Newton City Councilor Brenda Noel sent this to her constituents today regarding proposed changes to the Number 60 bus.
I’m pleased to report that, at a meeting Wednesday evening, a MBTA representative made a verbal agreement to keep the stop by Bloomingdales. This is the direct result of public advocacy by Newton residents, many of whom live at The Towers, who made their voices and concerns heard by the MBTA.
The Winchester/Nahanton # 52 needs to be kept as well. This serves the JCC and the Elderly Housing, Nahanton Woods and the Mount Ida/UMASS campus. Glad to see the advocacy of Newton citizens saved the Bus # 60 stop at Bloomindale’s.
If the MBTA genuinely wanted to make Route 60 useful and increase ridership, they would extend it out to Needham Street.
There are a ton of workers from Boston and Chelsea in the Needham Street corridor who take the Green Line out to Newton Highlands and end up having to walk through miserable conditions (e.g. the unplowed sidewalk next to the cemetery, and National Lumber’s snow pile).
Also, there are probably quite a few residents in Kenmore (especially students) who would want to use public transit to come out to a suburban shopping stretch like Needham Street.
And in the other direction, there are a lot of Newton residents (employees and patients) who would welcome a direct public transit link to Longwood Medical Area.
Given the Northland development, the extension of the 60 makes even more sense. [Although I guess the MBTA wouldn’t want to sully the case for Northland’s feel-good private shuttle service which the general public almost certainly won’t use and which will probably end up getting axed in year 2 or 3.]
The once-in-a-blue-moon, always-late, bankers’-hours Route 59 isn’t useful as a through route (not many people want to go to Watertown) and people use it primarily as a connection to the Green Line in Newton Highlands – why not take passengers directly where they want to go, i.e. Boston?
Extend Route 60 to Needham Street, please.
Michael, There is already a T bus running down Needham St. from the Highlands D line stop. I believe it’s the # 59 extending all the way down to Needham Junction.
@Peter – yes, I mentioned the 59 in my comment above. It’s not really a through route, and its primary purpose is as a feeder for the Green Line at Newton Highlands, which doesn’t work when (sorry to repeat myself) the service is once-in-a-blue-moon, always late, and only operates during bankers’ hours.
Although in the MBTA’s defense I should say that the 59 service hours are actually getting later and later these days – a few nights back, the last bus to Needham at 7:15pm didn’t show up until about 7:45, and the driver didn’t know the route, so the handful of passengers had to take turns directing him. (For a wicked good time, try explaining how to get from Newton Highlands to Needham Junction via Lincoln, Woodward, Eliot, Oak, Chestnut, Eliot, Central, Webster, Hillside, Hunnewell, Highland, Chapel, and Chestnut!)
Suburb-to-suburb routes like the 59 aren’t very useful, especially with the infrequency that we have now – this is evidenced by Northland’s private shuttle proposals. The only way in which public transit will ever be able to compete with cars is if the MBTA is able to maximize single-seat, direct services to the places people want to go. There would be strong demand for direct Needham Street service to Boston, and the existing 60 bus could be extended another 2 miles relatively painlessly.
Marian Leah Knapp’s TAB column this week is about this bus line.
The JCC has very few riders on the #52 and most of these riders will probably benefit from the new Senior ride services the Mayor just announced. Keeping the #52 on a fixed route, that goes past 2 middle schools and 1 high school, will benefit the bulk of #52’s ridership with increased frequency and certainty.
Overall we need increased frequency and extended hours for our cross-town buses – #52 & #59 and a public mass transit solution for the JCC/Wells Avenue area.
Greg, the TAB column you linked “Bus stop story” by Mr. Knapp is a great piece of writing, and interesting — which I’d commend to readers. Looks like it did some good as well.
Sorry, Ms. Knapp or Dr. Knapp (PhD) and I’ve gone on line to see she’s an author (Aging in Places: Reflective Preparation for the Future), so her good writing makes sense!
Very impressed by the Better Bus program so far. While Phase 1 isn’t about visionary changes or adding service — just about revenue-neutral tweaks — the team running the project has been very receptive to community input and willing to admit where there’s a flaw in the plan, unlike the design teams investing millions in Newton’s Commuter Rail and Newton Highlands green line station!
I would like to clarify the MBTA’s reasoning, because it’s important. They could not find a safe and appropriate place along Route 9 to use as a WB bus stop. Therefore, they eliminated the proposed stop, which would have been along Route 9, and kept the original one by Bloomingdale’s.
In addition, the reason for wanting to make these modifications in the first place is that the increasing number of motor vehicles along Route 9 has made it impossible for the busses to make their routes in the necessary time frames.
What does this mean to us? It means we have to control the number of cars being driven on our roads. The issues currently being raised by city councilors regarding motor vehicles use in Newton is having real and will have more real consequences for us all.
Does the City Council have some means or plan for controlling motor vehicle use on Route 9? I’d be happy if it did, but I can’t imagine what could be done about 50 thousand cars per day on their way out to the boonies.
