59 (Castor-Bustleton to Arrott Transportation Center)
It’s time to gush over another trackless trolley! Man, I love riding these. Can I just give the route a 10/10 now? What? That’s unfair? Okay, fine, I’ll ride the 59 first…
Our trackless trolley left the businesses around Arrott Transportation Center and turned onto the residential Penn Street. We took that for a block, then we turned onto Oxford Ave, a wide road with larger houses and some ornate rowhouses. Businesses started to come up as we got closer to Roosevelt Boulevard, and once we arrived at that monstrosity, we took a giant rotary to get onto Castor Ave. Traversing a rotary in a trackless trolley…cool stuff, man.
The 59 spends most of its time here on Castor Ave, and it’s a major street. It was lined with rowhouses for a little bit, but soon it changed to two-story retail buildings (with apartments above the stores). The eastern side streets were all rowhouses, while to the west were standalone dwellings. Cottman Ave was a major intersection, although unfortunately, the only businesses here were in shopping plazas with block-sized parking lots. This is also where two buses a day deviate to end at the Alma Loop, a fully-wired short-turn location for buses serving nearby Northeast High School.
It started to feel more suburban after Cottman Ave. The side streets were all standalone houses now, and most of the business blocks that appeared had parking lots in the front or back. Just before Castor Ave intersected with Bustleton Ave, we pulled off into the Bells Corner Loop, ending the short trip.
At this point, I’m just gonna go ahead and review the Bells Corner Loop because, hey, we’re here. The 59 is the only bus to serve the loop, which has a cool retro shelter with a bench underneath, a few wastebaskets, and three bike racks. Employees have a building where they can use the bathroom, while anyone can enjoy the Dunkin’ Donuts located in that very same building. Ramps and stairs provide access to Bustleton Ave on the other side of the loop, where the inbound 58 makes a stop. It’s too bad you have to walk up to Strahle Street to get the outbound, but it’s not a big deal. Overall, I’m going to give the Bells Corner Loop a solid 8/10!
Route: 59 (Castor-Bustleton to Arrott Transportation Center)
Ridership: The 59 barely scrapes the top 50 for SEPTA bus routes, getting 4,641 riders per weekday. However, you have to remember: this thing is short, and it has a lot of local turnover for what looks like just an El feeder on paper. For these reasons, it ends up with the 5th-best farebox recovery ratio on the system, at 47%.
Pros: I apologize in advance for drilling this in, but I must say first and foremost that yes, this route uses trackless trolleys. Beyond that, though, it gets great ridership for its length, and that length gives it fantastic on-time performance: 91%, quite possibly the best on the whole system. The bus not only feeds into the El, but it also provides local service along Castor Ave, thanks to its direct routing with no frills. Not only that, but for much of the weekday, it’s every 15 minutes or better, with service every 8-10 minutes at rush hour. It’s every 20 minutes on Saturdays, too, which isn’t bad. Oh, and the route is more productive during the peak than it is midday! That’s a rarity for SEPTA, but it shows that they’re running the perfect amount of peak service.
Cons: Night and Sunday service is inadequate. It gets infrequent way too early in the evening, becoming every half hour by 8 and every hour by 10 (and it’s earlier on Saturdays). Meanwhile, Sunday service is every half hour all day. Man, you go from providing such good weekday service to going down to a frequency like that on Sundays? What a bummer.
Nearby and Noteworthy: There are a number of stores and restaurants along the route, but the Picanha Brazilian Steakhouse caught my eye in particular. An all-you-can-eat buffet of Brazilian meats? I’m hungry!
Final Verdict: 7/10
I really want to give this route as high of a score as possible because I really do love it, but the scheduling issues are a big sticking point for me. I rode it on a Sunday when it runs every half hour, and my ride still managed to get a respectable 23 people. How much would it hurt to add another bus to it and make it at least every 20 minutes like on Saturdays? The jump in frequency would surely increase ridership along with it! I’m kinda at a 6.5 here, but hey…trackless trolleys. That’s absolutely enough to boost it up the half-point.
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
LRTA: 6 (Broadway/UMass Lowell)
The LRTA sure likes its circulators. I’ve previously covered the 18, which is an example of how to do a circulator right – it got a well-deserved 8/10. But they also operate two other circulators within Lowell, and they don’t fare quite as well as the 18 does. Today we’re looking at the 6, which may not be a “pure” circulator loop, but it sure feels like one. In the worst way possible.
We took Thorndike Street into downtown Lowell, going right by Broadway Street. Oh, we would come back to Broadway Street – we just had to take a left onto Merrimack Street, then a left onto Dummer Street, and finally a right onto Broadway Street. I guess this jog is ostensibly to provide direct access to Lowell City Hall, but the 6 could be sped up by going directly to the station. I mean, the 18 exists for a reason.
We passed a Market Basket, the Lowell Senior Center, and a ton of smaller businesses along Broadway Street. This part actually made sense, serving a major commercial thoroughfare with no diversions. Oh wait, a few blocks later we turned onto the residential Fletcher Street, starting a big loop. I don’t know why we took Fletcher and not the regular route a block over on Mount Vernon, but I guess there must’ve been a detour of some sort.
We were back on the regular route once we turned onto Pawtucket Street. Right next to the Merrimack River, lots of big houses lined this road. Just after the Lowell Motor Boat Club, we turned onto Wilder Street, entering UMass Lowell’s South Campus. We had to take a right onto Broadway Street to deviate to a UMass Lowell parking lot because, geez, I don’t even know, and then it was a straight shot on Broadway back down the route. With small, dense houses and lots of businesses, this street actually felt worth serving. Also, we never actually laid over at the terminus, so we arrived back at the Kennedy Center eight minutes early. Nice.
LRTA Route: 6 (Broadway/UMass Lowell)
Ridership: In 2015, it was an average of 161 riders per weekday and 78 riders on Saturdays – that’s about 7.5 people per loop. As for my ride? It only got four people.
Pros: It serves Broadway Street, which is a corridor that definitely needs bus service. But that’s, like, the only thing this route serves on its own!
Cons: Basically everything else! The route is absolutely insane: it deviates to City Hall; it makes a point to run up to Pawtucket Street, even though the section on Mount Vernon is a block away from the 9 (the other circulator within Lowell) and nothing on that corridor is more than a five-minute walk from Broadway or the 9; and it deviates to a UMass Lowell parking lot for really no reason. I guess maybe layover, but my bus sure didn’t do it! And then there’s the schedule. The 6 runs every 35 minutes on weekdays, which is just such an awkward frequency. At least it’s a clean every hour on Saturdays, but oh wait, on Saturdays it combines with the 9 to make this ungodly creation:
Nearby and Noteworthy: We passed an old wooden mill something-or-other on Broadway as it crossed over the Pawtucket Canal. I’m not sure what it is, but it looks interesting!
Final Verdict: 3/10
There’s very little the 6 does right. It’s not a direct route, but it also doesn’t “circulate” to very many things that need circulating to! I think the ideal fix to this bus would be to combine it with the 9 full-time. No, not the horrific Saturday mess they have right now. Something…simpler. Actually, if you scroll to the 6 in this document, they have a decent routing that combines the routes, plus gives them a consistent 30-minute headway! It’s not perfect, but it sure is better than what there is now.
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
Fare increases for July 1st were approved today. Check out this page to see the new prices.
5th Street/Independence Hall (MFL)
See that cracked bell behind glass? That’s apparently a giant tourist attraction for some reason! Yeah, I don’t know why people love this thing so much when…I mean, it’s a bell. Philly has so much more to offer than…a bell! Okay, whatever, I’m not here to review tourist attractions. I’m here to review the stations people use to get to those attractions – in this case, it’s 5th Street/Independence Hall.
As Wikipedia oddly specifically points out, this is the only MFL station in Center City where passengers must walk above ground to switch directions. Thus, each direction gets two entrances on their respective side of the street: one fancy one, and one hole-in-the-ground one. That being said, “fancy” only means that there are two or three sets of stairs instead of just one, and “hole-in-the-ground” is your classic SEPTA single-staircase entrance with no frills. In other words, there’s nothing special here.
5th Street is wheelchair accessible, so we also get two elevators – one for each direction. They get these nice facades poking up on Market Street, and the elevators themselves are fine (although someone decided to use one as a dumping ground for their unfinished chicken meal). I like the signage directing people across the street if they’re trying to go in the other direction, although geez, talk about wordy: “SEPTA Market Frankford Line eastbound accessible 5th Street Station/For westbound accessible entrance, cross Market St. to NW corner of 5th St. and Market St.”
Before we head underground, I want to talk about the bus situation here. 5th Street has four bus stops, all but one of which amount to nothing more than a sign. The stop that gets a shelter is the westbound one for the 17 and the 33, which makes sense. The other routes that stop here are the eastbound 48, and the 38 and 44, which terminate here. Finally, the PHLASH makes stops here, as do countless tour buses. You can tell they know where their passengers want to go.
We’ll start with the eastbound side, which is…cramped. I mean, it’s trying really hard to make use of the space, but two awkwardly-placed fare machines doesn’t feel like enough (although five faregates isn’t bad). Also, sorry, people who need the elevator – it’s a long way down a narrow hallway to get there. Have fun! On the plus side, the red, white, and blue designs on the walls add a splash of color to the otherwise drab area.
Like any SEPTA station, 5th Street goes as crazy with exit-only turnstiles as it can, including two that are right next to each other! Once you leave the station through those, there’s no way to get back in, so you’re going to have to buy another ticket. Let’s just see what the cashier hours are here, taken from the website: “6:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. Monday through Friday; 6:00 a.m. – 2:40 p.m. Monday through Friday.” Huh. Okay, so I assume that second one is supposed to be Saturday and Sunday, but even then, if you can only afford one shift (which is why I assume the station goes unstaffed at 2:40), why not have it start later in the morning? The market here is primarily tourists, and I don’t think hordes of out-of-towners are waking up at 6 AM to go check out the Jewish History Museum before it opens.
Coming down through the “fancy” westbound entrance, there’s a rather nice map of the Independence Mall area on the wall. Although – and I know this is nitpicking – wouldn’t it be better on the eastbound side? After all, most tourists are probably coming from west of here, so they’re getting off from eastbound trains. Stick a “You are here” marker on the map, and it would actually be pretty helpful as a navigation tool for first-time visitors.
The westbound mezzanine is more or less identical to the eastbound one. However, it’s here in the more often-used direction where having two fare machines poses a legitimate problem: this is a major station for tourists, many of whom might not be inclined to buy a SEPTA Key and are just getting single trip tickets for their rides. I can imagine the lines for the machines here getting real long…
Huh…so this is what tourists see when they come to the birthplace of American independence: trash, chipping paint, low ceilings, broken lights, and a general feeling of hopelessness and despair. Welcome to SEPTA, I guess? Yeah, I really don’t like this platform. I’ve been here before during a rainstorm and seen a monsoon of water blasting down from one of the columns. The one saving grace is once again the wall art, which has some great collages of historical images colored in red, white, and blue.
Station: 5th Street/Independence Hall
Ridership: Wow, I thought this station was more important than it actually is. As it turns out, 5th Street gets pretty mediocre ridership for the El, with about 3,986 riders per weekday. My guess for why it’s lower than other stations (especially other Center City stations) is just that it’s in such a touristy area. For the most part, the market for this station is leisure travellers. However, that also means that its weekend ridership is probably close to what it gets on weekdays. There’s no public data for this, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
Pros: The station is accessible, which is always a plus, and it boasts some nice wall art that gives it character. And it sure is in a good location for all those people coming to see Philadelphia’s most popular attractions!
Cons: Of course, once people seeing those attractions enter this station, their thoughts on America’s birthplace might change a bit. I mean, this is just not a pleasant facility to use, from the moment you enter the cramped mezzanine to the moment you leave the squalid platform to board a train. And don’t come when it’s raining unless you want to see lots and lots of water. Lots. And lots. Of water.
