6/28/2022
Mayor Ruthanne Fuller
Re: TAG comments on MBTA Better Bus Project proposals
Dear Mayor Fuller,
The citizen members of the Transportation Advisory Group (TAG) have carefully reviewed the MBTA’s Better Bus proposal. In contrast to some of our greatest fears when the process began, we believe the proposed plan offers real gains and only modest losses for Newton. It brings long-overdue regional connectivity to residents traveling between Newton and our neighboring communities, it improves frequency and reduces wait times, and it adds much needed service outside of the traditional 9 to 5 commute including weekend, early morning and evening hours.
In creating their proposal, the MBTA used state of the art real-time transportation and ridership data to optimize transit routes for today’s transit users. Some of benefits of the plan for Newton include:
· a new Riverside-to-Auburndale Square high-frequency bus connection that continues to Waltham and Arlington,
· a new local connections between West Newton, Waltham, and Watertown Square,
· the extension of the 60 bus to Newton Center,
· regular, predictable local bus service along Washington Street.
These changes improve service in some of the busiest transportation corridors in the city. In contrast, the routes that the plan discontinues have very low ridership, even before COVID. In addition, alternate routes that often cause confusion for new and occasional bus riders have also been discontinued in order to promote greater predictability of service. We believe these tradeoffs are in general prudent and well-considered, especially in light of the T’s financial and service constraints.
To be clear, some of the proposed changes could benefit from modest adjustments. For example, service for residents near the Warren House will be markedly worse without the 505 route, and the Newton Corner express buses need stops on both sides of the Pike to help pedestrians to board safely. The MBTA has explicitly asked for feedback regarding these types of local issues, and Newton should provide detailed and informed comments in response.
We share a vision with you that includes reliable and convenient multi-modal transit across Newton. Optimized bus service will be even more important when reconstruction work begins on the Massachusetts Turnpike between Newton and Boston. The loss of the Pike’s private vehicle lanes will present the risk of congestion, but also the opportunity to establish new travel habits that include bus and broader transit ridership. A robust transit system across Newton, supplemented by services such as NewMo, provides the city with transportation resilience that can provide greater convenience, improve traffic, reduce carbon emission, and benefit social mobility:
“The relationship between transportation and social mobility is stronger than that between mobility and several other factors, like crime, elementary-school test scores or the percentage of two-parent families in a community”, – Nathaniel Hendren, Harvard economist.
We welcome further discussion with you and city staff on the MBTA’s proposal and how Newton can best respond to it.
Sincerely,
Michael Halle
Chair, Newton Transportation Advisory Group
For its citizen members
Thanks Adam for posting.
I think one of the most important elements of the continuing discussion with the T regarding this plan is how we retain riders who under the proposal will lose the direct bus service they’ve come to count on. For instance, Auburndale Square and parts of West Newton south of the Pike are proposed to lose direct express bus service to Boston. People structure their lives around that kind of “one seat ride” convenience, and the loss can be significant. What should they do? What changes to Commuter Rail service will or should accompany Better Bus? Is there service we can retain to meet these needs?
Beyond these losses, however, as TAG’s comment indicate there are real opportunities in the new local routes created under the plan. Specifically, all-day and all-week routes connecting Newton with our neighboring municipalities and transit hubs offer greater transit benefit for workers and residents across the socio-economic spectrum. There’s a huge unmet need here, and I’m happy to see the MBTA addressing it in a principled way.
The balancing act is doing both: serving both existing riders and currently underserved populations. The conversation should continue.
Disagree with this letter, especially that the discontinued routes had “very low ridership, even before COVID”. While there are some very good things about the proposed new bus route scheme for Newton, the T is proposing to completely decimate our express bus routes, which DID HAVE very full buses before the Pandemic. They were often standing-room only! They were full because THEY WERE CONVENIENT for so many of us to get to Boston and back to Newton. They offered a comparatively quick trip and provided a convenient opportunity to avoid driving & paying to park in Boston. With the new scheme, many people who travel between much of the northern side of Newton and Boston will now have a longer and much less convenient transit trip. The proposal will cut ALL midday and weekend service on the few express buses that will remain, and, unfortunately, the most obvious parallel route (Commuter Rail) won’t be a good option until they are reconstructed, so that they can stop in Newton throughout the day. I predict that if this “better bus” network is implemented as proposed, many people on the northern side of Newton will decide to shift into their cars to get to Copley and Downtown Boston, simply because transit will be a much less convenient option than it had been previously.
Sometimes simpler lines on a map may look pretty, but do NOT represent better bus service — if it means that the bus doesn’t go where you want to go, when you need to go there, quickly and conveniently. I’m sure that there could be a better proposal for Newton, and I hope that the MBTA doesn’t rely too heavily in this letter in order to avoid making many changes to their original proposal.
Al, fair points as far as commuters are concerned. First, note this letter is to the Mayor, not to the MBTA, since TAG has no standing to address a state agency as a Newton advisory group.
