ABCDC Annual Meeting Tuesday To Focus on Transportation Issues

The Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation is holding its annual meeting Tuesday night at 6:00 pm at the Veronica Smith Senior Center.

This year's meeting focuses on transportation issues, with a keynote address by Fred Salvucci, who was Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation under Governor Michael Dukakis. Historical context will be given by historian Bill Marchione, President of the Brighton Allston Historical Society.

The last two decades have seen an explosion in problems in transportation and traffic in Allston-Brighton (March 11, 2006 "Transportation Visioning" from the ABCDC's Allston Brighton Community Planning Initiative):

• Allston-Brighton resident permit parking increased by 88% between 1990 and 2000;
• Auto ownership per household increased around 30% during the same time period;
  
• Traffic volumes have doubled in the last three decades on Everett Street and Market Street, and increased by around 50% on Cambridge Street and North Beacon Street;
• MBTA ridership has been up 25% since 1988 but without an increase in service;
• Bus #66 is one of the busiest lines in the city, and frequently cannot meet its schedule -- and the MBTA Green/B line is often even slower than parallel traffic; and
  
• A-B has had no bicycle lanes, although the first, limited lanes (near Boston University) are scheduled to be completed this summer.
  

The challenges are only becoming bigger with Harvard University's massive expansion into, and development of, North Allston. Harvard's January 2007 Institutional Master Plan Notification Form project an additional 16,755 commuter round-trips per day to their North Allston campus, which has the potential to overwhelm bus service on MBTA routes #66 and 86 -- not to mention the roadways and intersections.

Worst hit may be the parking lot more affectionately known as the intersection of Cambridge Street and Storrow Drive (at the River Street Bridge), which will have a traffic increase of 21% due to Harvard's new development.

Those existing transportation problems and the potentially exacerbated problem posed by Harvard's development are the context for Tuesday's annual meeting of the ABCDC.


Keynote Speakers
Fred Salvucci: Former Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation, Senior Lecturer and Research Associate at MIT's Center for Transportation & Logistics.
Bill Marchione: Author and local historian

Veronica Smith Senior Center
20 Chestnut Hill Avenue, Brighton, MA 02135
6:00 pm: Refreshments, socializing, and exhibits
7:00 pm: Program

For more information: 617-787-3874; info@allstonbrightoncdc.org; http://www.allstonbrightoncdc.org

Image of a Model T Ford by Mitchel25J provided through a Creative Commons license.

MBTA Routinely and Secretly Cancelled Bus and Subway Trips For Years, And Admits Lying About It

The Boston Herald channeled The Onion today while reporting a true story that is literally jaw-dropping: for years, the MBTA has been routinely and secretly cancelling bus and subway trips that are on their schedules, and admits to lying to the public about the practice:

Top MBTA officials acknowledge that for years the agency has been secretly cutting thousands of bus and train trips from published schedules to lower costs - a practice that has left legions of customers waiting for rides that arrived late or not at all.

T General Manager Daniel Grabauskas told the Herald he has moved swiftly to end what he called “hidden service cuts” on bus and subway lines throughout the system. But he said customers have been lied to for years so the T could claim to operate at a level of service it was not delivering.

“We were not telling the truth to our customers before when we were not delivering the service that was scheduled,” Grabasukas said in an interview. “But we began to remedy that when I came on two years ago, and I know we’ve improved service.”...

“I had one very (senior-level) person say to me, ‘We knew we were dropping bus trips, so we’d go to the communities where we were dropping trips out of garages - and we would lie to people,’ ” Grabauskas said.

Grabauskas appears to be channeling the Straight-Talk Express now that John McCain has thrown himself under the bus.

For everyone who stands at a bus stop in foul weather waiting for a scheduled bus that never seemed to show up, you may now know the reason. For those who called the MBTA customer service number to try and figure out where the bus was -- or if a bus was actually running the scheduled route -- and got the run-around from the customer service agent or the garage's dispatcher, you may now know the reason.

You just can't make this stuff up.

For those who may not remember, MBTA General Manager Grabauskas doesn't ride the T himself because "it tends not to be convenient to me."

Via UniversalHub, which includes links to other bloggers' amazement and outrage at the MBTA General Manager's admission.

