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T considers eliminating two BU stops on the Green Line

The MBTA holds a meeting Thursday on a proposal to "consolidate the BU West, St. Paul, Babcock, and Pleasant stops into two fully accessible stations that will help reduce travel times and improve safety."

The session begins at 6 p.m. in the Commonwealth Salon room at the BPL main library in Copley Square.

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Comments

My God. I've been saying they need to do this for years.

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This consolidation plan makes far too much sense for it to ever really happen

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Even though most of Uhub supports this plan, we all know that the old people that live near these stops are already calling their representatives to oppose it.

Consolidation is not a done deal. It needs our full support.

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It's BU-land. Do you really think that there's a significant elderly population near these stops? What am I missing?

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into Brookline, there's tons of seniors and regular residents. No one ever notices them, though.

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....because they were forced out about 20 years ago when BU bought up all the buildings in the entire area and changed them into 'dorms'.

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But they eliminated half the stops west of Packard's Corner on the 57 bus, and did anyone scream? I sure didn't hear it, and the 57 certainly goes through many more "ordinary resident" neighborhoods than the B line does from Kenmore to Packard's Corner.

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It's North Brookline. Walk more than 500 feet south of Comm Ave and let me know how many students live in those homes.

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The MBTA has held up on removing these stops in the past for their own reasons. This isn't a "community will be against it" problem.

The MBTA when pressed in the past has said that the removal of any stops around BU will lead to extended headway times as the delays for embarking/disembarking at the remaining stops will increase too much. So, for example, they'd rather stop 4 times at 2 minutes per stop than 2 times at 5 minutes per stop.

However, when upgrading the BU Central and BU East stops, they combined the two stops into BU Central/East on the one block in between the two stops (stupid, right?) and I never noticed any kinds of excessive delays or anything, so I think their argument is specious.

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If they do this, they had better give the trains signal priority for the traffic lights between BU West and Packard's Corner. It won't save any time if the train has to wait for turning traffic at all the cross streets.

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What good is eliminating a stop if you end up sitting at a red light anyways...

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Loading/unloading is what takes the most time, not the stopping and starting of the train itself.

Also, as students walk a little farther to get to a stop, they may just keep going and you'll reduce, at least a little, the number of the short-trippers.

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Many of the outbound stops are on the far sides of the intersections, so the train would stop for the red light...AND then stop for passengers.

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And leaving BU east / blandford? There's two more that can easily be consolidated into one.

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Way back when, when they made those new stops nice and pretty with new shelters and all, that did come up. They made a temporary station between BU East and central while they worked on BUE/C. People said "Hey, this is nice, why not eliminate those two stops and leave this one". The T's answer was "Work has started already, so we can't change our minds now" and BU East/Central remained...

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They did try to eliminate some of these stops before, the problem was a handful of people came to complain that "their" stop was being eliminated and they couldn't walk the distance to the next stop. So instead of just griping on comment boards, people need to show up to these meetings in numbers and show the T support for removing them.

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I think this is part of the Comm Ave Phase 2A project, which only includes the area from the BU Bridge to Packard's Corner. So they're only considering green line stops within that stretch.

The T really should come up with a master plan for stop consolidation, with the understanding that it would implemented incrementally as part of overall street reconstruction. That would prevent them from missing opportunities, like consolidating BU east/blandford when they did Comm Ave Phase 1.

But even so, this is a pretty good improvement. If you can, try to show up at the meeting - there will probably be a vocal minority upset at losing their personal green line stop, so it's important to support the T for making some progress.

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Also I would like to point out that if anyone does complain about "losing their personal green line stop" that's not really true. Access to stations will be nearly equivalent to what it is today, except that instead of turning left you might turn right (or vice versa) when you reach the intersection. If done right the access time to the platforms should be about the same as it is today, but all the crossing points and platforms will be upgraded to full ADA compliance + better amenities. And the trains will have improved schedule adherence... especially if they finally get modernized and implement signal priority and all-door boarding as well.

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Eliminating stops would be helpful... if they opened all the doors to let passengers on. I understand that fare evasion is an issue, but that has to be one of the biggest reasons the train is so slow (it also creates a mess of lazy people who can't be bothered to move further into the train). The best thing they could do is raise the train from Harvard to Blandford to avoid the traffic lights.

