E - ARBORWAY The fight continues

photo NETransit
The last train to Arborway

The last train to Arborway left Park St on December 28, 1985. The City of Boston and the MBTA wanted to do construction on Huntington Avenue which would require the line to be closed for up to 2 years. In an essay published in 1996 Scott Moore details what happened and why the trolley service didn't return in 1987 as promised.

In 1990 the Commonwealth promised to restore the E line to Arborway as part of the 'Big Dig' to to offset the air pollution and other environmental impact of the downtown project. The project was stalled for 16 years and was finally killed in December by the Romney administration. On Tuesday (Feb 13, 2007) The Arborway Committee sued the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to restore the E-branch of the Green Line to Forest Hills-Arborway.

Click here to view press release below as .pdf
Click here to view text of complaint as .pdf

Ridership figures cited by The Arborway Commitee indicate that residents of Jamaica Plain have rejected the bus service the T has provided as a replacement.

From a transit perspective, the current #39 bus service, which was substituted for the Green Line in 1986, has experienced significant erosion in ridership. Latest MBTA statistics indicate that since 1997, daily ridership has fallen by 5000, from approximately 19,000 a day to 14,000. Since the inception of the substitute service in 1986, the #39 bus has lost 50% of its ridership.

John Kyper, Transportation Chair of the Massachusetts Sierra Club, said, "The remarkable fact is that while #39 ridership has fallen precipitously, during the same period combined Orange Line daily ridership at Jamaica Plain's four stations has remained flat at approximately 23,000.

The residents of Jamaica Plain have been fighting the T and the Commonwealth now for over 20 years to restore service. Promises were made 17 years ago and contracts signed. I wish The Arborway Committee the best in this court fight. Of course if they should be victorious in the courts the project will cost the state far more than $58 million that was originally estimated. I would love to know who approved the paving over of the tracks on Centre Street that will make it that much harder to restore service.

How do you feel about the restoration of service to Arborway-Forest Hills? Please leave a comment or send an email to charlieonthembta@gmail.com

After Greenbush - what should the T do next?

On Tuesday the T celebrated the end of the construction phase of the Greenbush Commuter Rail line that will complete the reconstruction of the Old Colony routes that were abandoned by the New Haven Railroad in 1959 when the Southeast Expressway opened. The cost of restoring these 3 lines is close to ONE BILLION DOLLARS with Greenbush alone costing $510 million.

BAD TRANSIT writes about Greenbush this week and I understand where the rage is coming from. Unlike the other 2 parts of the Old Colony Division that were restored (Plymouth/Kingston Line and Middleborough/Lakeville Line) Greenbush was fought very heavily by the residents of the towns it will serve. The T HOPES that by 2010 they will have 4200 inbound passengers every weekday.

We could debate if Greenbush was a sound transit idea for decades to come but the fact is the money is spent, construction done and the line will operate starting this summer. What is more important is what the T does next.

Politicians in the New Bedford and Fall River area are pushing for the restoration of Commuter Rail to their areas. The State of New Hampshire wants to work with the T in extending Commuter Rail back to Manchester and Concord which was done briefly some 20 years ago. These are noble ideas but it is time for the T to focus on the transit needs of riders inside Route 128 (I-95).

It is time for the T to finally end 50 years of promises by itself and the former MTA and extend the Blue Line to Lynn and Salem. This is a project the old MTA wanted to do in the mid 50’s when the line was extended to Wonderland but was stopped at the State House by supporters of the former Boston & Maine Railroad which operated the commuter rail then. The project has been talked about, designed, talked about, redesigned over and over again.

2 years ago U.S. Representative John F. Tierney (D-Salem) announced the reauthorization for the Blue Line extension project to Lynn as part of the Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (TEA-LU). The $286.4 billion legislation passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 412-8 and was signed by President Bush on August 10, 2005.

