Brookline seeking stimulus money to help fix the 66
Wicked Local Brookline
Posted Nov 24, 2009 @ 03:43 PM
Brookline ?
Given that her new Coolidge Corner apartment was on the same bus route as her Harvard Square office, Karen Yajnik figured she could look forward to a pretty straightforward commute.
But now, Yajnik, a marketing consultant who commutes by bus daily when not traveling, has had to schedule her entire workday around the peak rider hours on Route 66, when the packed buses bunch up and come three at a time, or not at all. Other times, she?ll go way out of her way to take the train to another bus, which often results in a shorter commute.
?You just can?t count on it,? Yajnik said. ?I know a lot of people who?ve done that and now drive because it?s just not worth it.?
Brookline transportation officials said they?re aware of the problem, and want to leverage the town?s authority over how MBTA buses use its streets to make the 66, the T?s sixth busiest bus route, faster and more reliable. And if officials act fast, the town could take advantage of roughly $5 million in federal stimulus money to do so.
?We?re going to see if there are ways the town can improve its own infrastructure, working with the MBTA and the state, to improve the experience for everybody,? said Brian Kane, a member of Brookline?s Transportation Board who also works as policy and budget analyst for the MBTA Advisory Board. ?It?s all about reliability. If the schedule says it?s every five minutes, it needs to be every five minutes.?
Kane and fellow board member Peter Furth, a civil engineering professor at Northeastern University, are heading up an effort to look at how stimulus money could be used to improve the route. Options could include the removal of underused stops, relocation of existing stops, curb extensions that allow buses to stop without pulling out of traffic, traffic signals that give buses priority and better signs.
Staff at the Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization are expected to issue similar recommendations in the coming weeks, but Kane said the town should study the options on its own. He expects to offer a recommendation by January.
?We?re just trying to position Brookline to make sure its needs and wants are reflected when the state makes its recommendations,? he said.
The 66 is one of 15 key bus routes identified for $4.6 million in stimulus funding, Kane said. Stretching from Harvard Square in Cambridge to Dudley Station in Roxbury, the 66 carries 11,000 riders per week on average, making it the sixth busiest bus route in the MBTA system.
Kane said that other unlike other routes, riders seem to use the 66 throughout the day, not just during rush hour.
?The boarding is steady all day long,? he said. ?It?s not a commuter route only.?
But Kane noted that while the 66 may drop off as many as 2,000 people in Coolidge Corner every day, it stops needlessly at other places where far fewer people board. As an example, he points to a stop located in front of a Stop & Shop gas station, less than a block from a more heavily used stop in front of the adjacent grocery store.
But the town also has little say over the large sections of its route that fall outside its borders, and that may be where some of the biggest problems lie. Though her commute starts in Brookline and ends in Cambridge, Yajnik said the worst part of the route is the long circuitous path through Brighton, something Brookline officials can do little about.
Kane said he also wants to see the Transportation Board spend more time on transit issues, which he said often plays ?ugly stepchild? to issues of parking and traffic.
?Given the number of people who already use this system to move through the town, we should spend more time on it,? he said.
Other board members said they would support the creation of a permanent committee, similar to the Bicycle Advisory Committee, to study transit issues and make recommendations to the full board.
Kane said he would present recommendations on stimulus funding and the 66 at the Transportation Board meeting on Jan. 28.
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Neal Simpson can be reached at
nsimpson@cnc.com.