The B line... the horror.

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If they ever got handheld scanners for the commuter rail they could give them to MBTA employees positioned at the rear door of green line trains during peak periods who could scan the cards of people attempting to board there. It would also help for crowd control.

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They already have those and do that sometimes, at least on the E line.

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San Francisco's MUNI has small RFID tap receivers (they look like the credit card machines in retail stores.) They're mounted to grab bars to the left of the door at the front and back doors, so people can a) tap coming in the back doors and b) can pass to the left of the fare box when people are making cash transactions, which speeds up boarding because you don't get stuck behind someone loading $2 in dimes into the cash box.

SF still has a fare evasion issue because a lot of the fare evaders are the kind of people the drivers are afraid to confront because they do not want to trigger a violent response. I've never seen a Green Line driver shy away from giving a smackdown to an undergrad, so the back door receivers would probably improve things a lot.

I never understood why Boston couldn't put these in.

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They can also build in fencing and fare gates, no?

I still don't see why the MBTA doesn't hit up the colleges on the green line for a compulsory pass program fee, and then have those same college IDs function like Charlie Cards.

Or even the red line - I'd pay that fee for my son to have Charlie ID.

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Fencing doesn't work when it's easy for a person to walk along the tracks and hop onto the platform. Fencing only works for rapid transit because there are no grade crossings, the right of way is extremely dangerous, and the platforms are high above the ground. Pretty much the opposite of light rail/streetcars where the point of the system is to interact well with crossings and surrounding activity.

There's really no sane, efficient alternative to proof-of-payment for light rail, which is why most systems have moved towards it. It's also a lot cheaper in terms of equipment and does not require constant monitoring to ensure the equipment is not being abused.

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I agree. I've rode MUNI too and noticed these validators at all days.

But there's one thing they do, that we don't do, which makes the validators work for them.

Boston does not do POP (aka Proof of Purchase). It allows for boarding at all doors, and does not require people to swipe their card to validate. If an inspector on MUNI catches you with an invalid card or not enough value (and yes they do check frequently), you get arrested and fined heavily.

The fare evasion you saw on MUNI is probably just people who were monthly pass holders and just used all doors.

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The green line would benefit greatly from a system like what NJTransit uses for the Hudson-Bergen light rail and the Newark light rail.

Before you board the train, you purchase a ticket and put it in a machine to timestamp it - all of the ticketing is done before you get on the train, with no need for turnstiles. Randomly, inspectors will be at certain stations or on the trains making sure everyone has a properly stamped ticket. Fines are so heavy that it's not worth it to try to cheat. Seems to work pretty well.

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This practice is called "proof of payment", and it's done at almost every major light rail system throughout the world, including many other light rail systems in the US: Seattle, St Louis, and San Francisco all use proof of payment. The T is one of the only agencies that still wastes everyone's time by forcing commuters to board and exit through a single door.

And monthly pass holders wouldn't even have to timestamp a ticket. They would just board the train normally, and when the random checks occur, the inspector could use a handheld charliecard validator.

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Los Angeles is trending proof of payment to fare gates due to high levels of fare evasion.

At the end of the day, it was the riders, or specifically the riders who feel they don't need to pay, that have mucked up the Green Line due to the front door policy.

Of course, there is another side to this, which I see on buses (I admit, I happily don't ride the B Line.) People for some reason cannot go to the back of the bus/trolley when they board. Just move to the back and your trip will go quicker!

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Fuck you, buddy, I'll stand wherever the fuck I want. You gotta problem with that?

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LA is trending towards fare gates because it will make big bucks (hundreds of millions of dollars) for the contractors who build and install those fare gates. It doesn't actually do anything to stop fare evasion (and it will never pay for itself). Fare gates are easy to defeat for a determined individual, as we very well know.

Also, even though LA is installing fare gates, they will still use proof of payment in conjunction (just like San Francisco does). For example, it doesn't make sense to install fare gates on the LA Orange Line because it's just a busway with low-ish platforms.

http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/when-will-more-cities-follow-san-francis...