Nearby and Noteworthy: You know, I could list off all the tourist attractions around here, but you probably know what they are already. Instead, I’m going to shout out the Ritz at the Bourse, a movie theater that shows new releases but also a ton of classics and independent films. I’ve never been, but they played Rocky Horror last month (I wish I could’ve gone), and they’re showing The Room (the best movie of all time – look it up) in April, so it’s clear that this is a great theater!
Final Verdict: 4/10
I would feel bad giving an accessible station with some decent artwork a 3, but just know that I’m darn close. Still, for only 4,000 people a day, is it really worth renovating the place? In that sense, I understand why they’re keeping it in its current state – there are so many other SEPTA stations that need much grander improvements, including a ton that remain inaccessible. Oh wait…they’re rebuilding this station. Well…at least it’ll look prettier for the tourists, I guess.
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
Guide to the MBTA’s Spring 2019 Service Changes
The reason I started these guides was because the MBTA stopped listing its schedule changes on its website. Well, I’m happy to say that they’re back to doing it! But…a lot of its descriptions are still really vague. And I really enjoy writing these. And it seems like you all enjoy reading them, too. So…let’s get to it! These changes will come into effect on March 17th.
7: Just a few tweaks here and there to the weekday PM schedule. The only super noteworthy changes are that the 2:33 inbound trip will now depart at 2:30, and there will be one fewer inbound PM peak trip.
36: Watch out, schoolgoers! The 6:20 AM trip to Townsend and Humboldt will now leave at 6:15, and the 6:50 trip to Avenue Louis Pasteur will depart at 6:30. Also, both of these trips will be scheduled to take quite a lot longer than they used to – the Louis Pasteur trip will be 28 minutes instead of 22, and the Townsend and Humboldt one will take a full half hour when it used to be 17 minutes. I guess they must’ve ran late a lot. Anyway, the overly detailed analysis on two school day-only trips is now over.
39: The 39 will generally be getting less frequent throughout the weekday. It will go from every 8 minutes to every 10 minutes in the early morning, every 14 to every 15 in the late morning, and every 8 to every 10 in the evening rush. There are some places where it will improve, though: for example, from every 11 to every 10 in the late afternoon, and every 12 to every 11 at night. So, in other words, the route won’t really change all that much.
43: Oh, they did it! The ever-unreliable 43 will become every half hour on weekdays, down from every 25 minutes now. It’ll also lose evening peak service – right now it’s every 20 minutes then, but soon the half-hour headway will stick it out all the way through the rush into the evening. Finally, that long-standing rule where the 43 leaves Park Street as soon as it arrives will disappear – buses will now wait for their departure time.
47: The 47 makes its long-awaited return back to Pearl Street! Luckily, it won’t be entirely like the pre-detour route, as it’ll omit the old Magazine Street jog. Thank goodness.
62: The 3:00 PM outbound trip will arrive at Bedford VA at 3:48 instead of 3:45. I’m sure this big change will have a profound impact on your life.
64: No, ew, why? What the heck is this? Instead of a weekday midday headway of 35 minutes, it’s now going to be every…39-40 minutes. Disgusting. Also, one trip in each peak will be dropped. And finally, did you like that clean hourly schedule at night? Too bad! Now it’ll be every 70 minutes. It seems like as usual, the 64 loses out.
70: The 70 is one of the most insanely-scheduled routes on the T. So it’s a good thing we have visionaries pushing the University Park arrival of the 10:30 inbound trip ahead by two minutes. Wait…that’s literally the only change? Argh. Better luck next time, 70.
77: The 77 will generally become more frequent throughout the weekday, with small improvements like running every 11 minutes instead of every 12. There’s one exception, though: night service will improve from every 13 minutes to every 10! It seems like they’re actually adding a bus to the route to accomplish this. Look, I’m a regular user of this route, and I’m all for service improvements, but I really don’t look at the 77’s ridership at night and say “Oh yeah, this definitely needs more service.” If anything, it should be a little less frequent (every 15 minutes max) to keep the thing reliable, since buses are often late at night! 10-minute service until 1 AM will be nice, but honestly, that extra bus could go toward one of the countless other routes that actually do provide inadequate service…
80: This one is an update, since the MBTA forgot to put this one on its list of service changes! Thanks to Jared on Facebook for letting me know. Anyway, because of the Broadway Bridge closure, the 80 will now continue up Medford Street and Main Street, take College Ave to Tufts University, and then return to the regular route. This isn’t as interesting as the 89’s detour (see below), and it’s definitely more of an inconvenience. The route’s schedule doesn’t actually change, so you’ll still be picking up the bus at the same times – it just might be in a different place if you’re used to boarding on parts of Broadway or College Ave.
89: The Broadway Bridge detours will be miserable for many people, but I actually really like the effect they have on the 89. Now, outbound buses will turn onto Cedar Street just before the bridge, then take Highland Ave to Davis Square. Clarendon Hill trips will continue there from Davis along the route of the 87/88. I’m all for extra service to Davis Square – this is a clever and innovative way of tackling the detour. The headways will still be weird, but not quite as terrible as they are now. The one major issue I can see is sending buses down the narrow Cedar Street, but buses on narrow streets isn’t a new idea for the MBTA.
104/109: These routes are notoriously crowded in the early morning, so the MBTA is taking steps to mitigate that. A 5:00 AM inbound trip will be added to both routes on weekday mornings, and the 109 will gain three additional trips in the early morning on Sundays. The route will be about every 15 minutes from 5:30 to 6:30 on Sundays now! Too bad the rest of the Sunday schedule is so infrequent…
111: There are some minor trip time changes on Sunday mornings. Service will start ten minutes earlier on both ends, which is nice!
114/116/117: The 116 and 117 will gain an early-morning round trip: a 4:45 116 outbound, then a 5:20 117 inbound. As for the 114, its trip times are changing throughout the weekday. For most routes, I would try to explain the changes in detail, but the 114 times are so random, and this route is such a dead horse at this point, that I’m not even going to bother. If you’re one of the three people that actually uses the 114 for its intended purpose, check out the changes yourself.
120: Huh…it’s kinda hard to rationalize these changes. If I were to describe them in one word, I would say they’re…inconsistent. Whereas the route currently has consistent 25-minute service middays, it will change to 20-25 minute headways with no pattern. Rush hour ends up in a similar boat, with 20-30 minute headways in the morning and 25-30 minute headways in the evening. Overall service ultimately isn’t gained or lost (the route will have the same number of weekday trips), but this just doesn’t sit well with me. Why sacrifice consistency for…well, I don’t even know what the advantage here is?
134: You thought the last one was bad? Oh, honey, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The 134’s current weekday service runs every half hour on the combined portion to West Medford, with hourly service to North Woburn. Pretty nice, right? Yeah, well, just have a look at the new schedule. Long story short, this thing gets crazy. And it loses service, too. This schedule makes absolutely no sense. Check out the 1:18 Playstead Road trip from Wellington – I’ll bet that thing’ll be empty, considering that it leaves just fifteen minutes after a North Woburn trip! Same deal with the 2:17. And the running times are all over the place, too. Sorry, 134 riders, but your life is about to get a lot more miserable.
136/137: Phew, a minor one. The 1:45 inbound 136 will change to a 1:41 departure, and the outbound 2:30 137 will change to a 2:34.
238: Service during the evening rush will decrease from every half hour to every forty minutes, plus midday service will be every 65 minutes instead of every hour. Not good.
240: Many outbound morning peak trips will disappear, but more importantly, the evening rush loses service in both directions. Granted, the losses with this route mostly affect sections with service every ten minutes, where because of the frequency, buses tend not to be as crowded. But it’ll now be every 15-20 minutes, which might be too steep of a drop. I’ve been on this route in the evening rush, and it definitely has the potential to get packed!
325/326: The South Shore isn’t the only place that loses peak service – these rush hour express routes get major cuts. The 325 will lose one trip in the morning and one in the afternoon, while the 326 gets absolutely severed in the morning: it goes from twelve inbound trips…to seven. I know the route doesn’t get a ton of ridership on a trip-by-trip basis, but if you cut half its service, you can bet this express route will have standees. Strangely, the 326’s evening rush gets off mostly scot-free, losing just one trip.
351: All of the running times for this express route are lengthened to allow for extra travel time. Also, the 7:05 outbound will leave at 7:00, and the 5:20 inbound will leave at 5:25.
424: The route will be scheduled to take longer to get to its destination. Hopefully this will help its horrible lateness problem!
428: Alright…we’re back to going to Wakefield High School, huh? But at a slightly different stop this time? Sure, whatever you say.
436: The one trip a day from Broadway at Conomo Ave will now leave from Broadway at Euclid Ave. I looked it up on the map – it’s one block away.
439: Yay, the 439 is no longer scheduled to leave Bass Point before it arrives! I would’ve been curious to see how that worked, though.
450/456: Great, another route whose changes I can only describe as “random”. Service on the 450 will just get a lot less consistent throughout the day, creating short service gaps in some cases and really long ones in others (how d’ya like the gap in inbound service between 1:16 and 3:02?). Also, this will make the 456 even more useless, ruining the 40-minute coordination between it and the 450. Oh, incidentally, the 456 will get a few running time changes.
455/459: Consistency? See ya! Coordination? Bye-bye! Lost service? Hi, come on in! Yes, the 455 and 459 will be less frequent, but with no consistent headway with this upcoming schedule change. It’ll be about every hour and a half on the 455, down from every 70 minutes, while the 459 will be every 100-120 minutes. And you know what that means: the semblance of coordination that the routes used to have is all but gone! Yes, there will in fact now be a 459 that arrives at Salem three minutes after a 455, then a nearly two-hour gap on the whole corridor. Look, I know these routes have abysmal on-time performance, but there has to be a better solution than this! At least the 455 gains a new early-morning trip from Lynn to Wonderland on Sundays.
501: Some of the 501’s times are shifting, but it’s not losing that much service – about one or two trips per peak. Also, all inbound evening rush trips will now operate via the shorter Cambridge Street routing. This change is a long time coming, and it should help reliability on the way out. I don’t even know why some trips went the long way to begin with!
502/504: Both routes lose a minimal amount of peak service, but nothing to go crazy over. The 504’s midday service changes from every 30 minutes to every 35 minutes, though! Another clockface route has been killed.
505: Based on the trend of these changes, you would probably guess that the 505 is losing a bit of peak service. And you’re right! The evening rush loses one peak-direction trip, and running times throughout are lengthened by ten minutes or more because let’s face it, the Pike is a mess at rush hour.
SL1/SL2/SL3: The three Silver Line Waterfront routes sadly are getting a little less frequent. It’s never anything worse than a one-minute difference, though.
Summary: Sadly, these changes seem to mostly represent further steps down a dark path the T is taking. We seem to be heading toward a world with completely random headways, no coordination between routes, and overall less service. I don’t want to continue down this path, and I hope that Better Bus changes (particularly in Phase 2) will lead to serious improvements to a bus system that is clearly declining in quality. I understand that most of these changes are to offset truly horrible on-time performance (check out any bus route profile and you’ll see how bad the situation is), but the service is getting so much worse as a result! It’s clear that the bus system needs more investment so we can have buses with clear, clockface schedules…that also run on time.
There is one positive, though: the MBTA continues to invest in better early-morning service on multiple routes. Hopefully we can one day have a system that truly runs 24/7, so it wouldn’t have to run such intensive early morning service because there’s nothing from 1 AM to 5 AM. Either way, it’s nice to see the early morning getting some much-needed love. Oh, also, the 77 is getting better night service. For some reason. Seriously, I really don’t understand why they’re doing that. Each 77 after 9 PM gets, like, 20-25 people max with perfectly frequent headways. And there are so many other routes that could use better service! Okay, okay, I’m done…
Aquarium and Entertainment Center (River LINE)
Welcome to the very small touristy part of Camden! It gets two River LINE stations, each named after their closest tourist attractions, and I figured we’d look at both of them in one post. Why? Because…well, they’re both pretty uninteresting. So, let’s review Aquarium and Entertainment Center!
