Boston Part 2 - Transit
 

Following are pictures of Boston's transit system. For pictures of the city and its urbanism, see Part 1.

Boston can lay a legitimate claim to having the most diverse transit system in America. They have commuter rail, third rail metro, light rail in both subway and streetcar form, trolley buses, bus subways, BRT, and of course regular old surface buses. The only cities that can come close to matching Boston's diversity are Philadelphia and San Francisco.

Naturally, I found it all very interesting.

Let's start with the Silver Line, Boston's BRT subway, and its newest major piece of transit infrastructure.

Here are the Silver Line platforms at South Station, where you can catch transfers to the Red Line subway, commuter rail, and Amtrak.







It's fairly obvious that the Silver Line was built on the cheap. Low-ceiling, industrial-looking stations, no electronic displays with arrival information, etc. They even rely on a temporary sandwich board sign to tell you where the airport bus comes, rather than incorporating more useful and better-looking permanent signage.

However for its faults, the subway portion of the Silver Line functions well enough. Buses move though it quickly without obstruction. Great. Unfortunately it is only a subway for a short portion of 3 or 4 stops. It's mostly a surface bus. Even the route to the airport, ostensibly an express, spends a few blocks running in mixed-traffic on regular surface streets. On the whole the Silver Line comes off as seeming inescapably half-assed. Like somebody told a bunch of planners who were uninterested in doing so that they had to build a rapid transit line, and the planners did so grudgingly, kicking and screaming the whole way. It's better than a surface bus, but it's not a good substitute for a real rail subway.

... Well that was a downer, so now let's see something cool.

Boston's Green Line holds the impressive dual distinctions of being both North America's first subway (opened 1897) and its most ridden light rail line (daily ridership: 237,700).

Haymarket station.







This is the Green Line platform at Park Street Station, where the Red Line intersects. Presumably the station was upgraded when the Red Line was built, since it obviously has components that don't date from the 19th Century.

I am a little freaked out by the platforms and tracks being the same level.





Speaking of the Red Line, here it is. It's a traditional third rail subway, like in New York and Washington.

This is still Park Street Station.



You may have noticed that Green Line trains were all had green paint schemes. Train livery matches the line name on every line, so this Red Line train is red.



... And Orange Line trains (also third-rail) are orange.





Blue Line trains are also blue, but I didn't get a picture.

This is the mezzanine level of Harvard Station on the Red Line. Of course there's a Dunkin' Donuts, it's New England.



The main entrance to Harvard Station, with escalators and elevators.



A secondary entrance, with stairs only.




In Cambridge I discovered trolley buses. I love trolley buses, and wish more cities had them.





Once again, I love these things, but can I just say that Boston has the ugliest bus fleet in the world. Seriously. I don't know where they get these hulking things, but they certainly make me appreciate Washington's more elegant-looking fleet.



Ah, a bus subway. This would explain why they still run trolley buses.

I am not sure, but I think this subway is just a single station, a bus transfer point connecting to the Harvard Red Line station. However I could be wrong. Maybe another forumer knows?



Here is a wikipedia picture (source) of the trolleybus station. It seems appropriate for the thread, even though it's not my photo.



Some normal buses.





Boston is not a city known for its cycling infrastructure, but this little intersection in Cambridge is interesting. It's a turn lane that allows bikes to cross over car traffic more safely.



We'll wrap up the thread with a couple pictures of South Station. The building itself and the main hall were shown in Part 1, but here are the intercity platforms. The train visible in this first picture is an Acela, the one featured in the second is slow-speed, but electric.

great set, thanks.

I found transit to be somewhat awkward and even kinda ghetto trying to get from back bay to the convention centre.

But it was fine at the end of the day.

I agree. In my experience, awkward is a could descriptor. It works, but not easily. Fortunately Boston is an easy town to walk in.

Also agree with Cirrus on the silver line. I used it heavily my last trip there and everything about it seems half-assed (for lack of a better term).

Thanks!

Great set, and thanks for posting! The T isn't the most efficient thing in the world and shows its age in a lot of spots, but it's invaluable and mostly gets you where you need to go (just not always on time).

And boats!

Yep, just the one. The other end of the tunnel is on the north side of Harvard Square.

Wow that Bus Subway looks really, really weird. Is the Green Line really LRT (light rail) as I think it's a subway system (generally heavy rail). Toronto, Monterrey, and Calgary hold the most riders for LRT, not Boston, that's why I'm questioning it. Could you confirm (or somebody else)? thanks.

The Green line is definitely light rail. It's a streetcar that runs in subway through downtown.

