Silver Line - Phase III / BRT in Boston

Then why were people protesting the Silver Line? It was big transit news back when it opened.
 
I believe everyone was protesting because it wasn't equivalent replacement service for the Orange Line.
 
Exactly, which is why many people wanted Light Rail. I even talked with some planners at the T who worked on the Silver Line and they all admitted they knew it should have been Light Rail.
 
While this thread does contain a little bit of sparring over whether Siver Line Phase III is a good idea or not, there doesn't seem to be much discussion of the viability of BRT in Boston in general.
Examples of successful BRT systems all look to have benefited from simple existing road-infrastructure systems (wide streets in a grid pattern) or from inclusion in new projects built in open space (dedicated lanes along highways between urban nodes). These conditions just don't exist to a meaningful extent in Boston.
My questions for the board are:

-Have the portions of the SL already implemented been a success?

and

-Is BRT a realistic solution to any specific or general transit issues in the Boston area?

In my opinion, the answer to both of these questions just may be no.

I think the possibility is there that positive ridership numbers for the SL are a mirage in that they reflect a local culture committed to the use of public transit even when the transit options presented to them are sub-optimal. Just as many MBTA riders may take the subway downtown to avoid multi-bus trips between suburbs, or may take several buses to avoid congested subway conditions, some Sl riders may be arbitrarily choosing one of several transit options which don't quite actually meet their needs.

To be effective, BRT may require infrastructure that just does not fit into the fabric of central Boston. Accepting that an ideally functioning BRT system is cheaper to operate and more versatile than rail, with a higher rider capacity than bus, it needs to be examined whether to be effective, BRT may require infrastructure that just does not fit into the fabric of central Boston. Do estimates of BRT rider capacity hold up when huge articulated buses become stuck in traffic? Do cost assessments include the maintenance of a reserve fleet of standard buses to replace BRT service in adverse weather?
Points raised in the discussion of the impracticalities of the SL Phase III tunnel though downtown are applicable to other potential BRT routes such as the BRTification of the CT2, and BRT routes through the Longwood medical area. The neighborhoods these routes are meant to pass through consist largely of low capacity residential streets with no room for dedicated or grade-separated bus lanes.

An effective transit system requires the integration of different services, but BRT seems to be some people's answer on the table for addressing Boston's transit issues. BRT regularly works its way into discussion of existing rail projects like the Medford Green Line extension and the still mostly hypothetical "urban ring".
BRT looks like a square peg for the round hole of our transit planning questions...
 
I think the Silver Line is a limited success between South Station and Silver Line Way. It would be ideal [for BRT] if it had dedicate and unimpeded rampways into the Ted Williams instead of running around the streets like trying to make it through a maze.

In addition to dedicated and easy entrance/exit to/from I-90, think the Silver Line could be successful if it then ran from South Station to Back Bay Station. How it would do so? There's a few possibilities. I suppose the easiest would be dedicated bus lanes on Kneeland and Stuart, perhaps then diverting down Columbus where it will loop up north on Dartmouth and then back east on Stuart again. Alternatively, cut and cover tunnel somewhere along those lines of the route I mentioned. And another is to run under Essex St to Boylston, where it will then surface or remain underground along Columbus Ave.


However, I think it is all essentially useless because it will be obsolete if the South Boston Waterfront is successful.


Sort of related; I think the problem is that the I-90 extension should have spouted off of I-93 near Fan Pier and made a bee-line for the Airport/Rt1A. If they did that, and with dedicated buslanes in mind, BRT from the airport to South Station could have been a great success.
 
I appreciate where you're coming from regarding the SL out to SL Way. The courthouse/new ICA/world trade center area certainly deserves better transit than regular bus service, and needs to be connected to downtown. If we're building dedicated ramps and BRT lanes though, why not just go for streetcar/light rail?

If you have to build 75% of the infrastructure needed for rail service in order for BRT to provide 75% of the quality/volume that rail provides, why not just go all the way?

The Back Bay to South Station idea is fascinating as well. I'm sure that lots of folks actually do travel between these stops every day, but am not so sure that they need to be linked by their own transit corridor.
These two stations are only about a mile apart, about a twenty minute walk even if one isn't a dedicated walker, and are already connected directly by commuter rail as well as indirectly by the Red/Orange connection at Downtown Crossing. Would transferring to a hypothetical BRT link to get from Back Bay to South Station really be easier or faster than riding a couple of extra stops to switch at DTC?

I think there's a whole can of worms here related to how we imagine the geography of the Boston area and the planning of new transit projects like the "urban ring". Questions like "should we connect Back Bay and South Station?" or "are people having trouble getting from Northeastern to BU?" have to be asked, but the answer might be no, or the solution might not be a really big bus...
Gotta go find an urban ring thread...
 
OneOrangeDoor said:
If you have to build 75% of the infrastructure needed for rail service in order for BRT to provide 75% of the quality/volume that rail provides, why not just go all the way?
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Because you can't "go all the way". You cannot lay rail in the ted williams tunnel. You could, hypothetically, build a brand new tunnel to the airport. I'm sure that plan would go over wonderfully.
 