As my comment above says, we need to address the needs of commuters impacted by this proposed change. Commuter Rail service in Newton is not, as you suggest, constrained solely by station design. The T, for example, could add additional flag stops at Newton CR stations to offset the buses. Or split the difference and retain express service to Auburndale. The 505 continues to run in the new plan and covers many of the people who used express buses in the past. While it isn’t what we want, a last resort for some people is to drive to the West Newton MBTA lot and take the bus from there, as many people who use the CR do. While one seat transit rides are highly desirable, local trips are better and cheaper than longer trips when driving can’t be avoided.
The major point of the letter is to see the new local bus improvements as important positive additions at least as important as addressing losses of service. I don’t want to cast this difference as a purely white collar vs blue collar issue. However, the new local routes provide the kind of consistent service that people who work hourly wage jobs and multiple shifts need. That may be people who live in Newton, but it’s also those who work here. They are part of what keeps our city working, and they are traditionally underrepresented voices that are as a result underserved by transportation.
I do differ with your “pretty and simpler routes may not be good routes” comment. The T did its homework on this plan, with real analysis of an enormous amount of rider and population data and a large number of discussions with the community. They can back up their proposal. In contrast, the basis of some transit routes hasn’t changed since buses replaced trolleys. However, the plan needs even more local knowledge to make it effective.
We need both worlds: careful analysis and new proposals that address current (and possibly underserved) needs, and ways to serve people who have adapted their lives around existing transit service.
The proposal certainly hits some neighborhoods hard where express service is eliminated or replaced by a two-seat ride. But my read is that the new proposal significantly adds to midday and weekend runs downtown via the 504 and connecting buses, including Sundays where there presently is no service.
501, 504, and 505 are the only express buses proposed. They are all shown in black. Buses shown in black in the proposal provide “peak only”service. Buses that are peak only don’t operate midday or on weekends.
“You can get downtown in the morning, but you can’t get back home until pm peak”.
You’re right Al. I thought 504 was the blue line, but now I see the black number and the tiny black line. Not good. I guess the only service off peak would be the local T routes to Kenmore or Cambridge.
Has the MBTA said why they chose to cut some express bus routes in Newton? The Better Bus Plan is increasing overall service 25%. Equity is the #1 goal of the Better Bus Plan. “Equity is defined as improving access and quality of service for transit-critical populations (low-income populations, people of color, seniors, people with disabilities, or people who live in households with few or no vehicles)”
In their May 10, 2021 presentation they said:
“We can make the network better for the vast majority of current riders –but to make that happen many people’s trips will change, and some will get worse.”
They also stated that they were prioritizing communities working to improve bus routes (ie bus lanes, bus shelters, signal priority, etc.).
Buses have been very low priority in Newton for years. The only time I hear anything about bus service is when the MBTA takes it away. There has been no systematic effort to improve bus service and buses were almost entirely omitted from our Complete Streets guide. Instead the City focus has been on electrifying private vehicles, BlueBikes, private shuttles, and NewMo (which is a great service, but not a reliable way to get home from work or school). When NNHS was rebuilt, it’s bus shelter was taken down and forgotten until Green Newton donated a new one.
As Mike said, there are many positives for Newton with the Better Bus draft Plan. It is just a draft plan, open for comments.
Some good points here and I appreciate TAG’s passion but mainly I agree with Al.
We need our express buses restored to pre pandemic levels far more that we need direct service to Arlington. (Kendall Square sure, but Arlington?)
This matters not just for our neighbors in Auburndale, West Newton and elsewhere who choose to ride the bus and help us all when they keep their cars off the road (but probably won’t under the proposed scenario) but to our employers along these same routes who are competing to attract talent to Newton.
Also, we should all be realistic about hopes to see our commuter rail stations redesigned and two-way service. At best this is years away. But, also, this is Massachusetts where we have far too many examples of promised projects fail to reach fruition, encounter delays that last a generation, or be compromised in ways that fall far short of their promise or goal.
Greg, I’ve seen several references to West Newton losing service, as well as the case being made that new development on Washington Street is also losing service. The 505 express bus continues to serve these areas. Perhaps it needs to offer service off-peak as well. Yes, some addresses will have less convenient express bus service, more so in Auburndale than in West Newton that I see.
Increased service to Waltham provides greater access to an additional commuter rail line as well as to the new high frequency T70 bus to Watertown Square and Central and Kendall Squares in Cambridge. Amazingly fast? No, but much faster than today and it provides all day service. Similarly, the 61 bus gets you to Watertown with high frequency connections to Harvard Square.
As I said, our politicians and staff should be advocating for “all of the above”: retaining existing express service as much as possible and optimizing new service to serve the most people most efficiently most conveniently most of the time. If I planned my life around being on an express bus line to Boston, that’s what I’d want my Councilors and Mayor to do. The thing is, it’s easiest to advocate to keep things the same and prevent loss. It’s much harder to see the value of new service, particularly if it benefits people with very different transit needs than we have, people for whom transit is the only way to get anywhere reliably.
