This is just the new green line extension, which for a brand new multi-billion dollar line extension, is bad enough.
Take the Red Line? You might be seeing 56-88 minutes of delays (compared to years ago) compared to years prior, per data published by Transit Matters (https://dashboard.transitmatters.org/red/). Long distance trips (as in, much of the entire line) that took 40 minutes taking more than twice as long now.
In 2019 a train derailed taking out a signal house (https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2019/09/16/red-line-dera...). Per the TransitMatters chart, immediately after the derailment the average delays were about a half hour, but it’s since grown to twice to triple that!
The result is Red Line service is now under 60% of pre-pandemic service levels, with only about 45-50% of its previous ridership. (https://recovery.transitmatters.org/)
"Operated as Line 11 of the Moscow Metro, the BCL has a total length of 70km and is 13km longer than Line 10 in Beijing. Line 11 now serves a total of 31 stations"
Similarly, Paris is building 200km+ of new fully automated, fully grade separated, mostly underground metro covering the Paris metro area, and using the opportunity for urban redevelopment as well:
Don’t forget India. It’s putting massive metros in all its major cities and connecting them with semi-high speed medium and long distance trains as well at a crazy pace. All indigenously built.
The MBTA is a joke at this point and it is going to hurt the city.
Parts of the red line run horribly slow due to signaling issues (no idea when that is being fixed). Those same parts are shut down on weekends and after 9pm (something like that, I don't know the exact time) and replaced with shuttles.
The green line extension has been great when it worked but its been a mess.
Taking the green line and being stranded in a tunnel with no updates. Eventually multiple if us just got off and took Lyfts to where we were going.
The new trains had multiple issues. The Fires and I am sure plenty of other things I am forgetting about.
I made a conscious choice to not own a car but I am finding myself spending more and more on taking Lyfts because it just isn't reliable. Then traffic gets worse and it is just a really bad situation.
I used to live in Boston and visited recently for the first time in a while. The red line was so slow between Central Square and Harvard that I thought there must have been some kind of mechanical failure, but when I mentioned it to friends afterwards they said that it had been like that for months.
Really makes you wonder if they have a point about elite overproduction. Greater Boston has 70+ colleges and a very highly educated population, arguably the most well-educated among all large metros in the country[0]; yet with a budget of half a billion dollars per mile, they ended up with something broken, with something as fundamental as the track gauge!
The chief thing to understand about the MBTA (and many other things about metro Boston), is it's a patronage system at heart. Jobs to friends, and jobs to allies. That's it. Stripping the system and the public in order to pay for nice homes on the Cape, and to pay for nice retirements in NH and Maine.
The MBTA is a disgrace and shows the incredible level of corruption in Massachusetts. Half of all rail accidents are due to the MBTA and over 90% of all injuries.
Workers routinely fake results. Corporations fake work. The MBTA and more broadly MA infrastructure is falling apart. I've never lived in a state with such disastrously bad drivers and roads. Oh and the police refuse to enforce traffic laws here (the state tried to literally pay our city to ask the police to enforce traffic laws and they refused so we had to return the money; sitting around construction sites doing nothing is easier).
Our city tried to sue one of the DoT contractors that damaged city infrastructure and caused many safety violations. DoT stepped in behind our back at a closed meeting the city wasn't allowed to attend and gave the contractor a special exemption that cleared their record and made them immune. Even though the law says they shouldn't be allowed to get new contracts for several years after such shoddy work.
Boston public transport is a mess due to long years of underfunding and neglect. The pandemic and the general crappiness of service has hit rider numbers hard and I fear that the Boston subway system is in a death spiral. The new line extension was a rare bit of good news and a welcome addition but having badly laid track is all to common here.
I actually rode the tracks in question last month and remarked how smooth they seemed compared to the rest of the green line. I guess that was too good to last.
I'm not sure how much more funding it could possibly get? Even before the pandemic, the T was only pulling in roughly a third of its operating expenses in revenue[0], meaning the other two thirds was paid for by other sources. Notably, operating income wasn't even enough to pay wages and benefits for MBTA employees.
