Seaport Transportation

[armpitsOFmight]

Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

I fucking hate transferring to a bus!!!!

 

[Arlington]

Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

I fucking hate transferring to a bus!!!!

Hate, and bus hatred are quite natural and widespread emotions, but its *your job* (not ours) to reconcile your loves and hates with your earning, spending, location, travel, and lifestyle choices.

We only ask what we ask of ourselves. Lobby for new buses, select buses, or frequent buses. Buy a Kindle and read. Be a yuppie and drive. Move to the country. Confine your world to the rails. Lie to yourself that you love the bus. Take your Romneycare and get a chill-pill. These work. Angry archboston posts aren't worth the electrons they're printed on.

You may feel empowered by your hate, but its a turn off for everyone else. Which is why its hard to name a politician who is both hateful and has enduring success. Most end in ashes. If you can't fake the love, at least ditch the hate. Yoda, Jesus, Reagan, Clinton, and the Beatles are with me on this.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

When the issue is "Access to Cambridge", the GLX gets everyone (from all points) the following:

1) Shorter headways to Lechmere (often halved with the D not turning at NS), and access to stuff that we think of today as "Kendall"

2) Access to Union Sq (and from it the 86 to porter, the 87 to Harvard and the 91 to Central....those Red places)

Now, you say, the 86, 87, and 91 are bad. I say reduce their headways and improve their connectability

Out of curiosity, did you similarly think that the GLX was just something new and shiny for tourists?

Unless Somerville alters the way the streets work in Union or the T alters the bus routes none of those busses will have a transfer at the door of Union Square Station. Obviously I would hope that officials have this on their radar, but I haven't seen anything directly pertaining to how the bus routes will interact with the new station.

A lot of what makes bus connections today unattractive isn't connecting points, but rather, headways that are too far apart and bus stops that are too close together.

This is true. Of course you need to have the money to increase the number of busses on a route.

Also, you get a different sort of unattractiveness when stops are consolidated. People now have to walk farther, and wait in larger crowds at small curbside bus stops for a bus that will take them to a train. Walk shorter, wait longer, or walk longer, wait with a crowd. Either way people aren't going to like that option.

What would you suggest for a route like the 77? It's easily operating at capacity during the rush and headways are every few minutes. What improvements can you make to that? Eventually Arlington Center will need the Red Line.

My goal would to have fewer lines that operated more reliably, faster, and at shorter headways, such that they'd be worth walking to and worth connecting via.

Why is this mutually exclusive with expansion?

 

[novitiate]

Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

I fucking hate transferring to a bus!!!!

Pretty much everyone does- this is something transportation planners like to stick their fingers in their ears about, since infrastructure is so expensive and transportation planners try above all else to be "reasonable". As long as we live in a state that doesn't see adequate public transportation as a funding priority, that's what a lot of areas are going to get.

Bus stop consolidation is a necessary pain point, as is greater bus infrastructure. (Signal priority, actual stops, curb bulb-outs, maybe even countdown signs) Of course, the problem with that is that you lose the vaunted "flexibility" of buses, which is touted even in a city like Boston where the buses mostly have been following roughly the same routes for 100 years or so. (And the main "flexibility" seems to be that service is a lot easier to cut) The key bus routes project isn't a bad start.

But I don't think "better buses" are going to be the end all of transportation needs outside of the existing subway network, and any plan that claims they can be will fail. I don't understand why "improving the bus system" and "expanding the subway system" are being put at odds here.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

But I don't think "better buses" are going to be the end all of transportation needs outside of the existing subway network, and any plan that claims they can be will fail. I don't understand why "improving the bus system" and "expanding the subway system" are being put at odds here.

Exactly. I totally understand Arlington's point that, with the limited funding available you can make improvements to the existing system and survive. What I don't understand is why that should be the desired end point, and an excuse to just let the political failure of transportation policy continue.

 

[Arlington]

Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

Out of curiosity, did you similarly think that the GLX was just something new and shiny for tourists?

Track 61 (this thread) shuttling from Back Bay to Convention Center is. I was focused on that.

