tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post1728050444831454461..comments2024-03-27T09:13:58.922-07:00Comments on The Amateur Planner: The 70 bus is just … bizarreArihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06058285362842737187noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-90052946626934293672018-12-27T03:01:16.049-08:002018-12-27T03:01:16.049-08:00I really like your writing style, great informa...I really like your writing style, great information, thankyou for posting. <a href="https://www.mydriverparis.com/hire-bus-coach-paris/" rel="nofollow">coach service paris</a><br />Burhan Khatrihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18358976020410808072noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-36118342333743810272018-01-24T15:58:34.236-08:002018-01-24T15:58:34.236-08:00Clued-up publish! Your own recognized knowledge is...Clued-up publish! Your own recognized knowledge is excellent. Many thanks with regard to maintain me personally inform. To learn more I'll be in contact.<br /><a href="http://www.whentransit.com/applications/mtabusapp/" rel="nofollow">nyc bus tracker</a>When Transithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07407293004718668309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-55304327065513378742015-01-05T13:14:16.487-08:002015-01-05T13:14:16.487-08:00Oh, and the real solution is decent rail service, ...Oh, and the real solution is decent rail service, around which these town centers grew in the first place. Not the awful skeleton schedule we have in Waltham today. And that abandoned right-of-way through Watertown would not be sitting idle if the T made an effort to expand rail service to the places that need it the most.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-34837085756450454552015-01-05T13:10:40.803-08:002015-01-05T13:10:40.803-08:00There are some good ideas in Will Brownsberger'...There are some good ideas in Will Brownsberger's post. But the linked presentation about proposed improvements does not address what I think is the easiest problem to solve on the route: the terrible traffic light timing on Arsenal Street by the malls.<br /><br />The T needs to get Watertown to fix this mess. Adjacent lights should turn green at about the same time for Arsenal Street, so buses can catch more than one green in a row. And left arrows should not come on when there are no vehicles in the left turn lane.<br /><br />I don't know why the lights were programmed so badly when the street was rebuilt a few years ago. But this is a fix that can make a big difference with a modest effort, without waiting for a study that won't even start until the spring of 2015.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-69599336234071804072015-01-05T07:15:04.111-08:002015-01-05T07:15:04.111-08:00I'm a Waltham resident who lives along route 2...I'm a Waltham resident who lives along route 20 and the 70 bus is a lifeline for me to get into Boston (I work near DTX). What boggles my mind is the lack of a direct route to Alewife from the Watertown/Waltham area. I love taking the 71 into Harvard square, but that requires a long, long, irregular wait for the 70 (the problems with which you have already detailed here). The "express" busses, like the 504 and 505, are hugely hamstrung by the monumentally bad traffic on the pike. There's just no way for me to have any kind of regular or predictable commute into the city. It ranges from 30 minutes to 2+ hours from day to day. As both Watertown and Waltham increase their population density (tons of apartment & condo buildings going up in both towns), the strain on the poor transportation services in both locations is going to get rather nasty. I'm looking forward to seeing what's proposed to making things better.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-29988976300193274632014-12-13T11:37:10.425-08:002014-12-13T11:37:10.425-08:00Here's an update from Will Brownsberger's ...Here's an update from Will Brownsberger's office:<br />http://willbrownsberger.com/arsenal-corridor-study/Charlie D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/12894581357760437121noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-31087152147129857482014-12-03T12:34:47.047-08:002014-12-03T12:34:47.047-08:00This is pretty much either of the Express Bus situ...This is pretty much either of the Express Bus situations noted above, although I guess it would better serve Dudley at the expense of downtown. One bus would probably not even give you 2 hour headways, and the T is reticent to schedule anything for less than 60 minute headways on weekdays.<br /><br />One other thought I had would be to join the 70A and the 556 but then route it express on the Pike to Kendall Square via Central. Of issue is the traffic getting off the Pike, but this gives a direct link between Waltham/Newton and Kendall, and an easy Red Line transfer downtown.Arihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06058285362842737187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-48939780346214834692014-11-04T13:03:46.232-08:002014-11-04T13:03:46.232-08:00Waltham lacks a solid connection to the south side...Waltham lacks a solid connection to the south side of Boston. What about moving one bus from the 70A to the 170 and operating it all day weekdays?