Silver Line to Chelsea

Delay
Silver Line - SL3 experiencing 15-20 minute delays due to traffic in the Ted Williams Tunnel


Shocking
 
All that time-consuming construction just to be saddled down with frigging delays in the TWT!! Shame!!

Won the battle, but lost the war!! Just more traffic added to an already clogged bottlenecked system from the Big Dig! :mad:
 
Jahvon09 said:
All that time-consuming construction just to be saddled down with frigging delays in the TWT!! Shame!!

Won the battle, but lost the war!! Just more traffic added to an already clogged bottlenecked system from the Big Dig! :mad:
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Sat in traffic in the tunnel this morning, still made it to work on time.

It added a few minutes but not much.

Still the 111 gets stuck on the bridge so is it better? Prob not. I'd rather sit on an SL3.. at least its one seat ride.

We will see what the evening commute brings.
 
Did they add new buses or are the SL3 buses just existing SL buses that were converted?
 
If they allow the silver line to use the state police ramp and convert the pike entrance over by the rental cars and Uber/lyft over to bus only then it would solve most of those problems.
 
falcon42 said:
Did they add new buses or are the SL3 buses just existing SL buses that were converted?
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We were told there would be up to 8. No new buses were purchased and they would be sending a few off to Maine to be redone (which I was told those are back now).

If you look at my video, you can see 2 Trolleybuses painted SL colors at Courthouse. Those will be used for the shuttle to SL Way (since they are electric only)
 
It's almost like it would have made sense to electrify all of SL2! But we wouldn't want those "unslightly" wires! :p
 
I took it several times over the weekend. All in all, very pleased. I'd say it's marginally better than the Green Line in terms of performance. I'm glad they are enthusiastic about optimization. A few things I noticed:

- My stop is eastern ave. I'm impressed how quickly it gets to Airport.
- That said, buses stop at the EA stop sign after stopping (ie stop twice). I think that's supposed to indicate where the bus stops, not that it needs to stop twice.
- Also, they should keep to the right on chelsea ave to avoid traffic turning on to Curtis. Also, they can turn right on red at service rd.
- Lastly, one driver took the wrong route onto the twt, but it was their first time.

I missed two bunched buses this morning, and then waited like 15 mins for the next one. I think for this to be a slam dunk, it needs subway intervals, so double the frequency. Is that a possibility?

Hope it doesn't sound negative. I'm loving it. Glad to finally have some solid transit options.
 
Regarding the frequency, i'd say that every 10 mins during rush hour is sort of weak, though I guess we'll have to see what the ridership numbers are.
 
tysmith95 said:
Regarding the frequency, i'd say that every 10 mins during rush hour is sort of weak, though I guess we'll have to see what the ridership numbers are.
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Yeah i think its a bit week, considering sometimes the 111 can be <5 minutes.

I think its more because they just don't have enough equipment. Maybe this will be a push to buy some more SL buses.
 
cybah said:
We were told there would be up to 8. No new buses were purchased and they would be sending a few off to Maine to be redone (which I was told those are back now).

If you look at my video, you can see 2 Trolleybuses painted SL colors at Courthouse. Those will be used for the shuttle to SL Way (since they are electric only)
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So a frequency of every 7.5 mins?
 
cden4 said:
It's almost like it would have made sense to electrify all of SL2! But we wouldn't want those "unslightly" wires! :p
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Electrification would be a waste of money now being so close to battery buses. Rather see us wait for the battery buses to be a viable thing. Then you wouldn't need the hybrids or dropping of the trolley wires.

If you look at my videos (and again this morning) we lose 2-3 minutes due to the wires being dropped. Move to electric buses only.. no need.
 
I don't think you should charge 50 cent higher rapid transit fares then have service intervals that are over 10 mins during rush hour and even higher during other times.

I'll stop beating a dead horse though.
 
cybah said:
officially 10-12 minutes in Rush.

I think with 8 buses they could make it closer to 7 minutes which is comparable to the 111.
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That's the difference between SL3 is the best option most of the time vs it's the best option every time. Whose campaign do i have to donate to to get them to buy 2 more buses?
 
Seems to me like they could simply improve the service by boosting headways between Chelsea and Airport with two or three more buses going back and forth making that limited run. As anyone who takes the SL1 has known, the Blue Line transfer will be much faster to most parts of downtown than riding the Chelsea service through the TWT, the infamous Manulife double-loop, D signal atrocity, and chug-a-lug transitway tunnel.
 
Shepard said:
Seems to me like they could simply improve the service by boosting headways between Chelsea and Airport with two or three more buses going back and forth making that limited run. As anyone who takes the SL1 has known, the Blue Line transfer will be much faster to most parts of downtown than riding the Chelsea service through the TWT, the infamous Manulife double-loop, D signal atrocity, and chug-a-lug transitway tunnel.
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That would be a good SL6 route. Only issue is that the Airport T bus station isn't really built as a turn around spot as it dumps onto a one way. Though that could easily be fixed.

I also think it would be a good idea to have routes 116 and 117 turn down the Silver Line route in Cheslea and go to Airport Station instead of taking a slow route through Cheslea and Eastie to Maverick.

You could increase the frequency of bus 114 to make up for the loss of 116 and 117 along Meridian Street in Eastie and Pearl Street in downtown Chelsea.

So instead of the current routes with riders backtracking from Broadway in Revere to Wonderland rerouting the buses to go down Broadway and then turning down the silver line tunnel to Airport station would make more sense.

As it currently sits the Silver Line was built as a totally separate route compared to the rest of the bus system. It should not be that way.

Continuing with that narrative it would be difficult to have bus lanes all the way along Broadway in Cheslea/Revere, but consolidation of stops and signal priority could improve service along that corridor, along with giving riders a route through the silver line route.

Also you have the 111 bus and its route down Washington Ave. You could easily split some of those buses and create a new route that goes down the silver line ROW from Bellingham Square to Airport Station.
 
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Agreed, if you have an eelctric bus doing SLW short turn service, you should have a gas bus doing airport short turn service
 
Also bring the 112 bus down the Silver Line bus ROW to airport station.

Though it might make sense to have some local Silver Line routes go to Wood Island instead of Airport Station. The MBTA could totally build a ramp that went from the bypass road to the Bennington Street parking lot and directly to the Wood Island station.

Also this would be hard, but does the Chelsea River NEED to be a navigable waterway. Could we turn it into something similar to the Fort Point and ban all taller ships from going through. I don't think that the oil tanks need to be in such a dense central location. Other oil tanks are in Weymouth, could you move all of the boston area oil shipments to there?
 
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