Aquarium is a street-running station in mixed traffic, but the road is two lanes in each direction, so cars can pass stopped trains. It has two long platforms with ramps on each end (although the sidewalk does continue behind both), and there are shelters in the middle. Both get maps, benches, and artwork on the columns, although only the northbound platform gets ticket machines. Okay, it’s the second-to-last stop, so I get it.
Entertainment Center isn’t street-running, but it’s basically the same thing as Aquarium in all other aspects. It has two platforms with ramps, two shelters (both with the same amenities, although this time, each shelter gets a ticket machine), and a tingling feeling of deja vu. Since this is the last stop, though, you can board at either platform depending on which train is leaving next. How you actually find out which one is leaving, I have no idea.
River LINE Stations: Aquarium and Entertainment Center
Ridership: There’s no ridership data for these, but I honestly don’t think it’s too high. The most I can imagine is a few tourists taking PATCO to Broadway and then taking this for a few stops. Even then, though, the RiverLink Ferry is probably how most tourists would get here (but it’s far more expensive).
Pros: They have River LINE amenities. That means they’re pretty good by default, if a little boring.
Cons: One con for each: Aquarium is street-running, and Entertainment Center has an ambiguous layout where you don’t know which train is leaving (as far as I can tell).
Nearby and Noteworthy: The station names are very helpful here! Each one has its namesake tourist attraction, plus an additional attraction that’s also pretty close. So, Aquarium has the Adventure Aquarium (which I’d love to visit, but aquariums are expensive) and the Camden Children’s Garden, while Entertainment Center has the BB&T Pavillion and Battleship New Jersey.
Final Verdict: 6/10
These are standard River LINE stations, but since River LINE stations are all so average, the smallest issue can lower their score. As you saw in the Cons section, I have one slight problem with each stop. So: 6/10 for both.
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
Blue Hill Avenue
The day after I became the first passenger to ride SEPTA’s new bus route, the MBTA just had to open a new station! And yes, I did go to Boston to review it. Not just any station, too – a Fairmount Line station. Where all of the stations are notoriously the same thing. Clearly, I’m crazy. So, after my eight-and-a-half hour journey (video coming at some point!), I hopped on the 10 PM Fairmount train with Jordan (the true first passenger to step foot into the station that morning) and rode down to Blue Hill Ave.
First observation: wow, this place is well-lit! Like, really well-lit. LED lights galore bask the platform in huge amounts of brightness. Second observation: oooh, rocks! The station was built in a partial cut, and the open rock formations add a surprising amount of character to what would normally be a generic Fairmount Line station. The central part of the platform has no shelter, just benches and some digital signs that are slightly smaller than the normal ones. We also get those robotic Boston Landing announcements, for better or for worse.
The station has two entrances, one at Cummins Highway and one at Blue Hill Ave. Both get identical shelters. Again, they’re incredibly well-lit, plus they have security cameras and emergency call boxes, so the station feels very safe. From each entrance, longgggggggg ramps lead up to their respective streets. So long that they both have benches in the middle in case people need to take a break!
The Cummins Highway entrance gets a T symbol, train information, and a bench, perhaps to wait for pickups. There’s also a Blue Hill Ave sign on the bridge that still says that the station is “Coming Soon!” Finally, we get this odd stone block in the middle of the entrance. I’m not sure what its point is, but it’s just…there. The 30 runs down Cummins Highway, but the closest stops are 1-2 blocks away. I know the route only runs every hour most of the time, but it might make sense to consolidate some stops to relocate them closer to the station.
Yup, and the Blue Hill Ave entrance is basically identical to the Cummins Highway one, minus the big stone. Instead, this one gets a knee-high blockade blocking access to the road. This wouldn’t be a huge problem if it wasn’t for the fact that the inbound bus stop for the 28, 29, and 31 is right across the street from the entrance! I guess most people won’t be making bus transfers here, but for what it’s worth, the bus stops are generally well-placed at this entrance. Jordan and I jaywalked across and hopped on a 28 towards Dudley from here, and in a few hours, I would be getting on a Greyhound bus back to Philly.
Station: Blue Hill Ave
Ridership: A 10 PM train is not a good one for judging ridership (although for a Fairmount train, it was reasonably busy with about 20 people on board), but two other people got off here. Jordan said when he was here in the morning, it was getting decent inbound ridership. Either way, I think this will be a well-used station: it’s right near Mattapan’s commercial hub, and there’s plenty of dense housing around it.
Pros: Even though it’s boring, the Fairmount Line station formula works well. It’s hard to complain about a fully high-level platform with direct entrances and lots of light. Plus, the rock formations do add some character! The station’s location is fantastic – Mattapan will finally get a one-seat ride into downtown, which will be a huge benefit to everyone in the neighborhood.
Cons: Sigh…it’s still the Fairmount Line. The station still gets one train per hour. You still can’t pay using CharlieCards. You still won’t get free transfers to other modes. That’s really the biggest drawback here – Blue Hill Ave won’t blossom until it gets legitimate, frequent service integrated with the rest of the system. As for problems with the station itself, though? Just a few wonky connections to bus stops and the fact that the Cummins Highway shelter is basically useless unless you’re travelling outbound (which very few people will).
Nearby and Noteworthy: There are a ton of businesses along Blue Hill Ave south of here – in particular, a bunch of casual restaurants and a few salons, among other stores.
Final Verdict: 8/10
I’ve definitely said this in a Fairmount Line review before: I’m reviewing the station, not the line. Yes, the line remains inadequate for the dense urban areas it serves. In a logical world, this would be a rapid transit station. BUT: the station itself is quite good, and that’s really what I’m reviewing here.
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
It was a blast to come back to Boston for about three hours! Stay tuned for a video documenting my journey, plus the hilarious review of the station with Jordan. I don’t know how long it’ll take to edit, but it’s in the pipeline for sure.
49 (33rd-Dauphin to 29th-Snyder)
NOTE (12/3/19): This is about ten months late, but it’s been on my mind: when this post came out, a number of people expressed concern that I referred to Strawberry Mansion as “one of the most notoriously dangerous neighborhoods in Philadelphia.” I’m sorry for saying such strong words without context. I mean in the public perception, including amongst my friend groups and even my superiors (as discussed in the post), this is widely considered to be an unsafe neighborhood. Examples are here, here, and here, with actual crime rates here (low property crimes, but a murder rate that’s almost seven times the national average). I don’t think it’s unfair to call Strawberry Mansion an unsafe neighborhood, but I also apologize for not handling the topic more sensitively; I’ll be sure to do better as I continue my explorations of Philadelphia.
As soon as I found out that the long-fabled 49 was actually going to open up in our lifetimes, I knew I wanted to ride the first trip. At first, we only got a vague “5 AM” opening time, and I really had no idea what that meant or from which end of the route. Then the schedule was released, and we got the time and the place for the first trip: 4:52 AM. Strawberry Mansion. If I wanted to ride the first trip, I would have to go to one of the most notoriously dangerous neighborhoods in Philadelphia in the dead of night.
I was determined to do it.
For those who don’t know, the 49 has been in the works for a few years now. SEPTA’s first completely new bus route in over a decade, the 49 is meant to connect University City to neighborhoods directly north and south. The routing has gone through many changes due to local opposition and community requests. The one that SEPTA decided on runs from Strawberry Mansion, through Brewerytown and Fairmount, down to University City, and over the 34th Street Bridge to Grays Ferry in South Philly.
Unfortunately, it turns out that getting to the 33rd-Dauphin Loop is not easy to do on an early Sunday morning. None of the routes that go there run Owl service, and the closest Owl bus is up on Allegheny a mile away. I was considering the Allegheny option, but then I realized: why not bike there on Indego? It was a win-win situation! Not only would it be the fastest way to get to Strawberry Mansion, but I would also be a moving target!
But who’s going around killing people at 4 AM on a rainy Sunday, anyway? Some of my friends agreed with me (“Go for it, it’s not like you’re going into a war zone.”) and others didn’t (“Dude, you’re going to die, don’t go!”), but I was determined. After all, how often does SEPTA open a brand-new bus route?
At one point, my boss at my university job asked me if I had any fun plans for the weekend. I told him about my journey. Initially, he was on board, but later, I got several emails from him with increasing levels of worry. Then the Penn Band was playing at a basketball game, and I got a call from an unknown Philadelphia-based number. “Hi, this is Penn Special Services [the department of safety]. I heard you wanted to ride the new SEPTA route this Sunday, and I was wondering if you wanted to chat about it.” Darn it, my boss snitched on me!
I was happy he was concerned about my safety, though, and I called Special Services back the next day. As expected, they strongly dissuaded me from doing my morning bike ride, but if I was to go, they said I should let them know so they can “tell SEPTA.” Okay, I have no idea what telling SEPTA was going to do, but sure.
But this call gave me cold feet. If Penn Special Services is concerned about my safety, should I really be doing this trip? But then again, their job is to be concerned about students’ safety. I talked out the whole situation with my girlfriend, who had been vehemently against the trip the whole time. But now that a position of authority wanted me to stay, I think she got a bit of rebel spirit: “You know how I feel about this, but I know you really want to go and the Special Services can’t stop you. It’s not every day that SEPTA opens a new bus route. ” Okay. If she was okay with it, then I was going to go. I texted Special Services and said I was going, but if I felt at all unsafe, I would turn around.
Now that I was getting up at 3 AM the next day, I had to decide whether I would go for an all-nighter or try to get to sleep really early. It ended up being a cruel in-between – I tried to go to bed at around 10:30, but I was so anxious that I don’t think I got any sleep. After writhing around in bed for five hours, it was time to get up.
I left the dorm at around 4 AM. There’s an Indego station right across the street, so I crossed, walked to the kiosk, and…it was broken. Well, darn it. I knew there was another one a few blocks away at the 40th Street Portal, so I walked down there, spotting a few near-empty Owl trolleys in the process. I found the station, paid for my $10 (!) day pass, and picked out the bike in dock number 11.
Now, I can attribute blame to me having a hard time with this bike to two possible causes: number 1, I hadn’t ridden a bike in years, and I was out of shape; or number 2, this bike was terrible! Possibly both, because while I’m no bike expert, this thing seemed pretty bad. It had three gears: “You’re not going anywhere”; “This sucks”; and “This sucks even more, just give up”. The bike did have a flashing light on the front and reflectors everywhere, for which I was very grateful.
So I rattled my way north on 38th and then headed through Powelton Village and Mantua. Mantua is known as being a “watch yourself” neighborhood, but most of the crime happens in its western portions; 34th Street seemed fine. Plus, I wasn’t even concerned about crime, I was concerned about this darn rain! I was already drenched and freezing, and I ended up taking off my glasses because I could see easier that way.
I got a fantastic reprieve from pedalling after 34th Street crossed the Northeast Corridor: it is pure downhill from there, and I had a blast just coasting down at top speed. Swinging a right onto Girard, I crossed the Schuylkill, then made a left onto 33rd. Now I was entering the lion’s den.
Honestly, though, it was completely fine. The streets were empty, and I didn’t feel at all threatened, except by the stupid rain and my tired legs. I locked my bike at the 33rd-Diamond station (most likely incurring a $4 Indego fee for biking slightly longer than half an hour – grr!) and walked the last two blocks to 33rd-Dauphin. Now, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was expecting to see at the bus terminal, but I figured at least a few people would be there. But no – the place was completely empty.
“You got a cigarette?” a passerby asked. “No, sorry,” I replied. I checked my watch. 4:47. This thing had better show up. There was no 49 signage anywhere, so I really had no idea where to wait. Suddenly, a news van parked on Dauphin. Someone got out with a tripod and was just standing there filming across the street. I wanted to ask him if he was here for the bus, but I didn’t want to disturb his shot. We were definitely aware of each other, but we never made contact.