During two inspections earlier this year, 22 percent and 16 percent of Orange Line riders were found to have not paid their fares. While this is down from previous estimates, evasion rates in a properly implemented proof-of-payment system — for example, in San Francisco and German cities — are around 5 percent or less. The Orange Line’s troubles may be due to L.A.‘s rather toothless sanctions. Only 26 percent of those ticketed paid their fines within the 30 days required, according to an agency spokesperson. The worst punishment fare beaters can expect is getting banned from the system, which happens after you get three unpaid citations in one year.

^ that's the real problem.

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The only people who are opposed to this system is the MBTA. When I was in Dallas (pre-ebola) I rode their new trains (European EMUs) which used this system. The ticket inspection was done by uniformed police officers, not just some guy with a radio. Added bonus is cops on many trains.

For it to work well it need not have high fines, just high inconvenience. If you are caught without a ticket you should be taken, in a police car, down to some central location where they finger print and photo you and then hand you a fine for $10 + fare. The inconvenience plus the stigma of being booked like this would greatly cut down on the number of people who want to try saving the $2.10.

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Um, I'd rather not have my train held up for police to escort someone off and into a squad car for not paying their fare. Just issue them a citation and move on.
Not to mention the potential for conflict.... people already get violent enough at T drivers.

Also, nitpicking, but Dallas has light rail. EMUs are a type of heavy rail vehicle, currently only used in the US by commuter railroads in NYC, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The Dallas vehicles are just LRVs.

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And the Dallas light-rail cars are not European, they were built by Kinki-Sharyo of Japan, same firm that built the MBTA's Type 7 Green Line cars

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I think it would be a hard sell to the general public. Proof-of-payment based system generally have a higher rate of fare evasion, approximately ~10% fare evasion for proof-of-payment vs ~5% otherwise (if somebody knows the actual statistics, please correct me). Many Bostonians seem to get outraged by the idea of anybody freeloading off the system, but don't realize that cracking down on a few scofflaws delays the green line for everybody.

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There is no single number for Proof of payment fare evasion statistics because you can adjust the parameters of the system to adapt to any situation.

For example, if you find that -- using real data -- you have detected additional fare evasion occurring then you can increase the number of fare inspection patrols and/or increase the fines. The patrols pay for themselves by finding fare evasion. When the fare evasion subsides, then you reduce or redirect the patrols. It's all an application of basic statistics: you want riders to believe that the expected value of fare evasion is negative, and as a manager, you want to deploy patrols so that the expected value of catching fare evasion is positive.

The current system of forcing everyone through the front door is essentially a form of collective punishment whereby everyone is forced to waste time while the train waits at the station. It comes about because the MBTA does not value riders' time at all, and doesn't seem to care much about train delay either.

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Same thing in places like Germany and Belgium. Fines are high (and conductors willing to shame) that people just buy the damn tickets.

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I've seen it work just fine on the Portland light rail system. The difference, though, is that there's no way a conductor could make their way through a Green Line car at rush hour.

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That concern seems a bit academic, since there's no way anyone boarding a back door of a packed Green Line rush hour train is going to practically even make it up front to pay the fare anyway.

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Sure they are, at least on the outbound, because they only open the front door. It's that or nothing. See upthread.

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"Front door policy" only applies during the so-called "off peak." During rush hour the policy is all doors open so that people can exit through the rear doors.

Of course the trains get busy in the off peak too, and I find that most drivers are sensible enough to open the rear doors in those cases. Most drivers.

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...and that is what I see, "policy" or not.

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You can basically drop every other stop and it's still a totally reasonable difference between them, and theoretically makes everything after on that branch run faster. From west to east, keep Packard's (obviously), Pleasant (services Agganis), BU West (campus before the bridge). After this, you could do a couple of things, my preference being to just drop BU East (though you could probably drop Blandford too, or keep East and drop the other two).

The density on that branch has always been crazy; basically double that of the E from Copley to Brigham, and quadruple that of the east section (Kenmore through Lechmere). Imagine taking the green line from BC to West Medford when the extension finishes. A one-seat, 4 hour trip?

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Your hypothetical one-seat ride to West Medford will not exist. The B is not planned to be extended as part of the GLX.

