City to drop bus/truck lanes on Summer Street in South Boston; they didn't much improve bus service and motorists kept using them anyway

Paint isn't magic. You can't rely on the general population to see a red lane and read the words on it, then think to themselves, "oh I shouldn't drive my personal automobile here." They make this lane designation and then walk away. And no, having cops making >150k per year (before overtime) sitting there writing tickets isn't a great idea either.

This is always the pattern. Those in charge say, "there, I did it," and there's zero actual commitment to solving the problem, whether it's bus lanes, maintaining infrastructure, or whatever. So often there's one competent person driving improvement and as soon as they walk away everything collapses.

How about speaker-for-life Ron Mariano get off his ass and actually pass a bill to legalize cameras on buses so we can ticket cars driving in bus lanes?

Oh, sorry, that hack can't even be bothered to act while private equity is literally destroying local hospitals. Maybe we need to add language to the legislation allow gambling on the number of bus lane offenders per day, then he'd pass it for sure.

...because disgruntled motorists kept using the dedicated lane...lack of enforcement...

WHOSE FUCKING FAULT IS THAT, BTD?

If one city agency (BTD) can't get another city agency (BPD) to enforce the easiest fucking moving violations in the entire world (one cop standing in the lane just pointing to the curb while another 1-2 write up tickets!), then what hope is there for the rest of us?

I mean, imagine if the North End restaurants just started putting out patio furniture in the street and slinging pasta and pizza and BFD didn't even phone up ISD. They just sent in a report to City Hall... "oh, sorry, we couldn't get to any fires this month because the road is pedestrianized now due to lack of enforcement, so we're just gonna close Engine 8 Ladder 1 on Hanover St...fun while it lasted. Thanks, all!".

Like what the actual fuck is going on!?

I think it's a bit of a disconnect between the city and the state (mbta) where one is asking for frequency to get the political will to push for bus lanes (speed)* and the other needs faster roadway speeds to offer effective frequency on a finite budget.

Slower speeds today mean fewer, less reliable, trips. Especially as speed/traffic further develops.

The city isn't exactly on the hook for the mbta spending resources or money so they don't seem to have a direct vested interest in making it operate well. They can always point at the frequency as a rationale to not invest in transit priority.

And now we are stuck in this doom loop where traffic is deteriorating bus service, and everyone expects the state to foot the bill on adding more service to compensate - but the reality is bus resources have real limitations, like roadway speed.

Bus service is going to be a clear loser until an arraignment is made that gives the city a better incentive to invest in prioritizing bus speeds.

The mbta is not blameless on this one either. Faster roadway speeds should result in more than quicker trips, they should also result in additional service on the same corridor. This helps incentivize the city to boost speeds as it increases/preserves the frequency as well.

This may be a function of a "resource guarantee" by the mbta at a "planned" speed, suggesting a potential frequency based on a permanently fixed amount of resources, provided the stakeholders on the ground can help make the bus move that quickly.

But as is, everyone gets to point fingers and no one wins...

*Also side thought, the relevant political stakeholders really don't seem to give af about improving public transit speeds at all. So it's like improving a turd to them and I'm not sure any amount of service is going to get them to stop grumbling about whatever.

The design of these particular bus lanes was not good. I say this as a daily bus rider who has had a lot of time to observe these lanes from the good old #7.

One big problem is the intersection at the corner of Summer & Pappas. This intersection is impacted by the large trucks that do business at the Port. Specifically, heading west, the trucks try to get turn left onto Fargo St, which is not managed by a light. There is very little space after passing through the Summer and Pappas intersection before getting to th left turn onto Fargo St; the trucks then back up traffic in the non-bus lane. Sometimes, that light can change half a dozen times before you can get through unless you get into the bike lane to get around the trucks.

Another big problem, this time heading east, is the intersection at Summer and D. The left turn lane into the Seaport is quite short and often backs up the non-bus lane traffic all the way back through the intersection at WTC Ave (the road to the Seaport Hotel). Similar situation - the the light can change half a dozen times unless you go into the bus lane.

When they write, “The Summer Street Pilot successfully encouraged more people to bike, providing a better bike connection between South Boston and Downtown” do they mean more people are biking on that specific route, or more aggregate people are biking in Boston? I.e., did the bike/bus/(truck?) lane empirically and significantly get people to bike who otherwise wouldna?

Should they have written, The Summer Street Pilot successfully encouraged more people to bike on Summer Street…?”

It’s about words and truth and my antipathy towards “spin” and “rightspeak.”

I don’t take extreme views on bike lanes. I trust the reports of data that they save lives. I spent thirty years without incident biking without bikelanes and my heart trembles whenever loved ones are biking. My heart trembles when I see people biking on the roads. (The only bike accident I saw was an old guy getting knocked unconscious on Minuteman storm washout in Arlington, but I see the white bikes and mourn. My friend’s co-worker’s husband got killed on a road in Lexington thirty years ago and my EMT instructor (took a class for shits and giggles) described a guy’s kidney still attached to his severed leg, so it’s no joke. ) Anything to calm and simplify the roads is great. I assert that perfect enforcement is anathema to the functioning of civic life, keeping shelves stocked, dropping off elderly, handicapped, pregnant ladies and whatnot. We all gotta get along.

If you come across a vehicle in a bus, bike or fire hydrant spot do everything you can to not fall into it key first. But if you have to break your fall on their suv key first then don’t feel bad about the vehicle of a criminal. People are more valuable than cars no matter what local governments say. Save yourself before saving the illegally parked vehicle.

Needs an immediate after study to see how going back to the bad old ways affects traffic.

Some people learned better driving habits during this study. May they hold on to them for a bit while the city gets things right and reinstalls the bus lanes. Perhaps with some improvements like Tim suggested.

This whole install bus lanes but then don't increase service thing is beyond annoying.

It makes the bus lanes look like something they're doing for bragging right among their peers in other major cities. Just to say they're doing it.

If you're not going to increase frequency a bunch (they haven't with the busses traveling through Egleston) then don't make a bus lane. You're not incentivizing people to take the bus more. You're just stoking opposition toward bus lanes.

Boston is great at half step measures to being a grown up mature city. Clearly they're not ready to enforce the laws or provide the busses to make it work. Its more than dismaying that the new Blue Hill Avenue bus lane plans make no mention of a significant increase in frequency.

Magoo ‘members a time when Magoo and Magoo’s hooman folk all got along nicely. For Magoo is the Man from Earth and Magoo has been here for longer than time can ‘member. Magoo.