Streetcar and LRT can mean different things though. If it has it's own ROW, I generally consider it LRT. I'm sure you'd know better, though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail_in_North_America#Usage_of_light_rail_in_North_America

This one shows LRT in Boston at 267K and Calgary at 271K. Surprising. I always thought Toronto and Calgary battled it up for #1 in Can./USA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_light_rail_systems_by_ridership

Interestingly, different parts of the Green Line run in just about every configuration you can think of. It includes elevated, subway, street median (separated from traffic but still subject to traffic lights), streetcar in traffic, and basic grade separated ROW. I wonder if that's at all a noteworthy bit of trivia.

The system may seem half-assed, but it's a cash strapped system that continues to improve stations and capabilities, has expansion plans, and pretty much already gets you everywhere you need to go. Few other cities in this country hold that distinction.

Great photos. I personally find transit photos much more interesting than the typical skyline and streetscape shots we usually see on this forum.

Not to take anything away from Boston, which definitely has one of the best transit systems in the nation; but IMO San Francisco not only comes close to, but exceeds Boston in terms of transit diversity. SF has heavy rail subway, light rail subway, light rail surface (modern streetcar), vintage electric streetcars (the F-Line), diesel buses, trolley buses, ferries, commuter rail, and oh yeah, those little things called cable cars. ;) I believe Boston overall has a better system with more thorough coverage of the city, but San Francisco has a more diverse collection of modes.

^^ Boston also has a "vintage" line running PCC streetcars: The Ashmont-Mattapan "High Speed" Line

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2370/2482867103_527cdb3270.jpg

Flickr: SignalPAD

Heh. This thread brings back memories. I lived in Boston for about a year before living in D.C. (your hometown!) - also for about a year. I gotta say though - while there are things I really appreciate about Boston, its transit system is not on the list. Despite being diverse, extensive and well-used, the nostalgia for older transit models (such as the Green line trolleys) makes for a chaotic, jumbled mess of a system that doesn't mesh coherently and is very inefficient. In short, it became a headache to use on a daily basis (though my experience may have been different if I were merely going on the red line from Cambridge to Downtown, etc). And I'm a public transit guru.

I was amazed by the efficient, sleek, smooth transit system in D.C. - which despite its problems is in my mind the best transit system in the country.

Both Boston and SF have so many modes that it's easier to list the differences than the similarities:

Modes SF has that Boston doesn't:
Cable cars

Modes Boston has that SF doesn't:
Bus subway
Hi-speed Acela
Bike-sharing (to debut later this year)

The cable cars are definitely more iconic, but if we're strictly counting modes, I think Boston has more.

I only meant that about the silver line. For the most part the stations on the rest of the system seemed well kept and the trains came frequently and on time. It's the configuration though that makes the whole system awkward. But it gets the jobs done, which is more than you can say for most of the rest of us.

Great photo thread! I'm a former "Green Liner". Primarily D and/or E lines specifically, I could also take the C if I wanted to run some errands on the way home.

The D line is more 'rapid' transit in its own dedicated ROW away from the streets, using bridges to either cross under or over and goes deep into western suburbia. The E, once it emerges from the central tunnels, is LRT then eventually becomes street car, trolley-esque running along side autos, half of it was "temporarily" suspended in the 80's. It used to run all the way down to Jamaica Plain on a two lane street with traffic!

I remember (not too long ago) when I could buy a T Pass for $27/month for unlimited rides and transfers among all subway lines. Tokens were still in place and they were 85 cents. Now they have the "Charlie Card" which increase the cost greatly, but very convenient to purchase.

My experience with the T is that it is one of the best transit systems. They have been talking for decades about the "silver line" which was originally supposed to be the urban ring connected all subway lines together...what they ended up with was BRT that re-connected Dudley Sq. in Roxbury to Logan airport via the new harbor tunnel.

Interesting thread and thanks for the cool shots Dan, I wonder if Denver's RTD could take a cue from the Silver Line on the US36 BRT and Union Station's bus subway (the large bus box going in beneath the tracks at Union Station). Some of the light rail cars in Boston interestingly were built by Boeing when Boeing flirted for a bit on building rail cars back in the late 60s early 70s (I believe they built rail stuff into the 80s actually).

Just curoius did you take Amtrak up from DC?

Scott (you can still call me Al;) )

Interesting tour.

I thought Boston retired its Boeing trains already and went with Breda, no? San Francisco also had a fleet of Boeing light rail trains in the '70s and '80s, by the way.

Cirrus--great threads, both of them. A forumer friend and I talked about your pics tonight on a bike ride.

I'll second fflint on that, Cirrus: I'm about to leave work now and a coworker who also happens to be from Boston and I just went through both threads with big smiles on our faces. We don't get to return to home from Tokyo that often, especially during late Spring (one of Boston's best seasons), and seeing all the new green alongside the bright reds makes me a happy camper. Thank you!