Unless Somerville alters the way the streets work in Union or the T alters the bus routes none of those busses will have a transfer at the door of Union Square Station. Obviously I would hope that officials have this on their radar, but I haven't seen anything directly pertaining to how the bus routes will interact with the new station.

The 91 is at the GLX stop, and the 86 and 87 can at least be there "eastbound", but yes, they're going to have to look at a contraflow bus+bike lane or something.

Also, you get a different sort of unattractiveness when stops are consolidated. People now have to walk farther, and wait in larger crowds at small curbside bus stops for a bus that will take them to a train. Walk shorter, wait longer, or walk longer, wait with a crowd. Either way people aren't going to like that option.

The beauty of faster trip times is that once they are moving faster, the exact same number of buses can provide both shorter headways *and* faster trip times--which should make for a "bus trip worth walking to" (just like "rail stations worth walking to" have moved farther apart over time--they were much closer in the 1910s than they are today-- and people are OK with that)

What would you suggest for a route like the 77? It's easily operating at capacity during the rush and headways are every few minutes. What improvements can you make to that? Eventually Arlington Center will need the Red Line.

Join us on the Key Bus Routes thread (the 77 is one of them--and my favorite-- but not the most key)

But the same physical buses work waaay better with a combination of some (but not all) of:
Fewer stops (but now you can afford "station amenities" shelters, seats, etc)
Prepayment (no farebox gumming up boarding)
Easy "dollar" fares (DC Circulator uses these)
Proof of Payment (use all doors for on and off)
Level Boarding (subway-style platform, multiple doors)
Longer buses

I think the next step in the Key Bus Routes evolution will be to make them more like the Silver Line (including sharing the long fleet and stop design)

See also
NY MTA Select Bus
DC Circulator
SF's Geary Corridor

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

Track 61 (this thread) shuttling from Back Bay to Convention Center is. I was focused on that.

The 91 is at the GLX stop, and the 86 and 87 can at least be there "eastbound", but yes, they're going to have to look at a contraflow bus+bike lane or something.

The beauty of faster trip times is that once they are moving faster, the exact same number of buses can provide both shorter headways *and* faster trip times--which should make for a "bus trip worth walking to" (just like "rail stations worth walking to" have moved farther apart over time--they were much closer in the 1910s than they are today-- and people are OK with that)

Join us on the Key Bus Routes thread (the 77 is one of them--and my favorite-- but not the most key)

But the same physical buses work waaay better with a combination of some (but not all) of:
Fewer stops (but now you can afford "station amenities" shelters, seats, etc)
Prepayment (no farebox gumming up boarding)
Easy "dollar" fares (DC Circulator uses these)
Proof of Payment (use all doors for on and off)
Level Boarding (subway-style platform, multiple doors)
Longer buses

I think the next step in the Key Bus Routes evolution will be to make them more like the Silver Line (including sharing the long fleet and stop design)

See also
NY MTA Select Bus
DC Circulator
SF's Geary Corridor

Which is exactly what Urban Ring Phase I was supposed to be. The only thing that project was was a rollout of additional Crosstown bus routes along arcs of the Ring. Key Bus Routes project-like features, and signal prioritization. But that's it. Otherwise it was nothing but CT4, CT5, CT6, etc. There wasn't any concrete poured for busways or debates about light rail vs. BRT...that was all Phase II.

Phase I was the non-controversial part. It was no-build/all-ops. And they ran from and buried that one all the same.


That's avoiding the circulation conversation right there. We aren't talking strictly about subways. They systemically decided to do a total cut-and-run on downtown.

 

[Matthew]

I don't know why it is so hard to get simple stuff like curb extensions done. I've been watching construction going on Brighton Ave. They rebuilt a bunch of the sidewalks in an apparently unrelated project. They easily could have created some bulb-outs at the same time, but they did not.

And Charlie will need to be fixed, again. This time by designers that understand the first thing about interfaces. No tickets that take 10 seconds of processing. No coin/bill-acceptors that are difficult and slow to use. No filling cards on buses, at least, not in a way that preoccupies the driver for so long and blocks the farebox. Is it really that hard to deploy off-board ticket machines, in 2013, that are durable enough for our weather?