Suddenly…there was the bus! It was down the street at Ridge and York, just sitting there. It said “SEPTA Off Duty”, but it did eventually switch to “49”. Should I try to get it? I assumed it would come serve the station, right? It started moving, but…hey, it went straight onto 33rd! It was skipping the bus station! It took a left onto Dauphin and started heading east.
Oh, no WAY did I come up here at 4 in the freaking morning just to miss this thing! I had to Hail Mary it. The bus was stopped at a red light at 32nd, so I SPRINTED. Somehow, I made it up to the doors, knocked, and the driver let me on. I swiped my pass, and that was that: I was the first-ever passenger on the 49. I was cold, drenched, and delirious…but I was the first passenger ever to step foot on the 49 bus. That was an honor.
The only other person on board was a SEPTA schedule planner who was there to make sure the first run would go well. For this entire trip, it was just us and the driver talking to each other. Once we got to South Philly, a few SEPTA inspectors who had been following us came out to talk with the other employees during the layover. The first-ever 49 trip had been completed.
On the ride back up north, the bus got another passenger. It was someone who was just going up 29th and could’ve used either the 7 or the 48. That turned out to be the theme for the rest of the day, with a ton of dialogues like:
“Do you go to 23rd and Spring Garden?”
“No, this is the 49.”
“Oh, okay, where do you go?”
“I go down 21st.”
“Okay, that’s close enough.”
A lot of people had no idea what the 49 was, but the drivers did a great job explaining where it was going. My favorite quote from a passenger was “49? Where this jawn come from?” like it materialized out of nowhere or something. He was one of the few people I saw who reacted with anything other than apathy, though – “That’s a great route, man, now I have three buses to choose from!”
Okay, but when do I actually review this thing? Well, I was waiting for daylight to actually conduct the review, but I was also getting hungry. So, I did one more trip southbound and walked over to the Melrose Diner for a wonderful cheap breakfast (the 79 wasn’t coming for 23 minutes!). From there, I took a Broad Street Line train up to Susquehanna-Dauphin, barely made a 39, and took that back over to 33rd-Dauphin to get the 9:16 49 trip. Now it was time to conduct the review. Also, the reason I didn’t just go back and take it northbound was because the 79 was against me again and I didn’t want to walk all the way to 29th. Oh well.
Luckily, it had now been solidified that buses were using the route 61 stop at 33rd-Dauphin for now (a cut for the 49 is being constructed). I hopped on, once again the only person on board, and we headed down Dauphin Street. We passed the Strawberry Mansion High School, as well as a ton of apartments with a ton of vacant land around them. We reached a small shopping center, and here, we turned onto the wide-for-Philly-standards 29th Street.
Now, a big problem with this first day of the 49 was timekeeping. No, buses weren’t late – they were really early! We were constantly stopping at green lights just so we wouldn’t be ahead of schedule. This will be offset a little bit as more people learn about the route, but my guess is that the schedule will still need tightening. There were a few businesses at the intersection with Ridge Ave, then the road crossed the Northeast Corridor and we entered Brewerytown after Cecil B. Moore Ave.
We entered Fairmount after crossing Girard Ave, and while the overall conditions of the apartments had been steadily improving, it got really nice here. We took 29th Street all the way down to Pennsylvania Ave, right alongside Fairmount Park, and took a left. There were some more modern apartment constructions down here. At one point, Pennsylvania Ave split in two to accommodate more parking, and the driver really had to compensate to get through the tight s-curve around the parked cars.
There were lots of small businesses among the apartments when we turned onto Fairmount Ave, plus the Eastern State Penitentiary! It was outside the former prison that we turned onto 21st Street, a turn so tight that SEPTA had to install orange flex posts to make sure people wouldn’t park. This narrow street had a ton of rowhouses, with a few businesses here and there as well.
The architecture suddenly got modern around Hamilton Street, with some tall apartment buildings, a small shopping plaza, and even an urban Target. As we approached Ben Franklin Parkway, we passed the Rodin Museum and the Barnes Foundation, and there was a view of the classic Museum of Art building down the parkway. After crossing the Vine Street Expressway, the bus went by the Franklin Institute as well.
It was a few more blocks of classic rowhouses before 21st went under the Regional Rail tracks and JFK Boulevard. Now we were in proper Center City, with a ton of skyscrapers around Market Street. It was time for the 49’s
pièce de résistance: taking a right onto Market to head towards University City. This is, incidentally, the part of the route that will be absolutely miserable at rush hour.
We passed 30th Street Station (another really useful connection this route will give to a ton of people) and the IRS building, and then we were in Drexel Land. But come on, who cares about Drexel? Once we turned onto 34th and hit Chestnut Street, we were definitively in Penn’s jurisdiction. I was particularly happy to go by the best dining hall on campus – that’s a connection that I’ll be using if I’m ever coming down from North Philly.
Once we crossed Spruce, we entered the University City hospitals area, which will be a huge commuting destination. It will also be horrible at rush hour. We made our way past all the hospitals on Civic Center Boulevard, and then…gosh, I’m so used to taking the 42 through here and making a right, but nope, we took a left onto University Ave! It was time to drive to South Philly on the route’s completely new section.
We went underneath the Northeast Corridor and curved our way onto the University Ave Bridge, crossing the Schuylkill again into South Philly. The bus took a left onto Grays Ferry Ave, a wide, mostly industrial road. We turned onto 29th outside of a shopping plaza, and this very narrow street was all rowhouse apartments.
There was a park in between Tasker and Morris Streets, which is where the route intersects with the 29. The apartments past there felt like they were built (comparatively) more recently, particularly the suburban-style development that was on the right side of the road for a bit. Once we crossed Snyder, the end of the route was near: a right onto Vare Ave, and we reached our layover point right next to the Schuylkill Expressway.
Route: 49 (33rd-Dauphin to 29th-Snyder)
Ridership: Well, there isn’t much I can say here that isn’t speculative. Every ride I took got fewer than ten people, and most of them were folks going down 29th who could’ve taken anything. There were a few exceptions, though: over the course of the morning, I saw two people go from Fairmount to University City, one person go from University City to Grays Ferry, and two people with big bags going from Fairmount to 30th, probably to get a train – that last one is a pretty nifty connection to make on the first day of service!
Pros: I’ll admit, I was a little wary of this route at first. “Does University City really need a one seat ride from those places?” But yes, it absolutely does. This opens up so many new connections for a ton of people, including the universities, the hospitals, 30th Street Station, and even attractions on Ben Franklin Parkway for leisure travel. But I think the neighborhood that gets the most out of this is absolutely Grays Ferry. Prior to the 49, most of the neighborhood only had access to crosstown routes, so they had to go to the Broad Street Line to get anywhere. This north-south connection is huge.
I think SEPTA did a great job with the schedule, too. They tried to make it as consistent as possible so the route is easy to understand, and it manages to be decently frequent, too: every 15 minutes at rush hour, every 20 minutes middays and weekends, and every 30-60 minutes in the evening and night. No, it doesn’t come insanely often, and it only runs until midnight, but I think this schedule should work really well for the route’s ridership patterns. Also, one last gold nugget: on all the route’s independent sections, the stops are every two blocks instead of every block. It’s the little things.
Cons: Rush hour is gonna be murder for the 49. But as much as I wish this wasn’t the case, going down Market is truly the most efficient route that can be taken while serving as much as possible. As for early Sunday mornings at the very least, though, the route has the opposite problem! If buses are running consistently early like they did today, the schedule should definitely be tightened. This will hopefully all be fixed as time goes on. I also have to complain about the fact that the 49 adds a new routing to the mess of Fairmount buses that all take almost the same streets but not quite. This will forever bother me.
Finally, for a more pie-in-the-sky idea, I wish the route went further down in South Philly. This is a brand new element of the grid, and probably the strongest part of the entire 49, so I absolutely think it should travel down to Oregon Ave (probably ending at Quartermaster Plaza) to complete the grid. It would require going east on Snyder and then making a right onto 25th, which is a little indirect, but I think this would be a huge improvement for getting around South Philly.
Nearby and Noteworthy: You know, the 49 doesn’t serve a ton on its own. Most of the places it runs to can be accessed by other routes. But the neighborhoods it connects these places to? Oh man, it’s freedom. Now so many more people can get to amazing cultural institutions, wonderful small businesses, and important jobs. I’ve already talked about and linked the big places the 49 serves during the review, so I won’t name anything specific here, but you can go back up and see the links if you’re interested.
Final Verdict: 7/10
No, it’s not perfect, but it’s a great start. Kudos to SEPTA for creating this fantastic new connection! It’ll suck at rush hour, it doesn’t go as far south as I would want it to, and the running times might need some tinkering, but I’m really excited to see who takes advantage of this new opportunity. I hope it meets and exceeds ridership projections! Also, every time I see a 49, I can think, “I was the first passenger ever to board one of those.” Sweet.
Finally, here’s an interesting thought: we now have three bus routes running down 29th Street. If Philly were to do an intense redesign with free transfers, most likely one of them would have to go. Which one would I choose? This might be controversial, but I would say the most frequent one, the 48. Yes, eliminate the 48, put all of its resources onto the 49 (with slight adjustments to cover the lost service and accommodate articulated buses), and tell people to transfer to the trolleys or the El if they want to go east on Market. Honestly, they’ll probably get faster rides, and that will make the 49 a stronger element to the Philly bus grid (plus the 48’s service on Market is all redundant). But a redesign is still a long way off, and this is just an idea.
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
Remember how I mentioned that news van at 33rd-Dauphin? Well, I ended up showing up in one of their clips! At around 1:12 in this video, you can see me running for the bus. The question is, do I put this on the blog’s “In the Press” section or not? Hmm…
Service Change: Transit in Baltimore
A Service Change??? Yes, I’m actually doing one. My friend and I visited Baltimore a few weekends ago, and I came in knowing I wanted to do a post – I had never been to the Charm City before, and I knew very little about its public transportation network, the MTA (whose website completely rips off the MBTA’s, incidentally). So join me in exploring this brand new city via transit!
After a long and predictably late Greyhound trip (not because of traffic, but because of a random 20-minute stop at a service plaza for seemingly no reason), we arrived at “Baltimore Downtown” station. Baltimore Downtown, huh? Yeah, it’s about a 40-minute walk to anywhere resembling a downtown. Apparently it was built where it was because of local opposition to putting it in the actual downtown, but it leaves it in such a horrible place! Your only transit options from here are the 73, which runs downtown but only comes every 45 minutes most of the time, and the 26, which is actually every 15 minutes on weekdays (every 35 on weekends), but it doesn’t go anywhere a tourist would want to go.
So we walked. The roads around the bus terminal are really pedestrian-unfriendly, but eventually we made our way into the Federal Hill neighborhood. Honestly, it felt like one of those neighborhoods that you can only fully enjoy if you’re over 21. But you know what can be enjoyed by anyone of any age?
This, my friends, is the free Harbor Connector. It only runs at rush hour, and it operates three routes that do short-hauls across Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and the Patapsco River. We did the HC3, which runs from Federal Hill to Harbor East, a journey that takes about five minutes. The boat was adorable, the ridership was tiny, and it was a great introduction to the Charm City.
After that wonderful ride, we walked through Fells Point (a truly wonderful, bustling neighborhood) and Canton (where we had dinner). We kept walking after dinner up to Eastern Ave and Conkling Street, in the neighborhood of Highlandtown. This was where we picked up the CityLink Blue, one of the twelve colored bus routes in Baltimore with frequent, 24-hour service.
The colored CityLink routes represent absolutely amazing branding. MTA redesigned its bus network a few years back, and I have to say, the way they sold it was fantastic. But has it been successful? The numbers say no, and I was pretty mixed myself. The CityLink Blue is an exception, but a lot of their colored lines are as infrequent as every half hour on Sundays! That’s not frequent!
Also, I would’ve thought stop spacing would’ve seen big improvements with a redesign. But no – stops were wildly inconsistent, with reasonable lengths at some times and multiple stops on the same block at other times! And the on-time performance. Oh, geez, it’s bad. 67% systemwide. It shows – buses were late all the time. For a good look into the current state of the redesign, check out this article, which goes into much more detail on these issues.