You could have laid rail in the Ted when it was being built, but it would be very hard to do now. I don't see any logistical reason that streetcars can't share highway lanes with cars, provided that they can keep up with the traffic speeds.

Whether light rail or Silver Line bus, what you really need is a separate right-of-way at the airport itself, along with Charlie-gated prepayment stations.
 
jass said:
Because you can't "go all the way". You cannot lay rail in the ted williams tunnel. You could, hypothetically, build a brand new tunnel to the airport. I'm sure that plan would go over wonderfully.
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Well, right. The portion of the SL already built is here to stay (at least until the state decides that it's cheaper to abandon the whole thing than to replace the buses in ten years), and can't be retroactively wished into being rail service.

My point is that the additional effort or cash required to have made the SL a rail project may not have been an unreasonable leap; That in Boston's crowded and complicated infrastructure context, future BRT projects might not actually be cheap or flexible enough when compared to light rail/streetcar to justify the lower quality of service.
 
When I said connecting South Station to Back Bay, I meant it more as a link between Back Bay and the Waterfront and Airport. Not so much for the purpose of connecting those 2 stations.


Also, rails cannot be embedded in interstate highways as it would be a violation of the Interstate Highway Act. A simple solution would be to just not designate that piece of highway as I-90, in my opinion, I'm not sure if there's anything that says it HAD to be designated as an interstate beyond I-93.

Besides, if the MBTA doesn't want to run street cars in JP or Brighton, imagine how they would feel about running through the Ted.
 
How hard would it have been for the state to lobby Congress for an exception to the Interstate Highway Act, though? Especially if you call it an experimental transit project?

God didn't write the Interstate Highway act -- people did.
 
The Ted Williams Tunnel and Big Dig were largely funded with Federal money, thereby subject to Federal standards which prohibit mixed rail/highway traffic. Besides, it's unsafe anyway. If an LRV were to derail going 50 mph in mixed traffic, that would not be cool.
 
Further, while the Clinton people may have approved it, team Bush would have done everything in their power to stop it.

The easiest thing to do would be to get permission to use the shortcut into the tunnel for the silver line. They cant even do that, and thats talking to people down the hall. Theres no way they could have gotten a waiver to run rail in the tunnel.
 
jass said:
The easiest thing to do would be to get permission to use the shortcut into the tunnel for the silver line. They cant even do that, and thats talking to people down the hall. Theres no way they could have gotten a waiver to run rail in the tunnel.
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This, and the endless traffic light at D St. kind of embody everything that is wrong with the Silver Line in two, very simple examples of how broken it is on a very basic level. Each of these problems could be fixed in a matter of minutes. Call up the State Police and tell them "Silver Line buses will be using your private entrance to the Ted Williams Tunnel from now on. Thanks." followed by calling up the road maintenance people and having them send a worker down to change a few preferences in the light controller to give $WAITING_VEHICLE_BUSWAY = TRIGGER_LIGHT_PRIORITY.

Huzzah, you've just shaved 8 or so minutes off of the trip to the airport and back. SL2 buses benefit as well.
 
Since D Street carries very little automobile traffic, there is no need for a traffic light there at all. The Silver Line buses can just cross one half of that street and wait in the middle if necessary to cross the other sidel
 
I think it might be an insurance policy against having one of the dual mode buses t-boned by a car. Unlike CNG / Diesel or pure electric vehicles, the T can't just order a replacement. Even major bodywork would pose a serious challenge.
 
Arborway said:
I think it might be an insurance policy against having one of the dual mode buses t-boned by a car. Unlike CNG / Diesel or pure electric vehicles, the T can't just order a replacement. Even major bodywork would pose a serious challenge.
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I dont mind having a light there, but it should always give the buses priority. Unless 17 ambulances need to use D street, the bus should get green. In fact, it should always be red on d street and only turn green if a car is waiting AND no silver line bus is coming.
 
BostonUrbEx said:
Also, rails cannot be embedded in interstate highways as it would be a violation of the Interstate Highway Act. A simple solution would be to just not designate that piece of highway as I-90, in my opinion, I'm not sure if there's anything that says it HAD to be designated as an interstate beyond I-93.
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Fantastic! Implementing a BRT route actually seems like a great way to provide service which would otherwise be undone by coincidences of regulation like this one. If the MBTA was faced with the choice of having either rail or Fed funding for the Ted, then they probably made the right choice.

I might have to accept that the SL is our best option for downtown to airport transit until we all decide that the time us right for a rail tunnel or complete Blue Line reroute.
 
One relatively cheap option for a rail tunnel would be to make one of the Ted Williams tunnels rail only. That would leave the other tube for two-way vehicular traffic, one lane in each direction.

The rail tube could be used by Blue Line cars to South Station using the existing Silver Line tunnel, and possibly even Amtrak trains to the Airport and points north (Maine).
 
Interstates need to be two lanes each direction, if I recall correctly. It's a really lame situation. lol
 
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