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Babcock - has to stay due to volume of traffic from grocery store, major road into Brookline, BU dorms, and high school at stop.

Pleasant - has to stay due to volume of traffic from Paradise, major road into Brookline, BU dorms, and BU athletic center.

St. Paul and BU West could be combined by just moving to a single stop in the one block between them.

You can't really drop any of the stops between Kenmore and the bridge because they are already built out and heavily trafficked due to BU.

Remember that consolidation does not really help speed if the train has half as many stops but has to stop at them twice as long anyhow.

A better method of speeding up the line is to run more 3 car trains. And to give the train priority at traffic lights. As in the second the train gets near one it immediately goes to red for any cross traffic. And eliminate some of those crossings where there is no reason for traffic going through. Like for the life of me I can not figure out where all those cars are going that drive from Brookline on Babcock and across to the BU side. It goes nowhere.

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I'm curious: why is "major road to blahdeblah" a reason why a stop can't be dropped? It's not as if people are driving to the stop and parking there to take the T, so what's the reasoning?

Also, agreed re: 3 car trains and signal priority.

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Because those are feeder roads for the many commuters in North Brookline who live closer to the B line than to the C line and thus walk to those stops. Sure you can try to cram all those people into fewer stops, but when the train has to stop for boarding at say Pleasant for 3 minutes instead of 1.5 at both Pleasant and Babcock how are you saving any time?

Really the key is to let the train go unimpeded between the stops.
And as part of larger effort to reduce congestion, encourage companies to shed themselves of useless real estate and foster full time telecommuting instead.

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I'm really not trying to be obtuse, but again, you said "walk to those stops". So what does it matter if they walk on a "major feeder road" or not? Is the concern that there will be massive pedestrian pileups if they're not on a "major feeder road"?

Sure you can try to cram all those people into fewer stops, but when the train has to stop for boarding at say Pleasant for 3 minutes instead of 1.5 at both Pleasant and Babcock how are you saving any time?

That's an "if", not a "when"; i.e., yet to be demonstrated. Half the stops doesn't automatically equal twice the loading time at each stop (but you have to get into queuing theory to explain why that is true).

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and probably they're taking Babcock to Linden to Cambridge to access Storrow, Solder's Field, Memorial, and the Pike.

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BU West and Pleasant Street are the two lowest passenger count stations in this section of the Green Line, from Kenmore to Washington Street. They are both superfluous. In fact, it seems that the MBTA's plans will result in only a small change in walking distance for most users of the existing stations, because you will be able to access all stations at both ends of the platform. That is a legal requirement for new construction.

This diagram compares ridership at each station against "line volume", which is the number of people passing through already on-board the train:
IMAGE(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dfPD8X2uhwQ/UxqDJ9JnKAI/AAAAAAAAA3s/6jsGwMwLU3k/s1600/b_line_usage.png)

BU West is particularly useless. Pleasant and St Paul both are about equal importance. The geometry of Comm Ave puts certain constraints on where stations can go, and how many make sense. The MBTA's proposal of putting one station between current Babcock and current Pleasant Street, and between current St Paul and current BU West, makes sense. It's about equal walking distance for people coming from Babcock Street, Pleasant Street St Paul Street, and Amory Street -- except instead of turning left at the intersection you turn right (or vice versa). The new stations will be fully accessible and will have at least two access points from the sidewalk each.

Your claim about boarding times makes no sense. If you were right then there would be no difference between having stations every 200 feet and having them every 2000 feet. That's obviously not true.

There are a number of fixed costs associated with stopping the train: slowing down, opening doors, people moving around on the inside and on the platform, closing doors, speeding up, and also predictability of the interaction with traffic signals.

There are also dynamic costs, of course, which apply per passenger: boarding and alighting time, walking up/down the stairs or in/out the door, paying the fare. Those can all be improved substantially by implementing proof of payment and all door level-boarding. On proper light rail systems that do things right, it doesn't take more than 20-30 seconds per station stop to get all this done, even under moderately heavy usage. The absolute worst thing you can do to a train system is force everyone to go in and out one tiny little door, and climb stairs to do so.

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