What happened??? I can’t track it down. There seems to be more interest in extending the Blue Line to Charles-MGH because of heavy pressure by Partners Healthcare to do so. I have no problem with that connector as it would finally connect the Red and Blue lines but it shouldn’t be done at the expense of extending the Blue Line to at least Lynn.

Then we have the proposed extension of the Green Line from Lechmere to West Medford which now appears to be getting some traction. But what project does the T have on the front burner?

Silver Line Phase 3 which would be a one mile bus tunnel connecting the Silver Line-Washington St with the Silver Line Waterfront busway at a cost of $1.2 billion. Honestly compared to the Blue and Green Line proposed extensions I can not see the justification of the Silver Line project for Boston transit needs in the near future. I just can not see a united Silver Line generating the ridership numbers needed to justify the amount of money being set aside for it. The money would be better spent building a no frills trolley line between North and South Station with possibly using the abandoned portal into Boylston Station. That option certainly would not cost $1.2 billion.

The T should give a call out to Seattle where King County Metro after building an expensive bus tunnel in 1990 closed it in 2005 to convert it to light-rail and bus operation.

The T has other pressing issues to deal with. The cars on the Orange Line are over 20 years old and unlike the Blue Line there are no firm plans to replace them at this time. The Red Line also has cars that were originally built in 1969-70 ( and rehabbed in the late 80's ) that will need to be replaced soon. Even the newer Red Line cars bought in 1993 will soon need an overhaul as the T is having major problems with the on board computer system designed by Digital that they can no longer get parts for since Digital products are no longer supported by Hewlett-Packard the company that now owns what is left of Digital.

The Green Line is what it is : 110 years old and showing its age.

Please offer some feedback on what the T should do next.

T in the media (January 26th)

Mac Daniel in the Globe looks at the blacksmiths of the T's Everett Repair Facility

The Globe's Tom Long has a couple of T related items in the Northwest Edition of Stops and Starts.



T holding off on credit cards

A reader who identified himself only as Nate asked about the future of credit card use on the T."Is there any planning for such use? It seems like for those with credit cards [which frequently include tourists, and many locals], it would streamline the process of using the T by not needing to get an additional card -- just swipe what you already have and hop on," he wrote in an e-mail. "If so, do you know when it will go live? If not, do you have any insight on why a decision was reached to not include such a universal payment system in the T's plans?"

MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said that is something the T will definitely be exploring down the road, but the immediate focus is on the transition to the Charlie Card system. "For the first time in decades, public transit fares in Greater Boston are being purchased and collected in a different manner," he said. "We feel it is very important for customers to become comfortable with this new type of technology before introducing another method."

Also Pesaturo explains why Charlie doesn't work in Winthrop

Pesaturo said the Winthrop run is not one of the MBTA's 175 bus routes. It's a private carrier bus route operated by Paul Revere Transportation. It is a popular route served by new buses that were introduced last fall."Because the service provides an important connection to the subway system [at Orient Heights], the MBTA provides financial assistance to the private operator," he said. MBTA passes are not accepted for this service. However, the fare on the Winthrop bus was set at 90 cents, which is lower than the $1.25 bus fare on MBTA-operated bus routes, to make the overall cost more equitable for customers making a connection at Orient Heights.

The Patriot Ledger looks at increased ferry ridership from Quincy and Hull

Bill Gouveia in the Easton News looks to increase safety at Commuter Rail stations

Bostonist looks at signs or lack of them along the Green Line.

Peter Pan Bus Lines tries the Fung Wah approach as they are now running buses from Providence to Boston that are cheaper that the $7.75 T Commuter Rail fare trying to attract college students in the area reports The Brown Daily News.

A Medford resident writes the Medford Transcript saying how the Green Line would be a bad idea.

there was a time you could get there from here

Have you ever asked yourself why can't I get a bus to someplace in the Boston area? Chances are at one time you could but local bus service in the suburbs has deteriorated or vanished completely since the T took control of things over 40 years ago.

Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA District 1964-Present (PDF) by Jonathan Belcher details everything that has happened with transit in the Boston area since the MBTA took control and historical data from before. Any question you may have about Boston transit routes can be found in its 317 pages and is updated as of the end of 2006. It is important to note that is was not the MBTA that abolished 24 hour service on the system, that had been done in 1960 by the MTA. Until then you could go to Haymarket Station and catch buses all night to all sections of the city and as far away as Arlington and Belmont. The MTA was scrapped for money in those days and the owners of Boston's taxi companies had great influence. New England Telephone alone used to send hundreds of operators and other employees home by cab each night and many other companies did so as well. Not having all night public transportation made it impossible for the companies to abandon the practice and the cab companies made huge profits. Today, because of the current contract with the T's drivers union it would nearly impossible to run all night service at a manageable cost as the ill fated Night Owl experiment that ended in 2005 proved. Drivers were paid double time for trips starting after 2 AM which meant it was costing the T $7.53 on average to transport a Night Owl customer, compared with only $1.37 for a daytime bus rider. Late night service will not happen unless the wording in the contract with the drivers is changed. We can only hope.

When the MBTA was created in 1964 it merged the operations of several transit companies and railroads into one authority that was designed to move people in and out of Boston. It's creation was spawned by the fear that the railroads of the time, the Boston & Maine, New York Central and the New Haven would abolish all commuter rail service in and out of Boston. There was good reason to worry as the New Haven had shut down the Old Colony Lines in 1959 the day after the Southeast Expressway opened and the Boston & Albany division of the New York Central had closed the Highland Branch to Newton in 1958. The MBTA's predecessor the Metropolitan Transit Authority acted quickly and converted the Highland Branch into a streetcar line (D-Riverside) and reopened it one year later. The MTA itself had been formed in 1947 to take over the assets and debts of the Boston Elevated Railway which had been a public-private operation since 1917 when the Massachusetts Legislature passed the "Public Control Act" which guaranteed public transportation to the citizens of Boston. The MTA was limited to serving the citizens fo the original 14 cities and towns in Metropolitan Boston: Arlington, Belmont, Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Medford, Milton, Newton, Revere, Somerville, and Watertown. Under this system the commuter rail could not be saved unless the authority was expanded to include more cities and towns. The legislature went to work to solve the problem....


It was decided that the Greater Boston urban core mass transportation system be greatly expanded to reach out and to intergrate its mass transit services with those existing throughout the Greater Boston Massachusetts metropolitan area. The new MBTA or "T" would now serve 78 cities and towns in Eastern Massachusetts. The T would quickly enter into compacts with the railroads that would subsidize commuter rail operations and also absorbed 2 major surburban bus companies, the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway and the Middlesex and Boston Street Railway. The MBTA did not aquire the Boston & Worcester Street Railway which was taken over by a Boston sightseeing company Gray Line and today there is limited bus service along Route 9 because of this.

It didn't take long for the T to start slashing bus routes it took over and Mr. Belcher looks at this in great detail. Some cities (Lowell, Lawrence and Brockton) rebelled at the fees demanded to supply service and simply told the T they could do better themselves. One town Maynard demanded to be removed from the MBTA territory and was allowed to do so and the town has had virtually no public transportation since. Maynard had lost its direct bus service to Harvard Square in 1970 when the Town of Lincoln no longer wanted service by bus being content with commuter rail.
The T was able to abolish many bus lines it had taken over claiming low ridership but they had made the schedules on these lines so unreasonable that people stopped using them. One prime example had been the Commonwealth Avenue bus in Newton that connected Norumbega Park in Auburndale with the B Line at Boston College which the T took over in 1972 and abolished 4 years later. The T doomed the line by refusing to extend it to Riverside Station thus not providing an easy connection for Newton riders. There are many other examples of this slash and burn approach the T took 30 years ago towards buses as it strived to keep commuter rail afloat.