Bus #57 As an Example of MBTA's Woes

A Watertown reader wrote a letter-to-the-editor of the Boston Globe in response to the MBTA's financial woes recently covered by the Globe (a month after BostonNOW beat them to the punch by quoting the General Manager, Daniel Grabauskas, as saying the T is "structurally broke").

Writes Joseph Niedbala:

When I have to wait in the cold for 40 to 50 minutes, day after day, while bus after bus on the 57 line passes by packed with riders just a few stops after its start in Kenmore, it's obvious to me that the T can't coordinate its basic function as a public transportation provider, let alone extract itself from this financial morass.

Bus #57 is one of the heaviest-used public transportation routes crossing Allston-Brighton, and is a key element in the neighborhood's transportation infrastructure. (By the way, it does not travel down Chestnut Hill Avenue.)

BC Task Force Meeting Wednesday 1/16 at 6:30 pm

BC Task Force Meeting
Wednesday, January 16, 2008, 6:30-8:30 pm
Brighton Marine Health Center, 77 Warren Street, 3rd floor, Brighton MA 02135

For more information, contact: John Fitzgerald, Project Manager, BRA, 617-918-4267, John.Fitzgerald.bra@cityofboston.gov

Public comments on IMPNF: Due February 5, 2008 to the BRA.

Note: The BC Task Force has requested that attendees, if possible, provide them with written comments at their meetings. It doesn't have to be a formally-written letter, etc., but anything to help them assemble information in addition to verbal comments at the meetings. Address letters to Jean Woods, Chair, BC Task Force. You can also email them to the task force at bctaskforce@yahoo.com

BC's master plan website with electronic version of their project notification form


Agenda: Transportation, Traffic, and Parking Issues in BC's 10-year institutional master plan

See Chapter 6 of the 12/5/07 IMPNF.

Intersection changes. Boston College has proposed a three-fold modification to the intersection of Commonwealth Avenue, Lake Street, and St. Thomas More Road:

1. Move the MBTA T station ("Boston College") from northeast of the intersection to a center station east of the intersection;
2. Construct a new intersection on Commonwealth Avenue east of the intersection for a new entrance into the Brighton Campus (former St. John's Seminary land); and
   
3. Re-route St. Thomas More Road further to the east so that it lines up with the new intersection in #2.

While BC's presentation to the April meeting of the BC Task Force dealt with #2 and 3, MBTA officials backed out of attending that meeting at the last minute. BC's presentation on December 4th stated that that MBTA supports #1, but we have not heard directly from the MBTA itself as to what that means. Who pays for #1 will also be an important detail.

Will these changes to the intersection improve its level-of-service? At the April 2007, BC's consultants said yes, but the jury is still out on this until their assumptions, data, analysis, and conclusions are subject to an independent peer review. In at least one previous case, BC's consultants have made poor predictions about traffic level-of-service.

Parking spaces. The master plan includes removal of many parking spaces (particularly surface lot spaces) and construction of many others (both underground spaces and parking garage structures) for a net increase of 36 spaces. BC's employees will increase by 100 faculty, 12 staff, and 342 graduate students over the next 10 years, but 36 new (net) parking spaces is more than 140 short of accomodating these new employees assuming current auto mode share rates.

Furthermore, BC's expansion in the natural sciences, in particular, appears to neglect all of the additional employees associated with the laboratory sciences -- post-doctoral fellows and researchers, lab technicians, etc. -- which would lead to a substantially higher number for the increase in staff than 12. (See previous story for extrapolation based on Harvard GSAS and Harvard Medical School figures; BC has not provided similar numbers related to their current demographics in the natural sciences or other fields in which they plan to expand their faculty.) Such additional staff would be accompanied by additional need for parking spaces not included in the master plan.

Transportation Demand Management (TDM) program. While BC has included some elements of a TDM program (e.g., zipcars), there are other elements that are surprisingly not included: BC neither does not subsidizes MBTA passes nor charges employees (faculty, staff, and students) for parking on-campus. Both subsidized T passes and charging for parking are standard practices for institutions of higher education in Boston and surrounding areas.

[NOTE: Comment posted below contradicts this, saying that both students and faculty now pay for parking. The IMPNF states no such charges, except for the case of graduate students who pay to park at the Orkney Road site (page 6-8). The IMPNF only states that "are required to register their vehicles and obtain a parking permit to park on campus." Inspection of this website at BC indicates the parking fees for faculty and staff.]

