Bus Priority Pilot

Officials Hopeful Bus Priority Program Will Improve Commute on Mt. Auburn Street

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It takes something special to get state and local officials to gather next to a bus stop at 8 a.m. a chilly morning, but celebrating the start of a program to speed up buses along Mt. Auburn Street rose to that occasion Friday morning. The group in front of Star Market showed up for the launch of the Cambridge-Watertown Mt. Auburn Street Bus Priority Pilot, also referred to as bus rapid transit or BRT. Users of the roadway may have noticed the red lanes, and new traffic patterns, which are designed to move buses, and — they hope — other vehicles, toward Harvard Square at a brisker pace.

Government

Plan to Redesign Mt. Auburn St., Common St. Area Creates Parking But Not In Front of Stores

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A plan to redesign the Mt. Auburn Street/Common Street intersection would create 10 more parking spaces in that area, but some businesses in that area would lose the parking spots in front of their stores. The Town Council’s Public Works subcommittee heard a presentation from WorldTech Engineering, the firm designing the Mt. Auburn Street reconstruction project. Designers presented three options for the business area just east of Watertown Square based on where MBTA bus stops would be located.

Boston Marathon Bombing

Buses to Start Using New Red Lanes on Mt. Auburn Street Soon, Also Impacts Bikes, Cars

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The following information was provided by the MBTA and Town of Watertown:
Beginning the week of Oct. 15, the Town of Watertown, the City of Cambridge, the MBTA, the Mass. Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, and the Barr Foundation will roll out a bus priority pilot funded by a grant from the Barr Foundation to bring elements of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) to the Mount Auburn Street Corridor, serving MBTA routes 71 and 73, as well as employee shuttles. The project will feature painted bus and bicycle only lanes – primarily on Mount Auburn Street between Cottage Street and Coolidge Avenue in the inbound direction – as well as signage and signal changes to create faster, more reliable service for 12,000+ daily bus riders while improving traffic flow for everyone. The partners will host an official launch event with speaking program on the morning of Oct.

Letters

OP-ED: MBTA Making Changes to Avoid “Ghost Buses” on Cellphone App

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State Sen. Will Brownsberger, (D – Belmont) who represents Watertown, provided the following piece:

MBTA bus arrival predictions should get better as of today and further improvements can be expected over the next few months. Representatives Jon Hecht and Dave Rogers and I learned a lot at a recent meeting with MBTA management about bus service complaints that we had received from riders. Most regular bus riders now rely on mobile phone apps to get predictions of when the next bus will arrive. Here is how those predictions are generated and how the technology is changing. Each MBTA bus is equipped with a device that transmits its location back to the MBTA’s control center.

Letters

LETTER: Watertown Deserves to be a Priority in MBTA’s Investment Plan

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Letter To The Editor

The MBTA recently released its “Focus 40 Investment Plan.” On pages 13-19 of that plan, the MBTA gives an overview of which communities it considers “Priority Places”  in its Focus 40 investment plan. https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/projects/focus40/2018-07-30-focus40-draft-plan-digital.pdf

I believe that Watertown (East Watertown in particular) deserves the “Priority Place” designation because it’s fits many of the criteria for a Priority Place listed on page 14 including:
“• Lack rapid transit service, but bus usage exceeds available capacity
• Face traffic congestion that compromises the performance of MBTA buses in mixed traffic
• Host major centers of activity or dense residential populations, but lack efficient public transit access
• Feature population or employment densities that support higher frequency transit”
I urge Watertown’s residents and local and state representatives to contact the MBTA to add Watertown to its “Priority Places” so that our small but growing city can get the public transit investments we need for our future,

 

Teddy Kokoros
Watertown Resident

Transportation

See When the Garage at Alewife MTBA Station Will be Reopening

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The following information was provided by the Mass. Department of Transportation:

Following the weekend closure of the Alewife Station parking garage, work crews were able to address areas of concrete deterioration, which will allow all levels of the garage to reopen at 5 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 13. Out of an abundance of caution, the MBTA proactively closed the garage on Friday, Aug. 10, to allow crews to expedite concrete repairs and to conduct a comprehensive engineering assessment. During the weekend closure, crews were able to address additional areas of deteriorated concrete, inspect and cover expansion joints where appropriate, and secure the paths of travel for pedestrian and vehicular access to the garage.

Alewife

MBTA Closing Alewife Garage Over the Weekend

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The MBTA sent out this message about the repairs on the Alewife Garage. NOTE, this story was updated at 4 p.m. on Aug. 10: 
The safety of its customers and employees is the MBTA’s highest priority. Today, the MBTA is announcing that out of an abundance of caution, the Alewife garage will be closed through the weekend to allow for continued repairs and a comprehensive engineering assessment. 
Through ongoing assessments and repair work, additional areas of deteriorated concrete that need to be addressed have been discovered. As such, the garage will be closed over the weekend to address these areas and to expedite the repair plan.

Around Town

Queue Jump Lanes Added to Mt. Auburn Street in Effort to Improve Bus Service

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The following information was provided by the Department of Public Works:

Following days of initial testing, the Town of Watertown has debuted two “queue jump” lanes at School Street and Walnut Street. Queue jump lanes allow buses to move more quickly through intersections by “jumping” to the front of a line of traffic. Bus rapid transit (BRT) systems around the world use queue jump lanes to create a faster and more reliable bus ride and improve overall traffic flow. “Roughly 5,000 bus trips are made each day in Watertown in this corridor, and the Route 71 bus is an important asset to the community,” said Matthew Shuman, Town Engineer for the Town of Watertown. “We also know from research in other places that moving Watertown closer to BRT with queue jump lanes has the potential to speed up the commute for everyone by separating buses from cars at intersections.