Hey, speaking of stop spacing, did you know that the CityLink Blue has an express section? And did you know that it comes right after our stop? Well…we accidentally missed our stop because the automatic announcement came late. So it was time to express to West Baltimore, a place that really didn’t look like a fun neighborhood to be in at night! At least the bus terminal there was spacious and well-lit – but we did have to get back somehow.
We discovered something else once we got here: MTA doesn’t give transfers. That’s right, they did a bus network redesign focusing on a high-frequency grid…but they don’t have transfers. Unless you bought your ticket on the app. Which we didn’t. We tried to explain to the driver of a CityLink Orange that we had missed our stop and we were trying to get back, but with headphones in, he bluntly said, “Doesn’t matter, you gotta pay.”
Next day! Time to ride the…Metro SubwayLink? Hang on, that’s what you’re calling it, MTA? It used to just be the Metro Subway, but they had to add “Link” to everything with the redesign, so now we get this cumbersome name that no one actually uses. I guess LA already took Metrolink, huh? Anyway, our underground journey began at Lexington Market Station, where we got a firsthand glimpse of the Metro’s graphic design:
The stairs here didn’t actually go underground, they just led to a submerged courtyard where the real entrance was. Once inside, I was impressed at how big and high-capacity the station was. It felt like one of the grandiose stops on the Second Avenue Subway in New York, except a lot less aesthetically pleasing, and with far fewer riders. Also, with smooth jazz. Yes, MTA plays smooth jazz at every single rail station, reminding me of just how much I hate the soprano saxophone. And if you’re a complete masochist, you can stream that wonderful music 24/7 right here!
One of the faregates was just open, so everyone was going through that one, although you do have to swipe again when you leave. I’m not quite sure why that’s the case, since it’s a fixed fare, but maybe it’s to prevent fare-dodging. Then again, these people going through the open gate without paying seemed to know what they were doing. Anyway, Lexington Market has a much easier way to fare-dodge: the elevator to the platform is outside of fare control! How that works, I have no idea, but a cashier did ask someone walking toward it if they had a ticket.
The Metro SubwayLink began operation in 1983. That should give you an idea of what the station design is like. I do have to give Lexington Market some credit for having interesting artwork, though. The litter on the tracks was a little less appealing, but it did make me feel like I was back in Philly!
At this point, I should probably mention that the Metro SubwayLink consists of just one line with fourteen stops. Yeah, it’s a lot easier to figure out why barely anyone uses this thing once you know that. Heck, on weekends, it only runs every 15 minutes! That’s horrible for a heavy rail metro line! The most frequent it gets is every 8 minutes at rush hour.
I’ll give this to the Metro: its seats were super comfortable. But the whole thing felt like it was stuck in 1983, right down to the announcements coming over the tinny, low-quality speakers. Also, the last crossover on the line was three stops away from Johns Hopkins, so for the eastern three stops, trains have to run on the wrong track. Umm…what? Maybe there’s a crossover past Johns Hopkins that they use on weekdays, but as far as I saw, all trains are forced to use this ridiculous arrangement! Talk about a capacity constraint.
The main problem with the Metro is that it…well…doesn’t really go anywhere. The eight underground stops serve actual neighborhoods, but the six that are above ground (which form a larger proportion of the line’s length, since the stops are much further apart) are mostly just park-and-rides. Indeed, after Old Court (the second-to-last stop), the line spends three miles in the middle of a freeway running through the woods to the last stop, Owings Mills, which only really serves a newly-built lifestyle center. Want to get anywhere else from there, you better have a car.
From Owings Mills, we took the train back to Old Court and hopped on a bus route, the 83. This is one of the “Metro feeder” routes, which used to get an “M-” prefix before the redesign. The 83 runs down Reisterstown Road, essentially serving the actual civilization that the Metro misses, before terminating at Mondawmin Station (the first underground one on the Metro).
Our next transit-related expedition began in Charles Village, home to Johns Hopkins University. It involved taking the 51 bus to Towson, then the 93 to Hunt Valley. Neither of these were especially noteworthy trips, but why were we taking these buses? To get to the Light RailLink, of course! Ah, okay, that name doesn’t really work either…
This light rail line is fascinating. It runs up to Hunt Valley, the northernmost point on the entire local MTA network (including bus, aside from the 93 which goes a tiny bit further north), to serve…a suburban shopping mall. It’s a very nice suburban shopping mall, but there’s really nothing else here! It seems to generate ridership, though, so they’re doing something right. I’ll bet trains get empty after the mall closes, though.
These high-floor trains have seen better days. They feel just as dated as the Metro, but they have the added bonus of chipping paint on the outside! Also, it seems like the light rail’s schedule is completely unreliable. I mean, the weekend we were here, they were doing single-tracking up at Hunt Valley and running a shuttle train from there to Timonium, which threw all the schedules on their head. And of course, MTA didn’t put any signs up. The operator didn’t tell us anything until he came out and kicked everyone off at Timonium. No one knew what was going on. It was a complete mess.
The line from Hunt Valley to Timonium consists of snaking through industrial areas making a ton of stops that saw very little ridership on a Saturday. Once we got on the train to continue from Timonium, there were two more industrial stops, then the line ran through the complete middle of nowhere without stopping! Since it’s following an old rail right-of-way, it bypasses actual places where people want to go, like Towson. The line even runs through a downtown (Ruxton), but there’s no stop there because of local opposition when the line was being built. It was a very scenic ride (I didn’t take any pictures for some reason, unfortunately), but not a useful one.
The line didn’t enter proper civilization until Mount Royal a few blocks from Penn Station, the main MARC (Maryland commuter rail) and Amtrak station for the city. A few blocks was a little too much walking time, apparently, so MTA decided to build a light rail spur line there that runs every half hour. They also failed to put any signs up saying that it was replaced by buses on this day! So we wasted our time walking to Penn Station, but at least we got to see the…actually rather underwhelming main hall.
But hey, as long as we’re here, I’ll just talk about how we did get to ride the light rail shuttle! That’s right, on Sunday, we came down here on a whim not expecting anything, but a train was sitting right there! Now, the shuttle usually runs to Camden Yards, which is the other MARC station in Baltimore, but that station was (and is) being renovated. Thus, the shuttle was only running to…Mount Royal. It was a two minute ride with no one on board. Sweet.
Okay, back to Saturday. After our time had been wasted, we got back on the light rail at Mount Royal and entered the street-running downtown section. It was brutally slow. Even outside of downtown, it seemed like the trains would sit there for a while at each station doing nothing! Luckily, they would get a lot of speed in between stops, and south of downtown, the line has this awesome bridge over a body of water with a highway interchange over it! The light rail kinda swoops between it all.
The southern half of the light rail seems to be overall better-used, since it does actually serve places. Well, more so than the north, anyway. After Linthicum, it splits into two branches, each with half-hourly service. We took the Glen Burnie/Cromwell branch, which nearly makes it to downtown Glen Burnie, but stops a little under a mile before it.
And where did we go from Cromwell? Annapolis. Yeah, MTA actually runs a bus to Annapolis, the capital of Maryland. The bus ride felt like a long-distance RIPTA route with fewer highway sections and lower ridership. It was totally worth it, though – Annapolis was awesome. It has its own horrible little bus system, but we unfortunately never got the chance to ride it. At least I got one singular photo:
But we weren’t going to miss out on the other branch of the light rail! We decided to push the airport branch to the next day, Sunday, when…the light rail doesn’t start until 10:40 AM. Okay, scratch that, no way were we waiting that long for a train! One option was to take MARC to the airport and the light rail back, but I had a different idea…
I love weird bus variants. The 75 is the only MTA bus route that serves the airport, but it usually begins at the Patapsco light rail station…except when the light rail isn’t running, like on Sunday mornings. At those times, it runs express into the city! The bus was 20 minutes late, but for an hourly service on a Sunday morning, it was pretty busy, with a full-seated load.
After an excruciating wait with many other people, the train finally came, and we took it back into Baltimore. Our next destination was the B&O Railroad Museum, and to get to it, we were going to use downtown Baltimore’s free bus system, the Charm City Circulator. It has four routes serving different parts of downtown, and it seemed like it would be the happy fun tourist bus. That turned out not to be the case…
“The tree spirit came. The tree spirit came and it opened my body and peed in my body. Then the tree spirit took my intestines and put feces in my intestines and trash in my mouth.” Well, for crazy ramblings, this lady was certainly being creative. But it was a bit of a relief when the ride was over.
We did one more Charm City Circulator ride later on, this time on the Purple Line, which had much a much higher ratio of normal people who actually seemed like they were going somewhere. We also took a trip on the CityLink Navy to get back to the Greyhound station, but the walk from the bus turned out to be longer than expected. And that’s about it! I really enjoyed my time in Baltimore – it’s a great city, and it would be a blast to come back again. I leave you with a photo of the harbor from the top of the world’s tallest pentagonal building:
LRTA: 7 (Pawtucketville/UMass Lowell North)
Welcome back to the LRTA! I gotta say, we’ve got a pretty good route here with the 7. Could this be the best route on the system? Maybe!
We began, like all LRTA routes (well, except that which must not be named), at the Kennedy Center. From there, we meandered our way onto Thorndike Street, sailing through an underpass and over the Pawtucket Canal. Thorndike became Dutton, paralleling a canal with apartments and converted factories on the other side. Once Dutton Street ended, we turned onto Merrimack Street, passing Lowell City Hall and a library. The main part of downtown Lowell was in the other direction, though, so this was mostly apartments with a few businesses here and there.
There were more parking lots after we crossed a small canal, and the brick buildings became shingled triple-deckers. The street turned into University Ave when we went on a long bridge over the Merrimack River, and indeed, we were in UMass Lowell’s campus on the other side. While the campus heads north along the river, though, we stayed on University Ave, which quickly became residential.
We very nearly entered Dracut, but we turned onto Old Meadow Road to stay in Lowell. The houses had more space between them now, although they slowly got dense again as we turned onto Mammoth Road, then Woodward Ave. The street got pretty narrow, and our next street, Brookside Street, was even more so. Varnum Ave was a main road, though, but before we could get very far, we had to deviate to Lowell General Hospital, which was up on a hill.
Back on Varnum Ave, it was lots and lots of suburban houses…plus a few small apartment developments here and there that probably drive most of the 7’s ridership at this point. We passed a few businesses at the intersection with Totman Road and an nursing home a little later. A few bigger apartment developments and a farm showed up as we continued, but it was still mostly houses. At the very end of the route, we entered Tyngsborough and pulled over at the entrance to the Greater Lowell Technical High School. Oh, and a nearby house had chickens in its yard!
LRTA Route: LRTA: 7 (Pawtucketville/UMass Lowell North)
Ridership: The route commands a respectable 687 people per weekday, giving it the highest weekday ridership on the whole system. Saturday ridership is significantly lower at just 161 daily riders, but it is still the third-highest on the system.
Pros: The 7 serves a huge part of Lowell all to itself, which I think contributes to its high ridership. It has a fantastic weekday schedule with half-hourly service all day, from 6 AM to 7:30 PM (plus an additional trip at 9 PM). Saturday service drops to every hour, but that’s not horrible for an RTA, I guess. Finally, the route stays in Lowell for nearly the whole time, making it quite possibly the longest LRTA ride you can do while still paying the vastly cheaper “city” fare!
Cons: No Sunday service is sad. I know none of LRTA has Sunday service, but this is one of their routes that would really benefit from it. Also, all LRTA maps show the route as deviating to other parts of UMass via Aiken Street, but Google Maps, the scheduled times, and, er, my ride show that this isn’t true. Please change your maps, LRTA!
Nearby and Noteworthy: The Hawk Valley Farm looks like a great nature reserve, and it’s right along the route.