To back up their proposal, T really does have the data that goes far beyond our constituents. This isn’t a slapdash plan, and it deserves careful consideration as at least a basis for future changes. And, unfortunately, the T knows which routes underperform relative to their cost to the system. I frankly don’t know the future of one-seat ride express buses, especially ones parallel to transit. At the very least, we can likely squeeze more flag stops out of the T on the Newton commuter rail stops.
At this point, this is only a proposal in planning. It’s very good to start this discussion. I much prefer it to what may be happening at the same time: sudden service cuts based on federal safety action against the T.
I commuted between Newton and Boston for 17 years, by bus, commuter train, and car. [In my opinion, the MBTA Green Line took too long if you were travelling past Fenway and I only took it in snowstorms.]
I found the Express Bus downtown to be the best way to go, BY FAR. I would park in the St. Bernard’s lot near Washington and Prospect. This lot and the Express Buses downtown were jammed every single work day year-in and year-out with commuters. If you did not get to the St. Bernard’s lot by 8 am, you often had to skip the bus and pay for parking downtown because the lot was full. And normally, there was standing-room-only when the Express Bus pulled onto the Pike during morning rush hour.
I have not done this commute since 2014, however. Last week I went to look at the West Newton area at 2 pm on a work day. The St. Bernard’s lot has been sold to Learning Prep and was empty. More surprisingly, however, the lots around the West Newton rail slot were also fairly empty. These also used to be jammed every single work day.
I’m assuming the lot emptiness means that the commuter volume is still way down since COVID. Given this, I’m not sure how any reliable transportation planning can be done, since we don’t know how much downtown commuter traffic will return.
If the planning is going forward using pre-COVID levels, then the Express Bus should be kept with it’s current 505 route through Newton (not the abbreviated 505 Newton route proposed). It should also travel more frequently, including weekends, AND, if pre-COVID commuter levels return, the Newton government should buy the old St. Bernard’s lot and turn it into a municipal parking lot.
It’s unclear why buses get so little respect in transportation planning. The commuter rail was fine if you worked near South Station and I took it between 2004 and 2008 when this was the case. The buses, however, were able to stop at a much more centralized Boston location on Federal Street. More Newton Express Buses could added to Kendall Square and the Seaport District destinations if the demand was there – no new infrastructure required.
The other advantage to the express buses is that you don’t have to be able-bodied and not loaded down with packages or a stroller or the like to use them. Until the commuter rail is ADA-compliant, many people will not be physically able to use it who can use the express bus.
One bus I don’t see discussed much is the 556. Both my wife and I used this when commuting downtown, and truthfully, it’s a long, slow slog. Not a great ride.
However, a lot of middle and high school students use it to get from the neighborhoods bordering Waltham to school. I’m wondering what the loss of that route will do to the number of kids being driven (or driving themselves, as they age) to Newton North? To be fair, this isn’t something the MBTA needs to solve, but the city needs to examine the transportation routes of students, especially those who were using public transportation.
I’ll add that I believe the 556 followed the route that had originally been a streetcar that went from Newtonville through to Waltham. I read a history of one of the local Victorians that was built because a supervisor at the Waltham Watch factory wanted an easy commute, and the streetcar offered just that. It’s just a bus and a number, but it’s a route with a long history and represents a relatively significant change.
I am guessing their parents will just give them $2 to take NewMo
As a general comment, it is interesting to me that a factor in large residential developments, e.g., Trio, is that they are said to be near to a “transportation hub”. What happens when those services are reduced and/or eliminated?
Karen, service remains on Washington St, both express and enhanced local. That’s where much of the proposed major development is happening (like Trio). The commuter rail is also not going anywhere. The T makes cuts on lines and routes with low ridership. Density provides that ridership.
Yes, I too wish there were state guarantees that went with increases in density.
I am a West Newton commuter rail user, full time pre-Pandemic, back up to 3 days/week now while the COVID numbers look good.
In general, the buses transitioning to being feeders to rail transit is good for me. I’ll be able to catch buses to get me to West Newton, assuming the schedules align. Or to get me to Waltham (Fitchburg line), which is new. And these schedules mean we might be able to use public transit to go to Boston for fun on the weekends or on days off, not all that feasible today.
But also important to me is backup options. Yesterday, tragically, a commuter rail struck and killed a trespasser in Natick in time to utterly destroy the evening train schedule for the entire Framingham/Worcester line. Until the police clear the area, no trains can pass in either direction. If I had stuck with the commuter rail I would have gotten home 2+ hours later than planned. Lesser but still impactful delays occur for equipment or personnel related issues somewhat frequently. But thankfully I had a backup: the 505 express bus got me home a mere 35 minutes later than normal.
Conversely, some folks might prefer an express bus but use commuter rail as a backup (if there’s a major accident on the Pike, for example). So I think it’s important to maintain options for commuters.