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Sad day!
I saw on his twitter he also got the last 500 as well. Awesome, in a sad way. I took the last inbound 426/455 (for those not from the north shore, it is a combo of the 455 portion from Central Square, Lynn to Salem Depot, and the 426 from Haymarket to Central Square via Saugus and Linden Square). With the 455's switch to terminating at Wonderland, the 426/455 is no more! Funny thing is, I almost ended up missing the last train, only made it by about 1 minute!
The death of the 48 is
The death of the 48 is without a doubt the clearest case of reasonable cost-cutting the T could have implemented anywhere in the entire system.
The 500
Had about 50 riders per day last time it was measured. It's strange actually, at some point in the last 5-6 years, approximately 200 of its riders suddenly disappeared. Not sure why.
The 2007 fare increase
The 2007 fare increase abolished the Green Line fare zones while also raising the price of the 500. Overnight the Green Line from Riverside became way cheaper than the bus. Plus with the better headway (okay, scheduled headway) the Green Line seemed like the better alternative. To think, at one point the 500 carried enough passengers to require a seven minute headway as well as extra Riverside-Copley service (as the 303)!
Thanks, those are good points
However, the scheduled trip time of the 500 was about 15 minutes faster than riding the "D" branch downtown, if you are commuting to that area. For that one pattern of travel, it seems to have had the advantage and should have attracted riders, even if it did cost more.
I noticed though, on the passenger surveys from the CTPS, that most users of the "D" branch from Riverside were actually commuting to the Longwood area, for which the "D" branch is time competitive with car travel at rush hour.
The Route 500 was already
The Route 500 was already only operating every 30 minutes at the time of the 2007 fare increase and fare changes. That was probably the final nail in the coffin for the route, but I don't think it was the prime reason for the large loss of riders over the years. During the heyday of the route, the Framingham commuter rail line was down to only a few peak trains each way. A lot of people drove from Natick and Wellesley to Riverside to catch the express bus. As commuter rail service improved, more people started driving to the train station closer to them. Also, delays on the Mass Pike are more common and frequent than they were in the past, slowing down the bus and reducing its advantage over the Green Line. Another factor was the MBTA's decision not to buy any more buses for express bus service with padded seats. On a longer route like the 500, a ride on a bus with hard fiberglass seats is not seen as being worth the extra premium fare.
Agreed...
On a 12 mile long route, comfort is paramount, so yes, I can see why riders were not willing to plunk down $3-5 to have a rough ride and be snarled in Turnpike traffic (pre-and-post Big Dig) and took the commuter rail instead.
The no-padded-seats rule came about after people found that slashing the seats on the buses was a fun thing to do, so they decided to have future orders with no padded seating.
The 6400 and the 7100 series (and even the 7000 series buses) all had padded seating, and these buses ruled the Turnpike until they were retired (the 7100s in 1989, the 6400s in 1995), and then the 8900s took over until they were removed from service in the late 1990's - early 2000's. The 8900s were the last buses to have padded seating.
In 15 years of living on the
In 15 years of living on the 48 bus route, I only took it twice, simply because it follows a lots of the same route as the 39 and was going in the direction I needed.
It does strand some elderly folks on Amory St with no regular bus service, though.
But if you look at the ridership numbers, it was a huge waste of resources for the number of riders.
Stranded on Amory Street?
No part of Amory Street is more than a couple blocks away from regular T service. It's sad not to have door to door service, but the vast majority of Boston residents would be happy to have the level of public transit access available at every point on Amory street.
A couple of blocks is a lot
A couple of blocks is a lot for "elderly folks"
Alas! The 48 was the last of
Alas! The 48 was the last of the so-called "community circulator" routes established by the MBTA in 1973. Several similar routes operated in Somerville, Brookline, Cambridge, Salem, Lynn, and Watertown. Most failed miserably, most notably Route 596 Watertown Loop (it was gone after three months!). The others limped along through the late-1970s. The second to last was Route 590, Somerville Loop, which was abolished during the 1981 cuts. Surprisingly, the J.P. Loop was the most successful of these routes.
J.P. Loop typical weekday ridership figures for the curious:
Route 595, J.P. Loop, established February 12, 1973.
3/22/73 - 43 pax
3/25/74 - Service rerouted via recently opened Amory Street Apts.
March 1975 - Saturday service added
9/26/74 - 204 pax; Amory Street's opening seemingly saved the route
7/7/75 - 358 pax; highest weekday ridership ever recorded
January 1982 - Route 595 renumbered to Route 48
Spring 1991 - 260 pax
Fall 1997 - 205 pax
Fall 2001 - 136 pax
Fall 2005 - 85 pax
Spring 2010 - 74 pax
SOURCES:
Jonathan Belcher's seminal work "MBTA Changes 1964-Present"
Various 1970s-era MBTA memos
CTPS and MBTA ridership counts
First-hand observations
Circulator routes are bad design
Generally, if a circular route only runs in one direction, then it's not serious transit. That's why most failed. Nobody wants to ride 75% of a route in order to go 25% in the counter-direction. There's also the problem of layovers: where does the bus driver get a break? For linear or nearly linear routes, there is a natural layover point at the terminus. But for a circular or circulator route, they have to pick an arbitrary point and stop the bus. That's annoying to passengers -- they have to wait for the poor driver to take a break, or for him to clear out and let a new driver get settled.
What probably saved the JP Loop for so long is the way it passed by three Orange Line stations and also that many segments were two-way or not too widely spaced one-way pairs. But it still was a very confusing route design. Do you know what it looked like in the pre-Southwest corridor days?
Considering that the route
Considering that the route only ran from 9 AM to 4PM, even from the start, I don't think it was ever intended as "serious transit", but rather as a way for seniors to get around the neighborhood without having to walk a great distance or transfer. Given the MBTA's high operating costs, operating a glorified senior shuttle is probably not a task it should have undertaken in the first place, even in 1973. Maybe the city of Boston should set up some sort of van for the residents at 125 Amory St. to replace the 48.
Spring 1977 routing: The
Spring 1977 routing:
The Monument, thence via Centre Street, Paul Gore, Chestnut, Centre, Amory, West Walnut, Columbus, Egleston Square, Washington, Green, Amory, Boylston, Lamartine, Elm, Sedgewick, back to The Monument.
Minor reroute was made in 1987 to better access the new SWC stations.
Also, during the pre-SWC era Route 38 service looped via Forest Hills, Washington, Green, back to Centre.
I grew up partially in JP;
I grew up partially in JP; this bus should have been terminated a LONG time ago. There's actually plenty of room for the MBTA to make cuts while increasing service in other areas. The politics just has to be removed.