MBTA Buses #64 and 86 Diverted

From the MBTA:

Bus 64 Oak Square - Kendall/MIT - is being diverted due to roadway problem - snow route.

Bus 86 Sullivan Sq. Sta. - Reservoir (Cleveland Circle) - is being diverted due to Street closure. 2 stops missed. Market @ Arlington and Keenan.


UPDATE (10:00 am):  Market Street northbound is now open.  Southbound is being diverted to side streets.  The problem with the alternate southbound route(s) is that they mostly lead to uncontrolled intersections, i.e., without traffic signals.  There are a number of BPD officers around trying to direct traffic, but Washington Street in both directions, and Market Street southbound, were nearly in gridlock this morning.

MBTA Bus #86 is making all stops northbound, but the two stops mentioned above are likely being missed for southbound buses.

Using Photoshop to Improve Bus Service to Brighton

When scanning through Boston College's Institutional Master Plan (IMP) over the weekend to get a feel for the overall thing, I started out reading in my usual way -- looking at the pictures first. (Funny, my daughter seems to do the same thing, indicating how little I have improved my reading ability since childhood.)

I came across Figure 6-1, a map of transit routes near to BC. This figure must've been somebody's idea of a joke -- except that I couldn't find the $20 bill they had taped to the back of the page in case anybody actually read the whole thing. Here it is:

How is this map wrong? Let me count the ways...

1. Mystery Bus: Bus #193 doesn't exist, at least according to the MBTA's website. (Oddly enough, googling on "bus 193 mbta" points to MBTA trip planner website, which lists a Bus #193 -- but turns into Bus #57 as you follow the various links. Might there be an historical Bus #193 that MBTA hasn't fully disgorged from their website?)
2. Misleading Bus Route: Bus #52 route generally passes north-south through Watertown Square, not east-west east of Oak Square. Well, that is, except for once daily -- on school days only -- when it makes that funny little run into Brighton Center. The approximately 2:30 pm school-day run won't help campus commuters; it's really quite misleading for a map like this. (Compare to the MBTA's own map below.)
   
3. Bus Route That Just Won't Stop: Bus #65 starts in Kenmore Square, travels through Longwood and Brookline Village, and has its terminus in Brighton Center... so I am surprised to see BC's map having it continue west beyond Brighton Center towards Oak Square.
4. Magically Re-Routed Bus: Bus #66 starts from Harvard Square and travels roughly south through North Allston and Allston -- not southwest into Brighton, through Brighton Center, and towards Oak Square. They have magically moved the Bus #66 route a mile-and-a-half to the west.
5. Another Re-Routed Bus: Bus #57 goes east-west through Brighton, but does not branch south along Chestnut Hill Avenue.
   

Here's what the MBTA's own system map looks like:



which, obviously, has no Bus #193, does not bother labelling Bus #52's once-on-a-school-day-route going through Oak Square, correctly turns Bus #65 (thin brown line) around at Brighton Center, and, of course, leaves Bus #66 in its rightful place off-map. (I know, I know, I shouldn't trust the MBTA website for accurate information... but once-in-a-while the MBTA might actually get it right.)

How could BC and their planning consultants, Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc., have gotten the local transit map so mixed up? It's actually not very surprising considering that only 6% of Boston College faculty and staff commute on public transportation (Table 6-4). You would have to, on average, have 17 BC staff employees carefully review this one figure in order to find one who actually commutes on the MBTA -- who would quickly see the mistakes inserted into the figure by the consultant. (Who knows what VHB's own transit mode share is? Anyone want to bet it's less than 6%?)

Having so many buses appear to pass near to BC's campus sure does make it look like the university's neighborhood is exceptionally well-served by public transit.

The funny thing is that Harvard's North Allston neighbors have been clamoring for improvements to Bus #66 service. Boston College has offered up such improvement by extending its route out to Oak Square! If only photoshop = reality.


UPDATE (12/28/07): BC's IMP website has updated this figure, correcting the mistakes noted above (while classifying route #52 with an asterisk for "limited service"). One reader noted that route #193 may refer to a once-a-day afternoon run of bus #57 along a slightly different route.

