Fed Stimulus Transforms Boston Bus Rapid Transit

 

Governor Deval Patrick today announced federal stimulus funds will improve Boston bus service along New England’s busiest bus corridor and in neighborhoods currently unserved by rapid transit.  Mayor Thomas Menino and Transportation Secretary James Aloisi joined the Governor for the announcement.

The bus rapid transit project will first provide a direct Silver Line connection from Dudley Station to South Station in Boston this fall, including dedicated bus lanes on Essex Street and a new, state-of-the-art street-level terminal at South Station. 

Next, the project will replace by 2012 an existing heavily-used bus route from Mattapan to Ruggles Station with rapid transit bus service that will provide faster, more reliable service to Roxbury, Mattapan and Dorchester. The existing Route 28 bus line will be transformed into first-class bus rapid transit service with dedicated bus lanes and longer diesel-hybrid buses from Mattapan Station on the Red Line to Ruggles Station on the Orange Line with a direct connection to the Silver Line.  

The bus rapid transit project total cost is approximately $114 million.  Learn more here.

 

Comments

[Dylan]

Why are we building two separate Silver Lines... I thought the original plan was to join both Silver Line Waterfront and Silver Line Washington via a Tunnel near South Station. So let's take a look at this, people who get on the Silver Line at Dudley will have to take the SLWASH to South Sta then transfer to the SL1(Logan) by walking down 3 flights to the SL1/2/3 platforms, honestly, EPIC FAIL and inconvenience. I remember that the T promised that PHASE III of the SL project would include a physical connection between SLWASH and SLWTRF.

From Day 1, the MBTA promised that the Sliver Line would be a rail project, and deceived the public by putting it on the map as a RAPID TRANSIT project. The MBTA also promised that the SL1 would have a dedicated late in the Pike Tunnels, another FAILURE. The EOT and MBTA really need to look at these plans and run them by the public before releasing them to the public, this honestly is an embarrassment!

[Kyle]

Why does the EOT and the MBTA continue to push so-called Bus Rapid Transit? It is an extremely inefficient service, which is nothing more than a glorified and overly expensive bus service. What's even worse, the T continues to point at the success of the Silver Line, yet SL3 has been shut down, SL2 has low ridership and SL1 is only popular, because people have to get to the airport. It has to wait at red lights, has a top speed of 15mph in the tunnel, drives through airport traffic and has consistent bottlenecks.

This same type of inefficient, cheap and worthless bus service is now being pursued as the only option for the Urban Ring, which will be a dismal failure, unless it is an entirely underground hard rail system.

So, with all the failures of BRT, why does the EOT and MBTA continue to push this glorified bus technology as the way forward? Now over $100 million in stimulus funding is being wasted to "improve" a bus line; great job! Have you every heard of light rail?