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-34856262225689288692014-10-09T05:52:53.593-07:002014-10-09T05:52:53.593-07:00I'd be interested in the through-riding number...I'd be interested in the through-riding numbers as well. Frankly I don't see a ton of people who are going from North Waltham directly to Central Square, or vice-versa. And if you provided one-seat service through to downtown it might open another market. The T already provides very limited reverse-commute service to that area via the 170; perhaps this could be integrated as well. And while that route would be long, it really wouldn't be appreciably longer than the 553 or 554. Plus, the 556 has the fewest passengers per trip of any of the 550-series routes (although this includes the entire day, and it may be skewed towards rush hour loading). Still in all, it would make a whole bunch of sense to merge those two routes: everyone would get better service without adding many (if any) service hours.Arihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06058285362842737187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-58914617934983957462014-10-08T17:20:22.755-07:002014-10-08T17:20:22.755-07:00I think it's just the three of us thus far doi...I think it's just the three of us thus far doing the scraping :-)<br /><br />As for service patterns on the 70, the problem is that the most logical place to hold buses for spacing is at Waltham, because ensuring the 70 and 70A leave at the right time to merge cleanly is too hard. But I don't think the MBTA drivers ever actually wait anywhere in the middle of a route. The real question about the 70A is how much through-riding there is through Waltham, and only the MBTA knows that (though we should work on shaking that information out of them too). I suspect it's not all that much, in which case linking it up with the 556 would be a logical choice. Though that would be a pretty long route subject to random delays too, at least it won't affect anyone on the main route of the 70.crzwdjkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06394805356595604336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-48245344807255687392014-10-08T13:35:49.921-07:002014-10-08T13:35:49.921-07:00Okay, so how many of us are scraping those data :)...Okay, so how many of us are scraping those data :) I'm planning my own analysis of that when I have the time. Which I don't. But still. I think I've made the point that the route is completely unwieldy; most MBTA bus routes are relatively unchanged since their streetcar days. (The 47, another post-BERy route, is made up of a couple of cobbled-together routes.) But a lot of the problem are the multiple termini: traffic on one piece of the route causes headway issues with the rest of the route.<br /><br />I really think that fixing the schedule would be a good first step, and a good second step would be to split off the 70A in to a separate route (probably running downtown). Although there would certainly be some merit to running it via Newton Corner and then express on the turnpike to Central Square, if only they were ever able to fix the morass getting off the Turnpike and on in to Central.Arihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06058285362842737187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-21404429592220486942014-10-07T21:24:22.847-07:002014-10-07T21:24:22.847-07:00I've been scraping and storing the GTFS-realti...I've been scraping and storing the GTFS-realtime data since August. The 70 does indeed bunch up even at times where the schedule has it spaced "evenly."<br />Matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02027332620204904993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293100068373105830.post-30195325472440637682014-10-07T14:37:54.756-07:002014-10-07T14:37:54.756-07:00I live just off the 70 bus, and sometimes take it ...I live just off the 70 bus, and sometimes take it to work, and yes, the irregular headways are intensely frustrating, and having even headways would be infinitely better. But I don't think poor scheduling is the only problem: the route just doesn't operate at all reliably. Even on weekends, when everything is supposed to be on 10 minute headways, it's not unusual to see a pair of buses, and on weekdays, even in the PM peak outbound service, when headways are allegedly consistent, one will occasionally see three buses in a row, and pairs are a daily occurrence. So while fixing the scheduling would be an improvement (especially for me personally, since I tend to take the inbound bus from Watertown between 9 and 10 am), the only way to truly fix things is through better service management to make sure that buses are at least not departing from Central Square (Cambridge or Waltham) in bunches of 2 or 3. And ultimately, maybe some well-placed priority measures to make sure the buses are reliably getting through rather than spending large random amounts of time waiting at bottlenecks like the Cambridge St/Soldiers Field Road mess, which can take anywhere between 1 and 5 light cycles to traverse depending on luck.<br />Meanwhile, I've actually been working on scraping the MBTA's GTFS-Realtime data, so maybe I'll try to make graphs like yours based on what the service is actually achieving, rather than what the MBTA wants it to do.crzwdjkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06394805356595604336noreply@blogger.com