MBTA Head Grabauskas Avoids Riding T Because It Is Not Convenient

OK, OK, OK... this is old news. I have read many people disparage MBTA head Daniel Grabauskas for not riding the T because he finds it inconvenient. So many, that I thought it important to dig out where this little nugget came from. Here it is from the Boston Globe 1/22/06:

But winning over the car commuter has always been the challenge. Even Grabauskas, the MBTA's general manager who lives in Ipswich, a town served by commuter rail, usually drives to work. "Where I live in town is right off the highway," he says, "and my schedule is erratic enough that it tends not to be convenient for me."

I think we should pay him minimum wage and give him a performance bonus (to his current salary) if he gets a guy named Grabauskas from Ipswich to commute daily on the T. Making this guy head of the MBTA is kind-of like naming William Bennett to head the U.S. Department of Education, or James Watt to head the Department of the Interior, or... [complete this listing yourself]

Sickening Smack, Part III: MBTA D-line

The MBTA has recently been cutting down trees along the D-line, particularly close to the Reservoir station. Writes Ben Ostrander:

One would think the T would order new trains that fit on the tracks it currently had rather than buy the trains, discover that someone couldn't measure, and then replace all the tracks! At least that is how I understand the problem. Well, the T has recently been shutting the D Line down every weekend to cut down all the trees at all the stations (at least from Resevoir to Fenway). You can especially notice the difference at Reservoir (where we used to have a mini forest on the inbound side of the station) and at Brookline Village where a whole hill of trees was chopped down leaving a whole hill of stumps.

BC Neighbors Forum: Public Meeting Monday, May 21 at 7:00pm

Boston College Neighbors Forum: Public Meeting

Monday, May 21, 7:00 pm
Edison Middle School
60 Glenmont Street

Area residents are invited to attend a community meeting to analyze and discuss the details of the Boston College development plans. The meeting will take place on Monday, May 21st, 7:00 pm, at the Edison Middle School, 60 Glenmont Road, Brighton.

The Boston College Neighbors Forum is an unaffiliated, independent grassroots discussion group. The goal of the meeting is to build a consensus in the community on issues of common concern, and to eventually prepare formal community feedback to BC and the City of Boston.

The May 21 meeting will focus on BC plans for transportation-related issues, including re-routing St. Thomas More Road and moving the MBTA station. Proposed buildings along Commonwealth Avenue will also be discussed.

Public participation is strongly encouraged and all residents will be afforded an opportunity to speak as time permits. Possible topics for future meetings will be discussed.

For more information, Michael Pahre at 617-216-1447 or pahre@comcast.net; or visit the GoogleGroup at
http://groups.google.com/group/BC_Neighbors_Forum .

What BC Left Out of Their Traffic/Transportation Presentation

Officials of Boston College, and their associates, presented various details of their master plan on "traffic and transportation" to the April 17, 2007 meeting of the BC Task Force.

The following topics were not addressed at all:

1. Details of moved BC T station. (MBTA planners not ready to present the details.)
   
2. No information on employee / student "mode share", i.e., the percentages who:
• drive a car to work
• take city bus
• take BC shuttle bus
• take subway
• bicycle
• walk.
3. What is their plan to reduce the one person / one car "mode share"?
   
4. How many cars (parking) and people (transportation) would be moving from the main campus to the Brighton Campus? BC has made many statements of no net increase in numbers of people***, but their plans clearly move people from easily accessible sites on the main campus to less accessible sites on the Brigton Campus.
   
5. Bicycles:
• Harvard has made clear that their plan for Allston encourages bicycle use. BC avoided the topic altogether.
• Would any bicycle lanes on streets be introduced? Where?
• Would there be any bicycle paths on their main campus?
• Will the development in the Brighton Campus include any bike-friendly paths or lanes?
• How to connect bicycle routes between each of BC's campuses?
• Increasing bicycle parking locations, showers, etc., to encourage bicycle commuting.
• Do they even have a complete inventory of their bicycle parking spaces (racks) and shower facilities?
  
6. Students and cars: Zip cars on-campus could reduce demand for on-campus student parking and off-campus illegal parking.
7. Shuttle buses: How many will service the new Brighton Campus? Will shuttle bus system be opened to the public? How will expansion of parking spaces in Newton Campus be accomodated by increased bus support to the Main Campus / Brighton Campus? What will shuttle bus routes to Brighton Campus follow -- will they turn around, or continue on through to Foster Street? (Buses on Foster Street? It's conceivable.)

Can you think of any more that they left out?

Follow the conversation into the BC Neighbors Forum...


*** NB: This topic will be addressed in a future posting... they may have left a lot of people out!