The majority of those "other sources" was transfers from the state sales tax[1], meaning people living in Worcester, Springfield, Pittsfield, and Chatham were contributing to a system they don't use. Since the pandemic, public transit systems all across the country took a huge hit in ridership, and received federal funding as well, so now you have people living in California, Kansas, and Mississippi all chipping in, too.
Now I understand that taxation provides for the common welfare, and everyone subsidizes everybody else at some point, but with Greater Boston having the fifth-highest per capita income of all metros[2], I find it a little strange that the T requires such a great subsidy.
Buses are usually the cheaper inferior option. While bus service doesn't inherently suck, the type of decision making that chooses buses to minimize cost will usually cost optimize every portion of a bus network until the experience suffers. Dedicated lanes are not provided so buses get stuck in traffic. Bus stops without rain shelters or even a bench (versus full stations). Operating budgets get cut and then the interval between buses goes to 30 min. Service after 10 p.m. gets cut.
The bus networks that don't suck are usually called "shuttles" and are underwritten by tourism districts, airports, and theme park operators.
There’s a huge difference between good and bad metro lines. Just like how there’s a difference between good and bad bus systems.
Frequent and reliable metro with good coverage will beat bus system because of predictability. Also, capacity wise it’s much more effective, faster and etc. Unfortunately, most of North America’s systems are not of this type.
Flexible capacity = attempts at over optimization = not trusting that capacity will be there = unpredictable.
Shared infrastructure with roads and following road laws = all the inconvenience of traffic jams.
Flexible routes may be nice on a multi-year timetable but still runs into the jam issues above.
So if we are going to build dedicated lanes with special signal crossings and high capacity to encourage a large population to use it, let's make it as efficient as possible - a rail track is much more efficient than tires, and electricity is better than directly burning fuel, and delivering electricity through rail is better than battery.
Buses can only hope to match the reliability and headway of metro services if they have dedicated right of way and signal priority for the complete route. This eliminates several of your supposed benefits.
[+] [-] MrFoof|2 years ago|reply
Take the Red Line? You might be seeing 56-88 minutes of delays (compared to years ago) compared to years prior, per data published by Transit Matters (https://dashboard.transitmatters.org/red/). Long distance trips (as in, much of the entire line) that took 40 minutes taking more than twice as long now.
In 2019 a train derailed taking out a signal house (https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2019/09/16/red-line-dera...). Per the TransitMatters chart, immediately after the derailment the average delays were about a half hour, but it’s since grown to twice to triple that!
The result is Red Line service is now under 60% of pre-pandemic service levels, with only about 45-50% of its previous ridership. (https://recovery.transitmatters.org/)
[+] [-] cpursley|2 years ago|reply
"Operated as Line 11 of the Moscow Metro, the BCL has a total length of 70km and is 13km longer than Line 10 in Beijing. Line 11 now serves a total of 31 stations"
- https://www.railjournal.com/passenger/metros/big-circle-line...
- https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/spotlight/moscow-metro-l...
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCRvODzM5Ck
And even Africa is laying track and opening more metro stations than the US:
- https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/start-lagos-metro-offer...
- https://www.africanews.com/2023/09/05/nigeria-lagos-blue-rai...
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I43y3BwmIFk
[+] [-] sofixa|2 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Paris_Express
[+] [-] bpye|2 years ago|reply
- https://www.translink.ca/plans-and-projects/projects/rapid-t...
- https://www.translink.ca/plans-and-projects/projects/rapid-t...
- https://www.translink.ca/plans-and-projects/projects/rapid-t...
[+] [-] huytersd|2 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_India?wprov...
https://themetrorailguy.com/metro-rail-projects-in-india/
[+] [-] Mountain_Skies|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cpursley|2 years ago|reply
https://youtu.be/HACaRm2KP6Q?si=jVU5MuflfJsPKWN6
[+] [-] nerdjon|2 years ago|reply
Parts of the red line run horribly slow due to signaling issues (no idea when that is being fixed). Those same parts are shut down on weekends and after 9pm (something like that, I don't know the exact time) and replaced with shuttles.