Final Verdict: 8/10
I looked through all my old LRTA reviews to see how they all stack up. Apparently I’ve given this system a lot of 8s! Geez, Miles, the system isn’t that good. But yes, the 7 does well and truly deserve an 8. The inconsistent maps are annoying, and I feel wary about giving any route without Sunday service anything higher than an 8, but this is a great route otherwise. Best on the LRTA? It just might be!
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
48 (Front-Market to 27th-Allegheny)
Since the 49 is opening in less than a week, I thought I’d take a look at one of the other routes that winds its way through Brewerytown and Fairmount. I’ve actually ridden both the 48 and the 7 in full, but since A) the 48 comes before the 7 in my backlog, and B) the 7 is a ridiculously long route and the post involves a story, I figured we’d push the 7 for another day. For now, let’s take a ride on the 48!
The fact that I rode on a Saturday at noon may affect my opinion on the route. After all, the 48 goes across the entirety of Center City, from Front Street to 22nd Street. The traffic during rush hour must be unbearable! But on a Saturday midday, it wasn’t bad at all. Luckily, I’ve seen 48s at rush hour trapped in Center City traffic, so I know how slow the route can be.
Another oddity of the 48 is that it starts at the Front-Market Loop (the only other route that begins there is the 5). The other buses that travel across Center City begin at Penn’s Landing, but I guess for capacity reasons, the 48’s first stop is this loop just before the Penn’s Landing viaduct. The Penn’s Landing routes all just run down Market in both directions, but because the 48 starts where it does (and because SEPTA can’t establish any routing consistency anywhere), it uses Market in the eastbound direction and Arch in the westbound – the only route to travel down Arch across Center City.
We went up Front Street, a ridiculously narrow road squashed between apartments and the I-95 viaduct. Luckily, Arch Street was a somewhat normal-sized street (for Philly, at least), lined with apartments and fancy Old City businesses. There were also plenty of historical attractions, including the Betsy Ross House, the US Mint, and Independence Mall.
The African American Museum was the last museum in the clump of them around Independence Mall. A few blocks later, we entered Chinatown, going straight by the arch (which was on the wrong side for me to get a picture, alas). That ended after a few more blocks, then one side of the street was occupied by the gigantic Philadelphia Convention Center, while we passed Reading Terminal Market on the other side.
We got a great view of City Hall crossing Broad Street, then we saw Love Park right after (still hosting the Christmas Village when I rode). It was skyscraper time from there, including the Comcast Center, the tallest building in Philly. Soon, though, the street got residential as the Regional Rail came out of its tunnel a half-block south. We took a right onto 22nd Street, finally beginning our trek north.
22nd Street was all apartments, but unlike in Old City, these were definitely built in the 20th Century. After going over the Vine Street Expressway, we crossed the good ol’ basically-a-highway Ben Franklin Parkway, with a fleeting view of the art museum (and the Rodin Museum right along 22nd). We officially entered the Fairmount neighborhood after the intersection with Spring Garden Street.
This was a really nice neighborhood – lots of rowhouses, but also one-off small businesses that mingled in with the apartments. The bus got to do a fun maneuver at Fairmount Ave, where 22nd Street has to make its way around the Eastern State Penitentiary. Some tight turns ensued, then we took a left onto Aspen Street outside of a parking lot.
Aspen was a street that was far narrower than any street with a bus route on it should conceivably be, but it did pass some charming businesses at each corner, with the ever-present rowhouses in between. We turned onto 27th Street once we reached the edge of Fairmount Park. Let me just preview a rant that will come later by saying that all three (soon to be four) buses that serve western Fairmount take slightly different routes, but not the exact same routes. Thus, it’s noteworthy that all three of them share this part of the one-way 27th, if only for a few blocks! But…oh wait, the 49 won’t serve it. Of course it won’t.
After a left onto Poplar Street and a right onto 29th Street, the craziness was over: the northbound and southbound routings of the 48 were together at last, and we would make no more turns until the end. Wonderful. We crossed Girard Ave (and the 15 trolley), leaving Fairmount and entering Brewerytown. The primarily residential 29th Street definitely had a rougher edge to it than before.
Once we crossed the Northeast Corridor, we entered Strawberry Mansion, where there were a lot more abandoned buildings and patches of vacant land. We passed a few businesses, mostly grocery stores and shuttered restaurants, as well as a few churches, but it was mostly apartments in varying states of decay. Also, the 7 left us at Susquehanna Ave, and we would be on our own for the remainder of the trip.
A park broke up the blocks of rowhouses, and along with it came a Philadelphia Water Department office and a middle school. A few blocks after the apartments came back, we turned onto Allegheny Ave. The route ends with a loop around SEPTA’s Allegheny Depot via 26th, Clearfield, and 27th; I got off at Clearfield and 27th, so it would look like I was actually going somewhere. From there, the bus proceeded to its layover point, where there’s no actual space for laying over, so you just get multiple articulated buses blocking a ton of parked cars from leaving their spaces. Nice.
Route: 48 (Front-Market – 27th-Allegheny)
Ridership: Given the route’s frequency, I would’ve thought its ridership would be higher, but it’s nothing spectacular: 7,630 people per day. Oh, don’t get me wrong, that’s great ridership, but it ranks 33rd for SEPTA routes, and plenty of busier buses get worse service.
Pros: I appreciate how once the route gets onto 29th Street, it’s a straight shot up to Allegheny – talk about a good strong corridor. And the frequency on the 48 really is impressive, with possibly one of the best schedules on all of SEPTA: every 6-8 minutes at rush hour (with similar productivity to midday, to boot!), every 12 minutes during the day, every 10 minutes on Saturdays, and every 15 minutes on Sundays. The route does become every half hour at night (service runs until almost 2 AM), but it’s at least every 20 minutes until 10 PM seven days a week, which is really quite good for SEPTA. Also, the 48 has just one variant! Every trip does the exact same thing! I love it!
Cons: Oof, that layover. How can they get away with blocking cars like that? I know it’s right next to a SEPTA garage, but it seems like anyone can park there. I guess a word of advice is…don’t. The 48’s routing through Fairmount is, of course, very annoying, especially when every other bus through the neighborhood goes its own way. Also, running down Arch Street is a little strange, considering no other route does it (plus the 48 takes Market like normal in the other direction), but I get more why it has to do that – space in Center City is limited, so starting at Front and Market makes some sense. Finally, I think this route might be under-capacity. I mean, the route’s load chart shows that vehicles never get above 45-ish people on board at once. And it uses articulated buses! Granted, there aren’t any other routes out of Allegheny Depot that need them more than the 48, but it really would be nice to see these buses go to routes that regularly get packed. Assuming these charts are accurate, regular 40-foot buses can easily handle the 48’s loads.
Nearby and Noteworthy: This is a great way of getting to the Eastern State Penitentiary from Center City. I’ve yet to visit, but I’ve heard it’s awesome! Also, Fairmount in general seems like a great place to just walk around.
Final Verdict: 6/10
I was hovering between a 5 and a 6 here. I mean, the layover is ridiculous, the routing is often questionable, and the articulated buses could be put to better use on other routes. Plus, running straight through Center City can’t be good for reliability. But darn it, that frequency is just fantastic! I just have to praise SEPTA for running a route that manages to run as frequently for as long as this one does. Here’s a question, though: will the 48 and the 49 be able to coexist and still remain useful? Stay tuned…
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
VIDEO: Travel the Whole Charles River (using only transit)
Oh, also walking. Did I mention walking? There’s a lot of walking.
Riverside (River LINE)
The River LINE’s half-hourly headways are really good considering it’s basically a commuter rail service. But waiting in Riverside, NJ for half an hour on an early Sunday morning? Lemme tell ya, there’s not a lot to do.
I get the feeling most River LINE reviews will be like this. There’s just not a lot here! The high-level platforms get ramps on both sides, and once you’re up there, you’ve got all your basic amenities: shelter, benches, wastebaskets, ticket machines, and departure screens. For the record, that’s not a bad thing – the platforms are simple but effective. There are even a few little art pieces on the shelter columns, adding a tiny touch of character.
Strangely, when I was here, I completely failed to realize that this station has three parking lots. Actually, wait, there’s so signage anywhere. Never mind, I don’t feel as bad. Heck, for two of them, the lots themselves don’t even get signs! There’s nothing saying “Hey, if you’re a New Jersey Transit commuter, this is where you park.”
“Lot 1”, the one in the middle that’s closest to the station, seems to get the most people. This is the one with actual NJT signs, and it also gets three bike racks. Lot 2, the smallest one, is across Pavilion Ave from the station. Finally, Lot 3, despite being the biggest, is really out of the way! I’m glad the road to it has a sidewalk, but it passes vacant land that was supposed to be occupied by a housing development that seems to have never been built. All together, the station has 315 (!) parking spaces, and they are ALL FREE. Not only that, but as far as I can tell, you can park in them for as long as you want. Man, what a deal!
River LINE Station: Riverside
Ridership: No ridership data, huh? Well, on an early Sunday morning, there were three to four people waiting on each side. Hey, better than nothing!
Pros: The station does a lot with a little. I guess this is probably the case with most River LINE stations, but it has all the amenities you would want from a small-town stop like this. The station is right in the center of Riverside, but it also has more parking than you would ever need (not to mention it’s all free).
Cons: I think lack of signage to the lots is the main thing. I guess the idea is that you’ve already parked your car, so you should know where it is relative to the station, but the fact that there are three different lots makes things more confusing. Proper labelling and signage would help wayfinding here a lot.
Nearby and Noteworthy: There’s a main street. Was there anything to do on a Sunday morning? Uhh…the supermarket was open. Nice.
Final Verdict: 7/10
Riverside is a station I don’t have a lot to say about, but that’s just because it gets the job done. Really, aside from the lack of signage, everything here is pretty good. And even if you can’t get to your car because you can’t find the lot, at least you’ll never get charged because parking is free and unlimited! Yay! Anything to get people to ride this thing, right, NJT?
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
SRTA: NB 5 (Rivet Street)
We are finally done with this system! I have been continuously reviewing SRTA routes since…geez, since August???? Okay, I did not realize it’s been that long. Basically, ever since I transitioned to Miles in Transit, every “MBTA” bus review has just been the darn SRTA! Well, let me stop talking and let’s get this final route, the NB 5, over with.
We pulled out of Stop & Shop, making our way onto Rockdale Ave, then turning onto Bolton Street. After passing a sketchy-looking shopping plaza, one side of the road was dense houses, while the other side was just a big
abandoned field of sorrow and despair. There were a few businesses when we reached an actual park and turned onto Rivet Street.
It was all houses for a bit before we crossed the NB 1 at County Street. From there, we made a left onto 2nd Street and a right onto Potomska Street, which curved left to become MacArthur Drive. There was nothing much to see here other than a bunch of ocean-based industry (i.e. boats and fish) and a Price Rite supermarket that felt pretty out of place.
We went by more industry and parking lots, including a big power plant, then we turned onto Walnut Street then 2nd Street, heading into downtown New Bedford. Wait…why are we turning left? No, no, no, we’re so close, don’t do this deviation to me! Sigh…we had to do a loopy-loop to serve some apartments that are already served directly by the 1. Great. Can we go downtown now? The 5 travels via Union Street for some reason, which no other SRTA bus does, although Union Street runs through the really nice part of downtown with cobblestoned streets. That was pleasant, I guess. But I was so happy when we turned onto Pleasant Street and travelled up to the terminal.
SRTA Route: 5 (Rivet Street)
Ridership: Bear in mind that the New Bedford routes tend to get overall higher ridership than Fall River routes (barring the North End Shuttle, as usual). Well, besides the North End Shuttle, the 5 is the least-used bus route on the entire SRTA. Yes, just about 129 riders per day were using this thing in 2014. The route also has the fewest passengers per revenue hour, 11.18, on the system, aside from the North End Shuttle (of course).
Pros: Honestly, the best thing I can say about the 5 is that it serves that Price Rite in the industrial area. That’s kinda the one unique thing it does.
