Winthrop Center | 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

KentXie · Oct 10, 2022

DBM said:
Appealing idea--but what about the MBTA buses that traverse the area? Looks like the pandemic wiped-out the 550s-series service through Winthrop Sq., but you still have the 501, 504, 505, and 7 rumbling through Winthrop Sq. per the MBTA system map. (3rd inset down on the left-hand vertical, Downtown Boston/Cambridge). It would seem decidedly like a half-measure to eliminate all the private auto/truck traffic, but still have the buses barreling through... and (assuming the campaign to remove the private autos/trucks is successful), what argument would you make against them, assuming the MBTA (and their ridership-constituency?) would object? The optics are very different when you're trying to eliminate public-transit service vs. private vehicles, no?

I don't think that's a half-measure at all. Ban private auto/truck traffic, but allow buses to traverse at a certain speed limit. Denver runs a Mall bus down it's Downtown pedestrian area and it works great.

DBM · Oct 11, 2022

KentXie said:
I don't think that's a half-measure at all. Ban private auto/truck traffic, but allow buses to traverse at a certain speed limit. Denver runs a Mall bus down it's Downtown pedestrian area and it works great.

Glad to know there's an example out there already working in the real world. By the way, as a postscript (I only just remembered this)--when Winthrop Center opens in a few months, it will, of course, be disgorging and absorbing a significant amount of vehicle traffic into Winthrop Sq. and Devonshire/Franklin intersection, which will dwarf the daily MBTA bus traffic. The project PNF from way back in 2016 aggregates/analyzes all of Winthrop Center's transportation impact projections (pp. 45-51):

https://bpda.app.box.com/s/4ug4249afrkeebu956m0ohhdfes904bb