going to be designated as high-frequency as part of the BNRD. Sure, the 35/36 will be, but that is meaningless because of the "-67" above -- at the end of the day, total service on the Forest Hills-Roslindale Sq corridor will decrease 20% (from 335 to 268 trips per day).
All this to say: it's worrying that the T can (and has) butchered a major bus route, and the BNRD is only going to make it worse -- especially if they can't fill in the personnel gap.
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HenryAlan
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Thank you for highlighting this. I've long been concerned that none of the Washington St. routes that stay on Washington St. south of Rozzie Square have been deemed important by the BNRD, but hadn't realized just how much the service has been and will be reduced. I live close enough to the Square, that I tend to take whichever bus is leaving Forest Hills first, but have anecdotally picked-up on the 34 being much less common an option when I happen to exit the Orange Line. The data you've provided clearly illustrates why that is the case.
Delvin4519
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This motivated me to recreate Riverside's 2020/2021 maps of frequent rush hour services. While I have long concentrated my mapmaking primarily on 7 day a week morning til midnight service (i.e., minimum Sunday service standards), rush hour service did take a huge hit during COVID, which Riverside's maps today are essentially useless due to all of those service cuts. In addition, with the MBTA insanely and stupidly plowing "full steam ahead" despite its own forecast indicating it being hudnreds short of 1,750/1,867 by December 2024 & filling in vacancies into January 2025; Fall 2024 is also likely "the last pre-BNRD bus schedule rating".
Here's maps of 15 minute frequencies, based on whatever the MBTA provided in their systemwide map PDF frequencies for Fall 2024.
(Note: 15 minutes still isn't "show up and go", it's still "check departures & go", but using 10 minutes would make the maps essentially empty)
| Weekday AM Peak - (7:00 AM - 9:00 AM) - Fall 2024 | Weekday Midday (9:00 AM - 4:00 PM) - Fall 2024 | Weekday PM Peak (4:00 PM - 6:30 PM) - Fall 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Weekday Evening (6:30 PM - 8:00 PM) - Fall 2024 | Saturday Midday (11:00 AM - 5:00 PM) - Fall 2024 | Sunday Midday (11:00 AM - 5:00 PM) - Fall 2024 |
|---|---|---|
Notes:
Even with anaylsis of weekday schedules: Medford, Charlestown, and Malden; still all been really hurt by all the 2021-2024 service cuts. No frequent routes AT ALL in Medford in Charlestown; not even rush hour!!! All TAKEN AWAY since 2020! Malden lost it's Medford Sq. and Main St. combined frequencies of 15 minutes during rush hour it had pre-COVID.
Anyhow, this analysis and update/revision of Riverside's 2020 rush hour frequency maps to reflect Fall 2024 service levels needed to be done. Those pre-COVID maps hardly reflect how much service was cut down, reduced, and cut back between 2021 and 2024.
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Aprehensive_Words
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I can't say I ever realized that quality service every day of the week was quite so limited once you get off the colored transit lines (R/O/G/B/S*). Unless you're in Chelsea, Eagle Hill in Eastie, Harvard Business School and Packard's Corner in Allston, one of the dead at Mt. Auburn Cemetery or living in Clearey Square or along Hyde Park Ave., you're SOL during at least one part of the week.
Delvin4519
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New article from WGBH about dropped trips on the MBTA bus system - Publish date is 2024 September 6th:
www.wgbh.org
Ghosted by the bus: Why some MBTA buses never arrive
The transit agency serving Greater Boston said in a statement that they are aware of the issue and working to address it.
www.wgbh.org
It was at the stop on Eliot, by Charlie’s. And @Delvin4519 you’re right, I got there right around 3. But the schedule to my memory still says the buses are roughly every 20-25 minutes which is too infrequent for me or for anyone who wants to stroll out and catch a bus. I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but people like to just walk to a stop and know a vehicle is coming soon, they don’t wanna plan their whole day around when such and such bus arrives. No bus route in the inner core territory (or whatever you wanna call Harvard Sq / Allston / Cleveland Circle) should be less than 15 min headways.
Very impressionistically, these maps seem to show that the MBTA has 2 or 3 tiers of service periods, depending on how you look at it. There's the A weekday peak hour tier, an A- (or combined with A) weekday midday and Saturday tier, and the B weekday evening and Sunday tier.
It seems like the T could either bring the B tier to A- which I think is the theory of change behind the BNRd or alternatively focus service hours to bring the A- tier much closer to the A tier and with some additional service on the B tier, which, I think would be the historical T's perspective.
My thought is that the historical perspective is eventually going to win out.
These maps are excellent -- and I'm glad my maps were useful enough to be worth updating!
Re frequency threshold: it is worth calling out that you are definitely using a looser threshold than I did (not that I'm criticizing you for doing so -- your reasoning makes sense). The approach I took was a bit stricter but also more subjective:
In practice, I think this came out to "better than 10 minutes in inner regions, 14 min or better in the outer regions", but I wasn't necessarily consistent.
It might be worth creating a "10 minute" map if only for the peak periods; even if it is "essentially empty", that makes a compelling point as well.
Delvin4519
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Alright, I've gone through the task of making the 10 minute maps for all 6 time periods on the MBTA's systemwide map PDF. I suppose it's not "essentially empty", but very few bus routes meet the requirement outside of rush hours.