Cons: The 5 is very much in the shadow of other routes. Aside from the industrial part (which I’m sure attracts very little ridership throughout the day barring the Price Rite), the 5 is never further than a 5-minute walk away from another bus route. I guess it kinda has a crosstown thing going on with its Rivet Street section, but the route’s alignment isn’t really filling any huge gaps in the system. Also, with service every 45 minutes on weekdays and every 60-65 minutes (inconsistent headways) on Saturdays, it’s even less useful as a crosstown. Oh, and there’s that stupid deviation that’s entirely redundant to the 1! Look, the 1 is every 20 minutes, this is every 45. I mean, come on. Yes, the 5 serves Price Rite, but if infrastructure was installed to let pedestrians cross the JFK Memorial Highway, walking from the 1 wouldn’t be a problem.
Nearby and Noteworthy: Hey, it does serve that nice part of New Bedford! But also, you can just walk there from the terminal in a few minutes, so once again, this route isn’t really doing anything new.
Final Verdict: 3/10
It may not be the most infuriating route on the SRTA, but it is one of the most useless. There are clearly some people using it, but I’d be curious to see how many of them could almost just as easily use a different route. I’ll bet it’s a lot. For the record, the SRTA was an overall decent system; we’ve just ended on a few bad routes, I guess. Sorry, SRTA.
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
NJT: 419 (Camden – Route 73/Pennsauken Station – Riverside)
Look, I like the River LINE. I know the diesel-powered light rail/commuter rail hybrid from Camden to Trenton is basically there just so NJT can say “Look, we have light rail in South Jersey!”, but it’s great for what it is. It’s reasonably frequent, it has vastly exceeded ridership projections, and it’s super cheap. Here’s a question, though: if we have this frequent, well-used, cheap light rail line…why does the 419, the infrequent, barely-used, expensive bus line that just parallels the light rail to Riverside, still exist?
Okay, well, maybe it exists to give passengers a one-seat ride to Philly. After all, a one-seat ride is something a lot of people value, and the fact that the River LINE doesn’t run to Philly is a potential detriment to its ridership. Oh wait, no…the 419 starts in Camden. Alright, so a one-seat ride isn’t it.
We pulled out from the Walter Rand Transportation Center onto Haddon Ave, which became 7th Street as it crossed I-676. We entered a dense residential neighborhood on the other side, which continued as we turned onto State Street. Well, hey, the River LINE doesn’t serve this neighborhood, so this is good! Oh wait, the 452 serves it too, and it runs more frequently than the 419 on weekdays. Darn it!
Once State Street crossed the Cooper River, things got a lot more…middle of nowhere. Some apartments had been built on one side of the road, but the other side was basically just a wasteland. At a recycling plant, we turned onto Harrison Ave to deviate into the Kroc Center. This makes sense: the Kroc Center is an important Salvation Army community center for the city of Camden. Unfortunately, no one got on or off here. Hmm…maybe because it was 7:45 AM on a Sunday…and the Kroc Center doesn’t open until 9?????? YEAH, THAT’S PROBABLY IT.
And then, rather than use the local (admittedly narrow) roads to get to the next main street on the route, River Ave, buses have to return to Harrison all the way back to State! And for our trip, there was construction on River Ave, so we only travelled a block down State before turning onto Pierce Ave. While River Ave is a main road with a ton of retail, Pierce Ave was super narrow, and all we passed was decrepit apartments and vacant land.
We turned onto 26th Street, making it onto River Ave for just two blocks before having to run down 28th Street on another detour. We travelled down Hayes Street, which was also residential, decrepit, and super narrow, and then we used Reeves Ave to finally get back to River Ave for the normal route. It was a mix of businesses and apartments. By the way, we were still directly following the route of the 452.
The 452 finally leaves the 419 at 36th Street to terminate at the River LINE station of the same name. Great, now we were on our own! Here, surely, the 419 would become much more useful. River Road went on a long bridge over the River LINE tracks, leaving the city of Camden, and…we were in suburbia. Every house had a driveway. Curses, foiled again!
Even though the 419 has seven other River LINE connections, apparently the route needed one more. So, after heading through an industrial wasteland for a bit, we used Derousse Ave to deviate into the Pennsauken Transit Center. And I know what you’re thinking: “Oh, it’s to connect to the Atlantic City Line!” To which I say: if there really was anyone who regularly makes that connection and can’t walk two blocks to get to the station, I would be really surprised. Who goes from the AC Line to the 419?
We returned to River Road, running past more suburban houses, as well as a few businesses and the Betsy Ross Bridge to Philly. Entering another industrial wasteland, we sped past the Route 73/Pennsauken River LINE station and River Road became New River Road. Crossing Pennsauken Creek, we passed through a classic South Jersey cloverleaf interchange, then we turned onto Public Road to get to Broad Street.
Okay, Broad Street was a major throughway with dense houses and some businesses. Surely now, finally, the route would be useful. But wait, what’s that two minutes away? Oh, it’s the Palmyra River LINE station! Another two minutes of driving and here was downtown Riverton and its River LINE station. Three minutes later, here was Cinnaminson Station. And that one wasn’t even in a downtown, it was just an apartment development and some industrial buildings!
But Cinnaminson and Riverside are actually far away – a little under 3 miles. Finally, right at the end, here’s where the 419 becomes useful. Except no, it doesn’t. Because there’s a reason the stops are so far away: there’s basically nothing between them! It’s just woods and industry. That’s it. When we came back into a real neighborhood, there were a few blocks that were pretty far from the station, but again, everyone had driveways. And just like that, we were in downtown Riverton, and the route fittingly ended right at the River LINE station.
NJT Route: NJT: 419 (Camden – Route 73/Pennsauken Station – Riverside)
Ridership: Oh, I would love to see the ridership numbers for this route. Well, my Sunday morning ride got a glorious two people, and the driver said the route is that light throughout the day. So…yeah, about what I was expecting.
Pros: Hey, I’ll say something good about the 419: it actually has a really impressive service span. Buses run from about 3:30 AM to 1:00 AM on weekdays, and 5:30 to 1:30 on weekends. The River LINE only runs from about 6 AM to 9:30 PM (midnight on Saturdays), so there are times when the 419 is the only option. It’s also every hour throughout the day, which is…consistent.
Cons: Wow, that was a longer Pros section than I was expecting. Well, now it’s time to tear the 419 apart by showing how it’s inferior to the River LINE in every way:
- Frequency: The River LINE is every half hour for most of the day, and every 15 minutes at rush hour. The 419 is every hour.
- Speed: The River LINE takes 22 minutes to get from the Walter Rand Transportation Center to Riverton. The 419? 48 minutes.
- Convenience: Sure, the 419 does stop more frequently than the River LINE, but most of the proper neighborhoods it serves are no more than a ten minute walk from the light rail. And what are you going to do, walk ten minutes to the frequent and fast light rail, or wait an hour for the bus that will take longer anyway?
- Price: I swear to God I’m not making this up: the River LINE costs $1.60 to get from Camden to Riverside; because of the bus zone system, the 419 costs $2.75. I’m sorry, in what world is it acceptable for the in-all-other-ways inferior bus to also be more expensive than the in-all-other-ways superior train? This is the last straw.
Nearby and Noteworthy: On a Sunday morning, downtown Riverside is pretty dead. Actually, the town is pretty dead at most other times, too. But even if that wasn’t the case, why would you take the 419 there?
Final Verdict: 1/10
Okay, look, even the parts of the 419 that are away from the River LINE are still served by the 452! Sure, the 452 is a weird circulator thing that takes longer than the 419’s direct ride, but if the 419 was eliminated, more resources could be put into serving those neighborhoods with more logical and frequent service. The only time it makes sense to run this route is during the early morning and late night hours when the River LINE isn’t running. That’s it. At the very least, make the bus the same darn price as the train. PLEASE!
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
Guide to the MBTA’s Better Bus Project Proposals
Totally out of nowhere, the MBTA has released its proposals for the bus network in the first phase of the Better Bus Project. These changes are meant to be easy targets that are cost-neutral, with the bigger fixes coming later down the line in Phase 2. Each route gets a “profile” with really in-depth ridership information (and I am so excited to pore through it all), and a big chunk of routes are getting changes. If they were to go into effect, it would be on September 2019. Also, remember to give feedback on these proposals after reading them! Okay, let’s get right to it!
SL2: Oh thank goodness, they want to get rid of the 88 Black Falcon Ave deviation. I’ve always thought it was a waste of time, giving the stop a 1/10 in my original review, and the T seems to agree. Eliminating the deviation would save two minutes per trip, plus it would make the route a lot less complicated. Also, the profile seems to admit that way too much service is provided on the SL2 during off-peak times, but I guess they’re not doing anything about that at this juncture.
1 and CT1: Oh yes, they finally played the “Hey, maybe we should cut the CT1!” card. So many transit advocates (me included) have been saying for years that this thing needs to be cut, moving its resources to put better service on the 1. Adding to that better service is the second proposal, which involves having the 1 loop around via Dunster Street in Harvard Square instead of going all the way around the yard. As long as they can ensure buses will be able to traverse Dunster okay (i.e. double down on making sure people don’t double-park and block the road), I am totally in favor of this. That Harvard Square loop has always been a nightmare.
4: The proposal to the 4 is just to eliminate the Northern Ave jog in the Seaport District. Sure, that’s all well and good, but the 4 has some big problems that go beyond just that one deviation, namely the fact that although it does provide a one-seat ride from North Station to the Seaport, the traffic it faces is soooooo bad. The three-seat ride via subway and Silver Line is honestly probably faster than using the 4…
5 and 16: Huh, really interesting idea here. The MBTA proposes cutting the 5 and extending the 16 to JFK Station and UMass Boston weekdays and Saturdays to cover for the lost service. The bus used on the 5 would be added to the 16, slightly improving frequency along the whole route. This is a neat proposal, and it will overall improve service for most people.
8: Make the 8 less crazy? Heck yeah! The proposal is to cut a bunch of jogs from the 8 in order to straighten the route. Most of them are great: straightening the route through the Longwood Medical Area, getting rid of the complex routing to the Boston Medical Center, and eliminating the South Bay Center deviation (a bold move, but I like it). The one cut I’m not a fan of is having outbound buses skip the Ruggles Busway. Apparently this would save 5 minutes of running time, but even if it does save time, it would make finding the bus from Ruggles really confusing, so signage would have to be really good to help people get to the route. Although…5 minutes is a lot of time. Alright, they said that this redesign would have some out-of-the-box proposals. Just make sure those signs are as clear as possible!
9: Oh hey, it’s the exact proposal I made four and a half years ago in my original review to straighten the route’s inbound routing at Broadway. Well, I will happily take all the credit for this one, MBTA! Okay, in all seriousness, it’s great to see that crazy inbound route getting fixed, regardless of where they got the idea from.
18: The proposal here is to have the route skip the Fields Corner busway. This one is easier for me to swallow than the 8 skipping Ruggles, since…well, very few people use the 18. Still, despite saving 6 minutes, I’m gonna say it again: the signage had better be good. Also, despite the route’s profile pointing out that the Auckland Street jog gets “less than one passenger” per trip, the MBTA does not propose getting rid of it. Would it really be so controversial to make people walk an extra one minute to get to Dot Ave? Heck, the time savings for the bus would be equal to or greater than the extra walking time!
19: First of all, like the 8, the MBTA wants to have the 19 skip the Ruggles busway in the outbound direction. Again, just make sure the signage is good. Otherwise, the plan is to extend the route to Kenmore at all times. Currently, it only runs there during rush hour. I like this change – it’ll make it a lot easier for residents of Roxbury and Dorchester to get to the Longwood Medical Area. However, this extension comes with a cost: the amount of buses on the line won’t be increased, so frequency will drop by 5 to 15 minutes. Considering the route runs every hour midday, any further drop in frequency could be devastating. For now, riders will have to decide if the extension is worth it with the frequency drop, but I hope the T will be able to improve service when Phase 2 of the redesign comes around.