 

[Arlington]

Ok, so now that this thread is Seaport Transportation, it seems to me there could be BRT Bronze and Gold lines that provide a lot of what people want.


BRT GOLD LINE
Post Office Square
Congress St
South Station
Ft Point
Convention Center
Silver Line Way (turnaround)

BRT BRONZE LINE
Harvard Square
Back Bay
Silver Line Way / Convention connections
Airport

 

[George_Apley]

Why would you sit on a bus from Harvard Square to the Seaport when you can take the Red Line to the Silver Line? Busses from Cambridge to BBY are always going to be nightmarish because of Mass Ave. Honestly that's another route that needed RT when it was possible to engineer. Can't do a Mass Ave subway anymore. Best they can do with that one are articulated number 1 busses with very frequent headways.

I don't know how you can BRT Mass Ave (I'm assuming that's how you're getting from Harvard to BBY). They'll NEVER give up a general travel lane for a bus lane. That means you can't even get the fake "BRT" of the Washington Street Silver Line.

 

[Arlington]

BRT BRONZE LINE
Harvard Square
Back Bay
Silver Line Way / Convention connections
Airport

Why would you sit on a bus from Harvard Square to the Seaport when you can take the Red Line to the Silver Line?

1) I think a one-seat ride is important, and a two seat ride (from all the buses feeding into HvdSq) are important too. Look at the 4 components of this trip...all huge connecting points that have 2+ seats to get between today (that was the original insight of Track 61...getting from Back Bay to Convention Center...Harvard to Back Bay is a similar pain)

2) I'd see running super-express with no more than 1 stop between the ones you see, perhaps on new Pike ramps (gated like the SL's ramp at SL way) and/or Storrow/Memorial. Its time to reclaim Storrow/Memorial from the SOV cars. Bus can do that as long as they clear/bypass the low bridges

3) And darn it, to get to the Airport from the Seaport (or Convention Center) I want SL buses to be able to use the "Homeland Security" ramp into the Ted Williams Tunnel from SL Way.

4) To get to Seaport from the Airport, I want the old exit ramp back (c. 1996 - 2000) that gave us a quick way out of the Tunnel and up to D St. Even better, on Westbound I-90, bore through the right hand wall ang give me an inbound-only Silver Line Way Under that comes as a right exit from the cut-and-cover part of the Ted Williams Tunnel, has an underground stop, and goes under D St and bypasses the signal and incline into the existing Silver Line Tunnel.

 

[George_Apley]

Gotta find a new company to build hybrid busses for any Silver Line expansions.

 

[Arlington]

Gotta find a new company to build hybrid busses for any Silver Line expansions.

They surely need new "underground" buses, but they don't need them for better surface connections (...yes, bus).

Actually, considering the coming crunch in Green Line to Airport connections, they should consider diesel buses with the same "free from airport" attributes as the Silver Line, and they might as well tie to the Seaport

To my Gold and Bronze line (both operable with just long diesel buses), I'd add HAY LINE
Haymarket
Courthouse
Convention
TWT
Logan

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Gotta find a new company to build hybrid busses for any Silver Line expansions.

Not totally true. The T owns Neoplan's designs for the dual-modes, so they can tab another vendor to manufacture them.

The company was little more than a cash-poor glorified steel pressing facility that heavily relied on second-source components. The T tabbed them because they were willing to go out on a limb and produce never-before-designed articulated dual-modes and low-floor TT's. The guts of the SL vehicles are the same diesel engine series that's in the 90's-era high-floor RTS buses and (modified-fuel version) in all their CNG buses. The electric engine is from some century-old Czech manufacturer that makes thousands of TT's (including the T's), LRV's, subway cars, and EMU's for Eastern Europe. Neoplan's only novel contribution was to mash them together and distribute the weight so it would work inside an articulated shell without the articulation straining under the weight.

So there's very little proprietary technology in there. The "design", such that it was, is little more than achieving ideal component placement. So anybody can take that and produce a new series...probably with better, lighter components now 10 years later. It was a design fraught with peril because no one had ever tried it before, but this was one (rare) instance where the T's customization fetish actually worked. They've been very reliable vehicles, and it's definitely a design blueprint the T's other bus mainstays (New Flyer and NABI, two huge bus manufacturers) can easily work with if they get more T business. Few people would've expected them to be any good with how far out on a limb the T went, and with a company so desperate for orders it was willing to risk going splat to pull this off.