The T continues to look at bus service today as a necessary evil and does little to try and improve routing that could enhance service. A prime example of the T's attitude towards bus service can be found in the Town of Woburn. In 2001 the T opened the Anderson Regional Transportation Center just off Interstate-93 as an intermodal bus and commuter rail transfer station. Anderson provides rail service to Boston, Lowell and to New Hampshire and Maine on Amtrak's Downeaster service. From Anderson you can board buses that will take you to both Logan and the Manchester-Boston airports. In fact the Manchester Airport shuttle is FREE for ticketed passengers and also runs to the Sullivan T station in Charlestown and runs 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. (novel concept). So how do I get to Anderson by T bus?

You can't.

A quick glance at the T system map shows 3 routes that could have been extended to Anderson, the 134,136 and 137. It also may have been possible to adjust the 350 route from Alewife to connect with LRTA at Anderson instead of the Burlington/Billerica line. By routing buses to terminate at Anderson it would allow riders from Woburn, Reading, Stoneham, Winchester and other towns easy access to other transportation services. But no that makes too much sense. If you live in Woburn where the station is the only way you can get there is by cab or walk.

The problem is the T simply isn't flexible when it comes to adjusting bus routes some of which haven't changed from the streetcar lines they were 100 years ago. A prime example of this is the 99 route which runs from Wellington Station to the Boston Regional Medical Center in Stoneham. The hospital closed in 1999 yet the T continues to run buses 7 days a week to the front door where the line ends. While there are plans to develop the property it has been tied up for years but meanwhile the shuttered building gets bus service 7 days a week from 6AM to Midnight. Has it ever dawned on the T to perhaps terminate the line elsewhere in Stoneham or Melrose?

One more example on how the T just won't change to reflect changing patterns in commuter movement.15 years ago the Cambrigeside Galleria opened and ridership to Lechmere increased dramaticly but the T only routed one Green Line route to Lechmere, terminating another at North Station and 2 at Government Center. In 1997 the North Station turnaround was closed because of construction of the new Green Line station underground and the T then routed 2 lines to Lechmere. However when the new underground station opened the T went back to the way things were before the mall opened after riders were used to more frequent service. I suspect the reason they did so was to justify the expensive underground turnaround that they built under Causeway Street which was designed before the mall opened. Trains running to Lechmere now are usually overcrowded nights and especially weekends when the Science Museum gets heavy traffic. Routing 2 lines there is a no brainer but the T does as it pleases.

People change, the city changes but the T just doesn't adapt. We will never see bus service like it was in 1964 but we certainly can improve on what is offered now. The bus should come to the people, not the other way around. The taxpayers of Massachusetts have paid a huge price in restoring Commuter Rail to the South Shore (Greenbush alone is close to $500 million) for a service the T estimates will have 4200 passengers per weekday in 2010. I fully agree that Commuter Rail is needed but we need to see more funding for the unsexy bus too. The T has never understood that to take the train you have to get to the station. Parking lots fill up quickly and that forces many commuters to drive instead defeating the entire purpose. We need more feeder bus routes to the rail stations something that is done well by New Jersey Transit and Connecticut Transit.

Would love your comments on this.

T trains retire too early, start too late

The following appeared in the Sunday Boston Globe. (1/14) It was written by Norwell resident John Stilgoe who is the Orchard Professor in the History of Landscape at Harvard University.

Late-night MBTA commuter trains offer long-term benefits to municipalities far south of Boston. While a handful of trackside abutters always decry the momentary noise of any passing train, night trains benefit the entire regional population. Modern times demand a return to older schedules, and even older transport-system thinking.

Boston goes to bed early. Proper Bostonians expect the MBTA bus and subway operation to shut down around 12:30 a.m. Visitors from New York and European cities chuckle at the small-town, roll-up-the-sidewalks mentality. As large corporations move away from Boston, the city begins to lose its big-city reputation, and the T's early shutdown doesn't help the Hub's image problem to visitors.

