Thanks for releasing your service changes during midterm season, MBTA! They put these out two Saturdays ago (they go into effect March 15th) and I’m only just getting to them now. And because we’re not in Better Bus season anymore, I get the feeling this might be a lot of fluff…

SL1: And whaddaya know, we start the list off with a pretty inconsequential change. Headways are being adjusted, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter, but never more than two minutes.

SL2: Aside from some minor headway adjustments, it looks like we’re bringing back the weird AM/PM termini on the Design Center loop. I mean, I guess it makes sense for commuters, but it sure is explained terribly on the schedule…

SL3: Headway adjustments, although they’re all positive this time! Particularly noteworthy is the shift from “every 15 minutes or less” in the inbound direction on weekday afternoons to “every 12 minutes”! Although “every 15 minutes or less” could’ve just meant “Yeah, there’s one 15-minute gap and the rest is every 12”. Who knows? Also, the last inbound trip on weekdays is eliminated.

1: Probably the one truly major change we’re gonna get this rating! The 1 will finally stop doing the whole loop around Harvard Yard, instead using Dunster Street to immediately travel inbound. This leads to some minor headway changes, although the real gains from this will hopefully be in reliability. Please. Anything helps.

4: Evening departures from Tide Street will be at cleaner times.

8: Departure time changes throughout the day, plus the elimination of an outbound trip near the end of the morning rush.

15: The 3:15 inbound weekday trip from Kane Square will now leave a minute earlier from Saint Peters Square.

16: A bunch of trip time changes.

17: Ditto.

18: Trip time changes throughout the day, but they did make inbound buses near the end of service slightly more frequent!

19: Yup, trip time changes.

27: A school trip in the morning will leave slightly earlier.

34: A morning school trip will leave later.

39: Morning rush frequencies will be decreased by about a minute, but weekday afternoons make up for it: service goes from every 15 minutes to every 12!

42: Three trips are shifted by a few minutes.

47: Some trip time changes for inbound midmorning trips on weekdays.

55: Welpppp, say goodbye to another clockface route. The 55’s clean hourly midday headway changes into every 65 minutes! Rush hours see lowered frequencies too.

57: Trip time changes for some outbound night trips on weekdays. Also, the 193 (I cannot believe they called it that on the schedule change list – get some darn continuity with your early morning trips, MBTA!) is shifting by a few minutes on weekdays.

60: No actual changes, but the Mall at Chestnut Hill seems to have been renamed to the Shops at Chestnut Hill. Unfortunately, they forgot to update one of the timepoints (weekday outbound) with that information…

61/70: Again, no actual changes, but the T has now labelled on the schedule which trips interline between the two routes! THANK YOU!

64: Oh! Hang on, we actually have kind of a substantial one? Instead of using Life Street to return from its deviation to the Boston Landing area, it’s gonna use Market Street instead. But maybe update the street labels on the map to not highlight Life Street as if the route takes it? Also I worry how much slower that routing will be at rush hour. Tell me again why this thing deviates a block, anyway?

65: Some trip time changes, most notably resulting in a lost outbound trip in the morning rush.

91: So why does the Saturday night service have to go from being every hour to every whenever-it-wants? Also, the route now has an ominous note about how the Washington Street bridge diversion will add additional travel time and essentially render the regular schedule null.

92: A Saturday night trip is being shifted a minute earlier. A MINUTE!

93: Trip time shifts for outbound morning rush service, plus Saturday night service goes from hourly to wheneverly! Boy, I sure love losing all this clockface…

94: The bad: the Saturday headways are all over the place now. The good: they’re more frequent! While the old schedule was a clean every 50 minutes, this new one is anywhere from every 35 to every 50.

95: A few school trips are shifted or removed on weekdays, while Saturday service has some trip time changes to make it just a little bit more insane than it already was.

96: A weird outbound trip on weekdays is being eliminated, and the Saturday service sees the same service increases as the 94.

97: Time shifts on outbound Saturday afternoon service.

99: “Weekday, Saturday, and Sunday schedule changes in the late evening.” Uhh…no, these changes are happening at all times. Weekday times get shifted, Saturday service gets improved from every 50 minutes to every 40 (although with some weird, inconsistent departure times from Wellington), and Sunday service goes from every 60 minutes to every 70. So…with the inconsequential weekday changes, the good Saturday changes, and the bad Sunday changes, I guess this balances out to net neutral?

100: Oh come on, the Saturday night schedule goes from every hour to every 62 minutes? Badddd…

101: A few time shifts on weekdays and on the last trip on Saturday nights.

104: Aghghhhh, flipping between the old and new schedules is sensory overload! And the sad part is that not much seems to be changing – they really seem to have just switched all the times without changing the headways too much (although Saturday nights lose some service).

105: Literally no change, despite the fact that the online page thinks there’s one.

106: Yikes, they did this one dirty. Weekdays just see time shifts, but Saturdays go from a beautiful half-hourly schedule to an ugly 40-minute schedule, while Sundays go from hourly to every 70 minutes.

108: Similar boat. Time shifts on weekdays (although with a few added morning rush trips, that’s nice), while Saturdays go from every 30 minutes to every 40 and Sundays go from every 60 to every 70.

109: Similar to the 104, a lot of time shifts that don’t seem to affect headway too much.

110: Time shifts on weekdays, but hey, Saturday evening service goes from every hour to every 45 minutes!

111: A few select trips are eliminated, leading to some weirdly long gaps in the middle of shorter ones…

112: Time shifts on all days.

120: The terminus was reverted from Jeffries Point back to Maverick, leading to some associated time changes.

132: Oh boy, let’s keep the Saturday schedule at roughly hourly, but give it time changes to make it leave at confusing, random times! Great!

134: Whoa, underrated change right here! Saturday night service goes from every 50 minutes to every 25 and gets extended from Medford Square to Playstead Road! Nicely done, MBTA, nicely done!

170: Time shifts for all four daily trips.

214/216: Yikessssss, huge cuts in late morning rush service. Maybe those trips were underperforming? Hopefully the resources went somewhere good…

225: Oh, perhaps they went towards this? The 225 goes from every 15 minutes at rush hour to around every 10-12! Plus…oh, they’ve added the Quintree Mall short-turn again for a few morning rush trips. Okay, ew, but I guess anything adding more service is good…

325/326: Time shifts galore for these northern suburb express routes!

352: Trips are lost in both rushes, alas.

354: A lot of time shifts, plus some lost peak-direction evening rush trips.

411: Despite what the MBTA tells you, the time shifts here aren’t confined to Saturdays: they happen on weekdays too.

426: The 8:03 AM outbound trip on weekdays will now start at Wonderland 15 minutes earlier instead of Linden Square.

430: Time shifts on weekdays and Saturdays. Also, the MBTA may want to take another look at the 10:20 inbound trip on weekdays: it seems to arrive Malden Center at “10:504”.

505: Time shifts.

556/558: Time shifts, mostly on the 558.

So yeah, not much going on here. I guess we couldn’t have expected much after the big Better Bus changes, but hey, at least we got Dunster Street on the 1, some better night service for the 134, and the 61/70 schedule finally shows which trips are interlined! Small steps, small steps.