What killed Neoplan was not, in fact, the duals. It was them falling way behind on their standard diesel orders and incurring contract penalties on those while moving all hands to try to finish this behemoth. The T arguably delivered the death blow themselves when it cut short its diesel articulated order with Neoplan midway through dissatisfied with how late-arriving they were.



This was the same reporter who broke the Track 61 exclusive. Good god is she inept at doing her homework. "Accordion buses"??? Really???

 

[George_Apley]

So they put a rookie to cover the seaport transportation situation who's coasting through her research.

 

[winstonoboogie]

Not mentioned in the article, but the transitway tunnel is designed to handle 90 buses per hour (a 40 second combined headway). Right now, service is only scheduled at 30 buses per hour (a combined 2-minutes headway of the SL1, SL2, and the extra rush-hour trips that just run South Station-Silver Line Way). So with enough equipment, there is a very large increase in peak service that could be operated in the transitway.

 

[Arlington]

Not totally true. The T owns Neoplan's designs for the dual-modes, so they can tab another vendor to manufacture them.
...The guts of the SL vehicles are the same diesel engine series that's in the 90's-era high-floor RTS buses and (modified-fuel version) in all their CNG buses. The electric engine is from some century-old Czech manufacturer that makes thousands of TT's (including the T's), LRV's, subway cars, and EMU's for Eastern Europe.

I believe that's Škoda (shko-dah) you are talking about, and they are on the extremely short list of things that got better under Communism--building electric-traction streetcars and articulated diesel buses. Really, along with the Soviet Space program, one of the crown jewels of Eastern industry. I'd have trusted them to build the whole thing. Still would. Like NASA using Russian rockets to the Space Station

http://www.skoda.cz/en/products/trolleybuses/trolleybus-27-tr-solaris/

 

[Arborway]

Not mentioned in the article, but the transitway tunnel is designed to handle 90 buses per hour (a 40 second combined headway). Right now, service is only scheduled at 30 buses per hour...

I'm sure the quality tunnel roadbed would be more than capable of handling this extra traffic and wouldn't continue its rapid decay into gravel.

I love how the ride quality is an elephant in the room that never makes its way into articles about the Silver Line, despite being one of the big negative impressions people often have.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I'm sure the quality tunnel roadbed would be more than capable of handling this extra traffic and wouldn't continue its rapid decay into gravel.

I love how the ride quality is an elephant in the room that never makes its way into articles about the Silver Line, despite being one of the big negative impressions people often have.

Yes. There's no way it can handle 90/hr. at current speeds. The shitty pavement and D St. traffic light bottleneck are parts of it. But the tunnel itself has permanent speed restrictions that most definitely were not in the original design, and which aren't going to be lifted. The articulateds didn't end up being nimble enough to take tunnel curves at top speed like they'd hoped. There's no signal system, and their initial assumptions about BRT dispatching being as exacting as LRT dispatching didn't pan out so it's unlikely that adding Green Line-like signals would do a whole lot to meaningfully improve performance in such a short tunnel.

There's a lot that could improve here, but it's incremental gains. Much of it rolling back the gradual decay in speed that's afflicted the Transitway over the course of its first decade. It is never going to reach full design potential under BRT. There were too many things they didn't adequately take into account about trying to make a busway act as a real subway.

That said, 40-50/hr. with additional routes utilizing it is certainly realistic and wouldn't cost the kind of money that requires fundamentally changing it. More vehicles, fix the @#$% pavement, fix the @#$% D St. light. That's all that's really necessary to give it a pretty healthy headway boost.

 

[Arlington]

fix the @#$% D St. light. That's all that's really necessary to give it a pretty healthy headway boost.

Does crossing D St have any kind of signal pre-emption today? Seems to me you don't even need special detectors or vehicle ID: since the busway is exclusive use, detect *any* vehicle coming into the intersection from the busyway (coils in the pavement would do) and it should rapidly force D St to stop.