Koopzilla24
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Took a ride from Brighton to Everett to Malden via the 86-109-104 this past Saturday midday (DiBlasis has the best steak bomb I've ever had) and have some positive takeaways:
I've taken the 86 from Brighton to Harvard and Sullivan many times over the years so I have a good baseline for how ridership patterns usually look on the weekend on those stretches and can make judgments but not up in Everett and Malden so that will be pure observation.
Brighton to Harvard
There's not much to say about this since the headways most of the day haven't really changed and about the same number of riders that went beyond Harvard on the 86 before swapped to the 109; about 3. Weekends never really had issues with schedule adherence before so the shortened route didn't have a weekend impact there.
Harvard to Everett (Lexington St)
I only had to wait 6min at Harvard for the 109 which was sitting on layover outside the tunnel. Picking up the 109 at Harvard were enough passengers to fill ~1/3 of seats, similar to the 86 numbers at this point, and the bus between here and Harvard didn't get much beyond half-seated. As an aside Washington St in Somerville is looking real good with the redesign. It properly tamed speeds and the bus boarding islands made stops a bit quicker. As we pulled into Sullivan we only dropped off about half the remaining passengers, leaving 5-7 on board. Awaiting us for the boarding phase was a hoard of people. Once everyone was aboard we had all seating filled and a handful were left standing. The remainder of my 109 ride had high loading with high turnover, so a very well-ridden bus. After alighting at Lexington St for lunch I checked how the headways were looking and the next 109 was 8min behind mine and the following 11min behind that.
Everett to Malden
For the final phase of my journey, I took the 104 to Malden to catch the Orange Line back. When I first alighted the 109 there was a 20min gap until the next 104 due to a disabled bus, but the headways after it were between 12-15min. Once I was on a bus I was initially one of only 7-ish people but we picked up more and more on the way to Malden whilst also dropping off a couple of those who were on before I joined. A short ride later we pulled into Malden Center with 2/3rds of seats occupied. A train in each direction had just departed the station as we turned onto Commercial St so there was a fresh gaggle of passengers ready and waiting to take the 104 back the other way. Next time I'm going to give a weekend ride all the way to the airport a try to see if it gets more use than was reported in to Streetsblog article now that it's deep in the holiday season and people may be more familiar with the routing.
I've taken the 86 from Brighton to Harvard and Sullivan many times over the years so I have a good baseline for how ridership patterns usually look on the weekend on those stretches and can make judgments but not up in Everett and Malden so that will be pure observation.
Brighton to Harvard
There's not much to say about this since the headways most of the day haven't really changed and about the same number of riders that went beyond Harvard on the 86 before swapped to the 109; about 3. Weekends never really had issues with schedule adherence before so the shortened route didn't have a weekend impact there.
Harvard to Everett (Lexington St)
I only had to wait 6min at Harvard for the 109 which was sitting on layover outside the tunnel. Picking up the 109 at Harvard were enough passengers to fill ~1/3 of seats, similar to the 86 numbers at this point, and the bus between here and Harvard didn't get much beyond half-seated. As an aside Washington St in Somerville is looking real good with the redesign. It properly tamed speeds and the bus boarding islands made stops a bit quicker. As we pulled into Sullivan we only dropped off about half the remaining passengers, leaving 5-7 on board. Awaiting us for the boarding phase was a hoard of people. Once everyone was aboard we had all seating filled and a handful were left standing. The remainder of my 109 ride had high loading with high turnover, so a very well-ridden bus. After alighting at Lexington St for lunch I checked how the headways were looking and the next 109 was 8min behind mine and the following 11min behind that.
Everett to Malden
For the final phase of my journey, I took the 104 to Malden to catch the Orange Line back. When I first alighted the 109 there was a 20min gap until the next 104 due to a disabled bus, but the headways after it were between 12-15min. Once I was on a bus I was initially one of only 7-ish people but we picked up more and more on the way to Malden whilst also dropping off a couple of those who were on before I joined. A short ride later we pulled into Malden Center with 2/3rds of seats occupied. A train in each direction had just departed the station as we turned onto Commercial St so there was a fresh gaggle of passengers ready and waiting to take the 104 back the other way. Next time I'm going to give a weekend ride all the way to the airport a try to see if it gets more use than was reported in to Streetsblog article now that it's deep in the holiday season and people may be more familiar with the routing.