Long before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's forerunner whose fare increase produced the song about Charlie who never returned) acquired the properties of the privately owned Boston Elevated Railway Co., so-called Night Owl streetcars and buses prowled Boston streets. Late-night service ran regularly, although not frequently, and enabled factory employees and other night-shift workers to get to work and repairmen to move from one job to another without hiring cabs. It brought night club revelers home safely, keeping them from driving automobiles. Perhaps most importantly, Night Owl service let people get to South Station for very-early-morning trains and get home from trains arriving late at night. While trains tended to arrive on time, even in bad weather, Night Owl service meant much to passengers debarking New England Steamship Co. coastal vessels delayed by fog.

In the past few years, the MBTA experimented with Night Owl buses rolling along sleeping subway routes, but the infrequent service stopped at 2:30 a.m. and proved so expensive to operate that the T ended it in 2005. Boston ranks last in national transit-authority hours-of-service surveys, and many tourists jeer at a part-time transit authority determined to raise fares.

for the rest of the article please click here.

Harvard 02134 and the challenges it brings to the T

Harvard University on Thursday finally announced their plans for Allston which they say will take 50 years to implement. What Harvard intended to do has been under speculation for nearly a decade and at one point there was a plan leaked to the Boston Globe devised by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas that would involved changing the flow of the Charles River to unify the campus. Horrified Harvard administrators suppressed his report
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The Plan for Harvard in Allston (Draft), Executive Summary - January 2007 PDF 12.4 Mb

Donovan Slack of the Globe wrote on Boston.com:

Harvard University today released a sweeping plan to transform a 250-acre swath of Allston into an expanse of academic facilities, student housing and a new public square that officials said would be a twin to Cambridge's Harvard Square across the river, with a plaza, retail stores, theaters and a new art museum.

The university's 50-year master plan, submitted to Boston planning officials today, also calls for putting 20 acres of Soldiers Field Road underground in order to keep traffic out of view and replace surface roadway with tree-lined promenades.

Harvard officials said the project is likely to cost several billion dollars. The first phases, including a major science building and a museum that would house collections now at Harvard's Fogg and other art museums, are expected to get underway before year's end.

If you look at Page 42 of the master plan Harvard is asking the T for more frequent service on bus routes 66 and 86 (no mention of the 70) and possibly including Allston in the proposed "Urban Ring" transit corridor the T has dreamed about for years.

The scope of this project boggles the mind and increased bus service will not be the answer as anyone who travels that corridor now will attest. If Harvard actually intends to make "Barry's Corner" into a full blown retail, residential and entertainment twin to Harvard Square it will almost demand some sort of light or heavy rail solution.

One thing is certain. Harvard WILL proceed with this project and the T has to address the transit challenges it will bring in very short order. For the transit dreamers this project opens any number of possibilities for T expansion. For example you could consider expanding the Blue Line to go through Lechmere or Kendall, continue on to Inman, through Harvard and under the Charles to Allston, Coolidge Corner, Brigham Circle to Dudley. Splitting the Red Line at Harvard is another possibility.

In any event the clock started to tick when Harvard announced their plans. The T needs to start working on this project now and with the clout of Harvard University behind it the long dreamed crosstown subway can become a reality.

The T in the year 2050?

Download the Original size

vanshnookenraggen ponders the future and on a fascinating website he looks at possible ways the T could expand for future generations.

He wrote the following on flickr.com

This is a map I made for a Boston Magazine article on what projects should Boston undertake after the Big Dig. I suggest expanding the subway system.For more check out my site
http://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/FutureT/

The T has to face reality that many of the jobs that were downtown have moved to the suburbs. I would suggest that some sort of rail link be developed that follows I-95 (128) from Braintree to the North Shore.

But this map is food for thought.

Where will the new Green Line stops be in Somerville?

The Somerville Transportain Equity Partnership has been working to improve T service in Somerville. Since it appears the Green Line will be expanded to run into Somerville and possibly Medford they are concerned on where the new stops should be. This group has done their homework.

Where should the new Green Line stops be? Explore the possibilities using our interactive map, including aerial photos of each potential stop.
View interactive map