Jane, the presenter from the T also mentioned that they were unaware of the Towers residences and the proximity to the Mall stop, so the fact that they couldn’t find a stop on WB Route 9 may not matter. I didn’t hear anything to suggest that Route 9 congestion has much to do with the proposal. It is what it is. In fact, eliminating the Langley loop may not happen because in reality, that’s the one place where there isn’t much congestion and there might be very little savings. It was also mentioned that Chestnut Hill Square might not be very bus-friendly (tight turns, challenging parking lot) The 60 route might not change much after all.
Michael – route 9 is a state road. I don’t think Newton has any control.
They were certainly aware that the Chestnut Hill Mall stop services many employees who depends on public transit. They may not have been aware of the large apartment complex; that I cannot say. They did mention the heavy traffic, perhaps you didn’t hear it but I did, which is how the whole conversation that one extra minute here and one extra minute there adds up and means one entire bus cycle has to be eliminated during the course of a day. They also mentioned another factor, which is that that the extra time it takes to make the route, due to the heavy traffic nowadays, also makes it difficult for transit workers to have their breaks. They had identified two places along Route 9 for stops, but when they looked into them further they found the sidewalks were too narrow to make them safe and certainly not wide enough for adding a bus shelter (this about bus shelters did not come up at the meeting but I did hear it separately from a reliable source.)
My understanding is they’re going to drive the revised route and see that the busses can make those turns, using the turn at Florence St instead of Langley, and do the times, which is why they have NOT made a public announcement, despite the fact that this post seems to indicate it’s a done deal. They were also going to look into whether they could or would use the Atrium Mall for an EB bus stop, learning that not only are many employed at that mall but there’s also a large apt complex behind that mall where many seniors also reside.
They have all of April to assess the revised route, and will make their determinations and announcements in due time.
Michael,
Have you any ideas? Does Ms. Noel?
]Now that I think about it, I think the traffic came from the success of “The Street” (although The Street has entrances from the west, from Route 9 and from the east) and the success of the shopping zone with Wegmans and so on. Ever try to get a parking spot there? I seem to think the entrances and exits to the Wegmans area are only from Route 9.
It would be nice to have a bus shelter at the Chestnut Hill Mall stop especially when it rains or snows but it’s probably not feasible. The sidewalk isn’t wide enough to support such a structure, so I guess when waiting for inbound service to Kenmore on the 60 bus the best alternative remains the parking garage
@Jane, I would propose the construction of either a tram or (more feasibly) bus rapid transit along the Route 9 median strip, similar to what the Istanbul municipal government constructed in less than two years when its primary E-5 highway started becoming impossibly gridlocked –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrobus_(Istanbul)
But that would require a state government with a little bit of vision, something that’s anathema to these parts. So instead, we’ll just keep getting band-aid fixes for the next 100 years, which is probably fine with the majority of I-495 dwellers stuck on Route 9 – if the traffic were actually moving, then they wouldn’t be able to WhatsApp.
Norman, There are designs that I’ve seen online that are not deep, and use the back legs for the main support plus some thin cables in the front; this type of design could be used at that narrow location (which backs up to a steep cliff so you really are stuck with what you have and it might make it safer for people standing there anyway so they don’t fall over that back railing and down the cliff). Put a little bench in there. I think when this route change gets formally presented by the MBTA it would be a good time to do some writing campaigns to the shopping mall, as a first step. There are other ways of getting that bus stop installed there. I think there are possibilities.
@Michael, I love that idea. There is no parking in either direction so the only question is is there consistent room along Route 9 for the vehicle lanes in both directions plus the tram lanes in the middle? THEN you’re stuck with the inevitable that if there were, the MBTA wouldn’t pay for it anyway, as you pointed out. Look at the trouble Newton is having just trying to get the MBTA to agree to improve service and accessibility on the existing Commuter Rail service… It’s not for lack of trying.
Did the City envision this years back when it approved of these expansions? It was a different administration but perhaps that’s also where the lack of vision and anticipating the increased demand on Route 9 traffic was. Well, not to look backward but forward and do things differently and more wisely.
@Jane Hansen you are right about the only entrances and exits for Wegman’s are from and to RT 9. Brookline did not want traffic going on to Florence St from Wegman’s. I think at one point they were even talking about making Florence one way so that the rd would go towards RT9 by the Atrium. Luckily that did not occur. That area could be bad before the Street and Chestnut Hill Sq were opened.
Jane, it sounds like we do have different recollections and interpretations of what was said at that meeting, but a few things were clear: the Mall stop stays, and the better bus folks will be giving some more thought to the proposed #60 route changes based on feedback. Hopefully we agree, that’s all good news.
The Atrium has been closed for a while, but Lifetime may provide a good place for the bus to stop out of traffic if the owner is willing (my suggestion, hardly a done deal) There’s no longer any shoulder along that stretch of route 9.
And while it’s not for the city to solve, I don’t think it’s a safe assumption to say that Route 9 traffic has anything to do with The Street or local traffic. It’s still a regional artery where other arteries like the Pike are completely congested. It’s time for another look at the numbers. Adding the third lane only pushed the problem further down the road, as skeptics had predicted. The daily 1.5 mile backups WB to Newton Highlands are unacceptable. The route 9 “improvements” were a state funded project on a state road. The city may have weighed in, but really had very little influence over the plans.