Note that the 10 minute Sunday service map does not match the 10 minute routes in my regular "minimum 7 days a week" Sunday frequency map. That map requires full service from 5am to 1am to be 10 minutes, whereas these 10 minute maps are limited to the time periods indicated in hours (in the case of the Sunday map here, 11am to 5pm only).
Again, these maps are different from the 15 minute maps above, these below are 10 minute maps. The actual kinds of frequencies that allow seamless transferring, and don't require a timetable at all and you can show up and go whenever; whereas 12 and 15 minute frequencies still necessitate consulting timetables and planned transfers.
Weekday AM Peak - (7:00 AM - 9:00 AM) - Fall 2024 | Weekday Midday (9:00 AM - 4:00 PM) - Fall 2024 | Weekday PM Peak (4:00 PM - 6:30 PM) - Fall 2024 |
|---|---|---|
Weekday Evening (6:30 PM - 8:00 PM) - Fall 2024 | Saturday Midday (11:00 AM - 5:00 PM) - Fall 2024 | Sunday Midday (11:00 AM - 5:00 PM) - Fall 2024 |
|---|---|---|
The Orange and the D also have pretty bad off peak headways, so that's a why an OL northside bus -> OL -> GL E/D -> GL/B/C/D -> Kenmore bus, doesn't work that well.
That's wild - every time I've tried to go from Cambridge to Back Bay the #1 bus has been so bad. I guess it's bad because I'm trying to ride on a weekend for a shopping trip. I didn't realize that the schedule was not even every 10 minutes. I've heard from friends in Arlington that they don't really take the bus as much and now it makes so much sense - there's no frequent bus corridor there.
Delvin4519
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It's actually pretty strikingly similar to how similar the MBTA's service hour frequencies correlate pretty well to Melbourne's stubborn approach to service hours (as well as their street running vs. dedicated RR ROW running, akin to the Riverside's BMR concept)
Both the MBTA in Boston, as well as Melboune's commuter rail, tram, and bus system, have horrible evening and Sunday service frequencies. Saturday service is "ok/meh", either close to, or a bit behind weekday midday frequencies. Then there's rush hour service which is very far ahead of the midday/Saturday midday frequencies. Both the MBTA and Melbourne have generally only responded to providing good service only during peak periods, generally between 6:30am and 7:30pm weekdays, and 11am to 6:30pm on Saturdays, with evening and Sunday service forgotten about. (However, the MBTA is terrible with Saturday Commuter Rail frequencies, unlike Melbourne).
I think it would be very ideal to extend frequencies during early evenings and Saturdays to get closer to the peak period frequencies. If rush hour is an "A++" service tier, then with some flattening of peak periods to just "A+" to accommdate WFH post-COVID, early evening and Saturday frequencies should be increased service from a "A-" tier to "A". Late evening and Sunday service should be increased from a "B" to "B+" tier.
Early evening frequencies should match weekday midday frequencies until 9:45 p.m., Monday through Saturday, instead of a sharp drop off at 7:00 p.m. to Sunday frequencies that exists today in Boston and Melbourne. This would make it possible for dinner trips in the city, without worrying about missing an hourly bus or every 3 hours commuter rail train. The way service in Boston/Melbourne drops down to Sunday frequencies at 7:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday today, makes it really difficult for visitors and patrons to go out for evening activites like dinner in the city, or late shifts, since they would have weekday peak frequencies for trips inbound to dinner hours, but then face Sunday frequencies or worse leaving dinner or their evening shifts.
This graphic that describes Melbourne (source: MelbourneOnTransit) more than describes Boston's bus and commuter rail network. If a Boston resident depends on buses or commuter rail. SOL after 7:00pm for going out into the city, or returning home after the early sunsets.
There is definitely enough demand in Boston for a "10 minute network" for the inner core of inner streetcar suburbs. Boston is more than big and dense enough with 1.4 million+ population to justify it. Buses and trains at single digit frequencies from 7am - 10pm throughout the week is definitely justifiable. The only time the 10 minute network could realistically drop to 15 minute headways is after 10-11 something PM, or on Sundays.
Koopzilla24
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I think it's gonna require the city taking action to remove street parking for dedicated bus lanes on most if not all of Mass Ave, or a serious operator surplus, for the MBTA to get Route 1 headways back to what they once were. Traffic is so bad and schedule adherence is near impossible, so it's understandable from an operations standpoint to not commit the resources to 10min headways when the buses will inevitably bunch up leaving 1-2 virtually empty while the other is overcrowded and well behind schedule. If the T had enough drivers available that would be on shift, on payroll anyway like pre-pandemic that it didn't make a difference if the bus was bunched or empty, then they might do it. There are operational changes they can make to mitigate bunching effects but they would also be inconvenient for riders, such as transferring passengers and deadheading, so that's unlikely to happen.
The weekend is a bit different in that I believe it is going to require state action to fund the T better. They're forced to save money wherever possible to conform to the budget and unknown year-end sales tax total, and the largest operational expense is payroll, therefore they're encouraged to drop service where demand is less to have less personnel on the clock.
The weekend is a bit different in that I believe it is going to require state action to fund the T better. They're forced to save money wherever possible to conform to the budget and unknown year-end sales tax total, and the largest operational expense is payroll, therefore they're encouraged to drop service where demand is less to have less personnel on the clock.