Sorry to ask this but can someone share the link/s for that long document that analyzed each mbta bus route recently? Google isn’t retrieving it. It was separate from the redesign plans I think—it had a section for every single bus route.
MBTA Buses & Infrastructure
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TheRatmeister
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I think you might actually mean the Better Bus Profiles? https://www.mbta.com/projects/better-bus-project/update/bus-route-profiles-now-available
But the NETranist doc is also amazing.
Yes! That’s it. Thanks yall (also @TheRatmeister )
Delvin4519
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Some random person on zombie reddit bashing the new T104 for not serving the actual airport.
So... should the T104 actually serve the actual airport like this post seems to be asking for, or should it stay as is terminating at "Airport"?
So... should the T104 actually serve the actual airport like this post seems to be asking for, or should it stay as is terminating at "Airport"?
Tbh, it's not an unreasonable request. I wonder if there is politics between the T and Massport as to who can run buses on airport property.
HelloBostonHi
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Other MBTA buses run on the airport. Obviously the Silver Line but also the 171. And the 117 does it three times a day, looks like the new 116 will continue that.
It's more about simplifying routes and reducing trip time variability, with the trade off of needing connections. That's been the goal of the BNRD from day one. Human Transit by Jarrett Walker is a good read on why that's important, it has been the base for a lot of transit agencies bus network redesigns of late.
Also from a purely practical standpoint a circular endpoint to a trip is undesirable, it makes it difficult to schedule layovers which exacerbates bunching. Look at the SL1 which has a circle at one end and no layover capacity at the other, headway management is impossible.
TheRatmeister
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In an ideal world, absolutely.
But the practical problems make this a non-starter, IMO. As @HelloBostonHi mentioned, loop termini are a pain for scheduling, and airport traffic would likely make sticking to a schedule basically impossible. I think those issues would result in major compromises to service along the rest of the route, which will ultimately be where most of its ridership comes from.
I think considering that most 104 riders are getting on the Blue Line inbound.. this isn't necessary.
Longfellow
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My massport shuttle experience is, getting on one that doesn't go where the signs indicated it would go, driver getting mad at me for thinking that. Also randomly laying over in the rental car lot mid-journey, because let's add 20 min to your journey for no reason.
HenryAlan
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The fact that every airport shuttle does this is a pretty clear indication of who it is that MassPort wants to serve -- tourists and business travelers. I have this strange idea that a local government agency should give at least some thought to serving the local people.
TheRatmeister
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JeffDowntown
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That must be a relatively recent change. Shuttle 88 did not used to serve the MBTA Blue Line station, it only hit Economy Parking and the Terminals. It was created as a car oriented shuttle.
^^^ This is the correct answer.
The top priority should be to get people en mass to where they are going. If the 104 were actually an important and useful route for lots of people to get to Logan, then yes, it should do the the full loop around the terminals. And if the loop would cause scheduling problems for the 104, then it would be worth putting in the effort to try to fix them, or just throw more buses at the route.
But the 104 won't be popular for actually getting to/from Logan, with or without the terminal loop. People traveling to Boston are mostly headed downtown and especially Back Bay where the largest clusters of hotels are. Locals trying to get to Logan are extremely diffuse, spread out through all of eastern Mass., and there will be very few locals in that narrow Chelsea/Everett walkshed trying to get to the airport on any given day. There will be some, but that's dwarfed by the number of people just trying to get to the Blue Line. In that case, it's not worth causing scheduling/bunching problems along the whole route in order to help a tiny number of people going to Logan. It's best to just let them transfer to the shuttles. I don't know where you draw lines in this trade off, but I don't think this case is particularly close.
Super off topic, but there's a new, updated edition of this book. I haven't read either edition. Does anyone know if they are substantially different? There's a waitlist at the library to get the new one.
There are certain key nodes of bus-only travel in Boston that are subject to such neglect it really reflects poorly on the MBTA as well as on the city for failing to advocate in whatever way actually works to make these areas better.
The main gate to Franklin Park is a major crossroads of bus routes, and in addition, the gateway to the city's biggest park. The bus stops are so incredibly run down it's embarrassing. For example: the stop that's at the beginning of Circuit Drive doesnt even have a "no parking - bus stop" paint; it only has a single bus stop sign hanging off a half-leaning telephone pole, and between the curb and the sidewalk is a strip of dirt/mud and a bunch of park benches with nary a shelter in sight. Some of these are things the city could tackle: like, pave over the dirt where a major bus stop is? Build a bus shelter (Im sure there is some park/historical nonsense to get through for this, but it's doable). It just says a lot about a city's lack of concern for its people, especially its poor people, by the shoddy care provided to places like this. The same was true for years of the #1 stop at Hynes. I know it's not some huge revelation that city's and polities treat poor people like dirt but there are some areas where it really stands out and it shows.
The main gate to Franklin Park is a major crossroads of bus routes, and in addition, the gateway to the city's biggest park. The bus stops are so incredibly run down it's embarrassing. For example: the stop that's at the beginning of Circuit Drive doesnt even have a "no parking - bus stop" paint; it only has a single bus stop sign hanging off a half-leaning telephone pole, and between the curb and the sidewalk is a strip of dirt/mud and a bunch of park benches with nary a shelter in sight. Some of these are things the city could tackle: like, pave over the dirt where a major bus stop is? Build a bus shelter (Im sure there is some park/historical nonsense to get through for this, but it's doable). It just says a lot about a city's lack of concern for its people, especially its poor people, by the shoddy care provided to places like this. The same was true for years of the #1 stop at Hynes. I know it's not some huge revelation that city's and polities treat poor people like dirt but there are some areas where it really stands out and it shows.
It's a reflection of the transportation that the decision makers and staff use. We've always seen this reflected in the attention going to roads and highways, but even within transit it's why the commuter rail gets such outsized attention compared to its ridership. People aren't taking the bus to the state transportation building. They certainly aren't taking two buses.
I think that the majority of shuttle riders are also going to the car rental counter. Even if there wasnt random 20 minutes of stopping, I don't think magically the majority would ride through the car rental center.
bigeman312
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I’m skeptical. Do you have a source for this claim? I’ll believe that with a source, but readily reject your guess if all you are doing is guessing.
TheRatmeister
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About 30% of passengers at Airport station connect to the shuttle, based on the 2023 Systemwide Passenger Survey. Therefore based on the 1.75 million gated entries at Airport station in 2022, we can assume there were approximately 1.05m trips made on airport shuttles by Blue Line passengers. In 2022 there were around 1.1m rental car transactions, so based on the average rental car occupancy of 2.2, and assuming everyone returned the car at the same location, 4.8m trips were made on airport shuttles by Rental Car users.
So in other words, rental car customers probably outpace BL riders on the shuttles something like 4 to 1.