The green line extension has been great when it worked but its been a mess.
Taking the green line and being stranded in a tunnel with no updates. Eventually multiple if us just got off and took Lyfts to where we were going.
The new trains had multiple issues. The Fires and I am sure plenty of other things I am forgetting about.
I made a conscious choice to not own a car but I am finding myself spending more and more on taking Lyfts because it just isn't reliable. Then traffic gets worse and it is just a really bad situation.
[+] [-] selectionbias|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gottorf|2 years ago|reply
[0]: https://www.unomaha.edu/college-of-public-affairs-and-commun...
[+] [-] paleotrope|2 years ago|reply
The chief thing to understand about the MBTA (and many other things about metro Boston), is it's a patronage system at heart. Jobs to friends, and jobs to allies. That's it. Stripping the system and the public in order to pay for nice homes on the Cape, and to pay for nice retirements in NH and Maine.
[+] [-] light_hue_1|2 years ago|reply
Workers routinely fake results. Corporations fake work. The MBTA and more broadly MA infrastructure is falling apart. I've never lived in a state with such disastrously bad drivers and roads. Oh and the police refuse to enforce traffic laws here (the state tried to literally pay our city to ask the police to enforce traffic laws and they refused so we had to return the money; sitting around construction sites doing nothing is easier).
Our city tried to sue one of the DoT contractors that damaged city infrastructure and caused many safety violations. DoT stepped in behind our back at a closed meeting the city wasn't allowed to attend and gave the contractor a special exemption that cleared their record and made them immune. Even though the law says they shouldn't be allowed to get new contracts for several years after such shoddy work.
[+] [-] AndrewStephens|2 years ago|reply
I actually rode the tracks in question last month and remarked how smooth they seemed compared to the rest of the green line. I guess that was too good to last.
[+] [-] gottorf|2 years ago|reply
I'm not sure how much more funding it could possibly get? Even before the pandemic, the T was only pulling in roughly a third of its operating expenses in revenue[0], meaning the other two thirds was paid for by other sources. Notably, operating income wasn't even enough to pay wages and benefits for MBTA employees.
The majority of those "other sources" was transfers from the state sales tax[1], meaning people living in Worcester, Springfield, Pittsfield, and Chatham were contributing to a system they don't use. Since the pandemic, public transit systems all across the country took a huge hit in ridership, and received federal funding as well, so now you have people living in California, Kansas, and Mississippi all chipping in, too.
Now I understand that taxation provides for the common welfare, and everyone subsidizes everybody else at some point, but with Greater Boston having the fifth-highest per capita income of all metros[2], I find it a little strange that the T requires such a great subsidy.
[0]: https://www.mbta.com/financials/audited-financials
[1]: https://www.mbta.com/financials/mbta-budget
[2]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/610026/us-metropolitan-a...
[+] [-] runeofdoom|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hprotagonist|2 years ago|reply
and the ear-splitting squeals coming in to copley, park street, arlington, boylston,…
[+] [-] mhb|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] xnx|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] supertrope|2 years ago|reply
The bus networks that don't suck are usually called "shuttles" and are underwritten by tourism districts, airports, and theme park operators.
[+] [-] kredd|2 years ago|reply
Frequent and reliable metro with good coverage will beat bus system because of predictability. Also, capacity wise it’s much more effective, faster and etc. Unfortunately, most of North America’s systems are not of this type.
[+] [-] unethical_ban|2 years ago|reply
Flexible capacity = attempts at over optimization = not trusting that capacity will be there = unpredictable.
Shared infrastructure with roads and following road laws = all the inconvenience of traffic jams.
Flexible routes may be nice on a multi-year timetable but still runs into the jam issues above.
So if we are going to build dedicated lanes with special signal crossings and high capacity to encourage a large population to use it, let's make it as efficient as possible - a rail track is much more efficient than tires, and electricity is better than directly burning fuel, and delivering electricity through rail is better than battery.
[+] [-] bpye|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Robotbeat|2 years ago|reply