26 and 27: At first I was disappointed to see my beloved 26 loop disappear, but this does seem like…well, an interesting proposal. Basically, run the 26 down Norfolk Street to Blue Hill Ave, then down to Mattapan (replacing the western half of the old loop) and have the 27 use Washington Street to get to River Street, then continue with the current route to Mattapan (replacing the eastern half of the loop). There are a lot of advantages here: it eliminates duplicate service on both Dorchester Ave and Gallivan Boulevard, and the bidirectional service would be a lot simpler than the confusing loop that exists now. On the downside, the routes that these were duplicating aren’t frequent enough to cover the loss of service, and the new 26 will only run every 25/45 minutes peak/off peak, versus the current 15/30. The 27 will lose frequency too – apparently wait times will be about 8 minutes longer than they currently are. Overall, I think this proposal has merit, but I would rather wait until Phase 2 to see it happen, so that the frequencies of these and connecting routes can be maintained and increased.
34 and 34E: Okay, so the 34 and 34E would be combined into one route. That makes sense. Also, a deviation to Legacy Place every 30 minutes would be added. That also makes sense – Legacy Place is a major destination, after all, and I complained about the walk from the bus in my review. This last bit is confusing, though: service would be simplified to three variants: Dedham Mall, Legacy Place, and Walpole Center/East Walpole. Well, getting rid of all of the 34E’s other weird variants is great, and I am definitely in favor of that. But…does this mean that Dedham Mall and Legacy Place will only be termini and not deviations? Will Walpole Center trips skip both of those destinations? It’s hard to say, and the document does not explain it well. But hey, I’m all for eliminating variants!
36: The 36 is too confusing! Luckily, it is proposed to operate with just two variants: Forest Hills to Millennium Park via VA Hospital would operate during the day, while it would instead terminate at Rivermoor Industrial Park at night. Buses would operate through the hospital, no longer serving Charles River Loop. Service would be slightly less frequent, but also a lot more simple, so I think this is a great change overall.
37: This is a simple one: eliminate the LaGrange and Corey variant…except during school hours. Well, it’s something, at least.
44: It is proposed to eliminate this route’s John Eliot Square jog that runs evenings and weekends. I don’t have much to say – I think it’s a great idea to speed up service, and very few people use the deviation.
47: The 47 is a crazy route with a lot of problems, so it’s a little sad that its changes aren’t particularly drastic. Basically, straighten out the route in the Longwood Medical Area and bypass the Ruggles busway going outbound. I’ve already covered other routes that are doing this, so my thoughts on those are the same here.
52: Cutting the 52’s variants is the story here. The route will be pared down to just one, running via Wheeler Road. Also, all trips after 9 AM will run to the Dedham Mall, although the Old Navy stop will be eliminated (this will apply to all other Dedham Mall routes, except, for some reason, the 35). It all sounds good to me!
59: Again, the T wants to cut the 59’s variants. All trips are proposed to run via Needham Street.
60: The 60’s route would be shortened slightly by cutting it back to Chestnut Hill Square. This does screw over riders to the Chestnut Hill Mall, who would have to walk across several parking lots and treacherous Route 9 to get to the bus. All this for…service that’s one minute more frequent. Huh, well, that’s a letdown. It looks like Chestnut Hill Square is a much bigger destination than the Chestnut Hill Mall, though, so I guess it will save those people time.
64: The 64 has two, count ’em, two proposals. I’m going to start with the second one, because it’s one I’m fully in favor of: get rid of the Hobart Street jog. Hobart Street is criminally narrow for buses, and this change has been a long time coming. Cutting this jog will improve headways by one minute (yay?), but more importantly, it will save people a lot of time from not having to sit on buses struggling to make a turn that they shouldn’t have to make.
And then Proposal 1. Now, this is one that a lot of Cambridge transit advocates have been clamoring for: extend the route to Kendall Square all day. Well, I like that they’ve chosen to run it via Main Street, which should save time. I’m just not sure how big the market is for midday one-seat rides to Kendall Square that will take longer than just connecting to the Red Line. Plus, overall service on the route will decrease from every 35 minutes middays to every 45 minutes. I hope I can be proven wrong here, but I don’t really see this as an overall positive extension.
65: Okay, this is an interesting one. The proposal is to reroute the 65 from Kenmore to Ruggles. I’m going to give a tentative thumbs-up here. The route intersects with every Green Line branch that serves Kenmore, so it’s easy to transfer if you’re going there. The connection to the Orange Line would be useful, and the route would run straight through the Longwood Medical Area on its way to Ruggles. This change would result in up to ten minutes of lost frequency, but at least the route is providing a new connection instead of the redundant connection with the 64 extension.
70 and 70A: Hallelujah, let’s make a start on fixing this beast! First of all, the 70 will see more trips running to Market Place Drive middays and evenings, and hopefully with this change will come better coordination between the route’s different termini. The 70A will, huzzah, be relegated to its own loop from Waltham to North Waltham. The route will no longer be a figure-8, becoming more of a figure-backwards-9, leading to simpler service. Also, the loop would gain Sunday service! Although…huh, it would apparently be every 90 minutes. Ugh. Well, it’s a start.
72, 74, and 75: This one has been a long time coming. The 72 and 75 will finally be combined at all times, with the 75 running via Huron Ave…oh, except at rush hour, the 72 will also run. Okay, weird. I wonder if with the new wires, the T will now have a rush hour-only trackless trolley route! Hey, better than nothing. Although in all seriousness, I don’t even think the 72 needs to run at rush hour. Other than that, the 74 would omit its Bright Road deviation, saving time for through riders. These changes combined would allow for better overall bus frequency for West Cambridge and Belmont, so yay!
89: Eliminate the 89’s Clarendon Hill branch? Sure! This will simplify the route, and the 87/88 generally provide frequent enough service for the transfer to Clarendon Hill at Davis to not be too painful.
90: I’ve never thought about it, but this one makes perfect sense! The 90 would get cut back from Wellington to terminate at Assembly Square. No longer will buses have to deal with the brutal traffic to Wellington that is redundant to the Orange Line anyway! Alright, well, that’s it, what a great change…wait, they want to have buses skip Sullivan??? Okay, I have some beef with that. Unlike with Ruggles or Fields Corner, Sullivan is not in a walkable area. Making 378 Sullivan riders per day walk seven minutes along and underneath highways just to get to the Orange Line does not seem like a good idea. Look, yes, it is an annoying deviation. But it’s serving a train station! It’s important! A ton of people use it! You cannot call Lombardi Street a connection with the Orange Line, which combined with the route’s truncation at Assembly, would mean the 90 would no longer connect to the Orange Line. And that’s no good.
92: The proposal here is to cut the 92 from Assembly Square to Sullivan full-time. Yes, that is a great idea! It will improve frequency significantly, and riders can just take the Orange Line to Assembly instead.
93: Yeah, sure, cut the Navy Yard variant. Makes sense.
95: Ooh, this one is juicy! Basically, the 95 would stop serving Playstead Road and instead run to…Arlington Center! You don’t realize how close those Medford Square and Arlington Center are when you’re on transit because it’s basically impossible to get between the two, but now there will be a direct connection! Yeah, I love this. Very few people use the Playstead Road portion of the route to begin with, and those that do can just walk to the 134 to Wellington instead. The MBTA says that people will have longer wait times, but apparently this new routing will run every 30 minutes, which is the same frequency as the current route. Maybe it will also be every 30 at rush hour (versus every 25)? Well, I still think that’s a decent trade-off for what will be a fantastic direct connection.
106: They want to cut all service back to the Lebanon Loop. Absolutely. Let’s do it. Barely anyone uses the service to Franklin Square to begin with, and this will make the route so much simpler.
111: I’ve never understood why the 111 gets extended to Broadway and Park Ave in the evening and only in the evening. Well, apparently, neither does the MBTA, because that extension would be eliminated with this proposal. This will allow for a simpler schedule and more frequent service for a route that needs as much service as it can get.
120: First of all, the 120’s awkward and pointless loop in Central Square, East Boston would be eliminated. Good riddance. Also, the terminus would be moved to Jeffries Point to improve the reliability of trips leaving from there. Yeah, I think that makes sense!
131, 136, and 137: Another one that fell under my radar but is a good idea. Aside from early-morning trips, the 136 and 137 would be cut back to Oak Grove, allowing for more frequent service on those routes. As for the 131, it would serve Malden Center full-time, covering for the lost bus service along Main Street. Yes, that would affect the 131’s frequency, but the trade-off is worth it to improve headways on the far more important 136/137.
134: Okay, uh, the 134 has this one deviation that runs six times a day that serves the Cambridge District Court. This proposal is to, uh, not do it anymore. Okay, yeah, that’s awesome, but is that really all you could do for this variant-filled monster? Ugh, there had better be some big changes in store here for Phase 2.
201/202: With this proposal, the 201/202 would remain a loop on weekends, no more serving North Quincy. This seems reasonable – it would improve frequencies, and the section to North Quincy mostly serves offices anyway. There is just one caveat: the report claims that “Route 210 continues to provide Saturday service [along the North Quincy segment].” Uhh…no, that’s completely wrong. The 210 only runs between North Quincy and Quincy Center on Saturdays. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s important to note that this service will well and truly be eliminated on weekends, with no replacement whatsoever.
215: This proposal would cut an early morning round trip to North Quincy meant to serve the first Braintree train of the day. Instead, the trip would leave earlier in the morning and run to Ashmont to get the first train from there. This will make the route that much simpler, and it won’t have a huge effect on riders.
220: Some more variant cutting here. Buses would no longer serve the Hingham Shipyard, as well as, interestingly, the Hingham loop. I totally get cutting the Hingham Shipyard deviation – it only operates twice a day in each direction, the shipyard is an easy walk to Lincoln Street, and only 3 riders per day use the deviation. The Hingham loop is more interesting, though. It would improve frequency a tad, but some people would lose service. How many? 10 per day. Oh! Okay, wow, I did not realize the loop was that lightly used. Alright, sure, cut it!
222: More weird Quincy variants. This proposal would cut the odd midday trips to Essex Street, losing just 3 riders per day. Yeah, sounds good to me.
225: I remember looking at an old MBTA system map and seeing a route 252 direct from Braintree to Columbian Square. I always thought that looked like a really convenient connection. Well, it’s (sort of) coming back! Yes, the 225 would be cut back full-time to Lincoln Square, while a new route, the 226, would run from Braintree to Lincoln Square, then down to Columbian Square! This is an awesome idea that will improve frequency for the 225, although: we have no idea how often this 226 character would run and when. There’s no indication of it in the proposal. So, we’ll have to wait and see how useful the service actually is. Oh, also, service will be “reduced” on one of the 225’s variants, but apparently not entirely cut. Darn it, I was hoping it would be simplified to just one!
238: Remember when the MBTA cut the 238 back to Quincy Adams and then immediately rescinded it because of the backlash? Well, they’re proposing it again! I’ve always been in favor of this plan. This time, too, the T says it will improve frequency on the route with the new cutback. Even better!
350: I remember way back in 2012 when my predecessor, (T)he Adventure, proposed that the 350 should serve Northwest Park. And that was when the place had barely developed! Well, finally, the 350 would serve Northwest Park, including its many offices and the trendy 3rd Ave retail development. This would increase headways by five minutes, and it would force buses to skip the Burlington Mall (stopping on the Mall Road instead), but this would overall be a huge boon for the Northwest Park development, particularly 3rd Ave.
411: Oh, the crazy 411. This change will make it just slightly less crazy, at least in the peak: buses would only run between Malden Center and Kennedy Drive at rush hour. Yes, that is cutting off a ton of the route, but it’s a part of the route that’s A) covered by other buses, and B) doesn’t get a lot of ridership at rush hour anyway. I like this. This makes a lot of sense.
424: Part 1 of the Great De-Expressing of the North Shore is one of the easiest to swallow. After all, morning 424s already end at Wonderland. This proposal would make the evening ones end there too. It would also take a more efficient route to get to the station.
428: Cut the route back to Lynn Fells Parkway? But…they already did that. That’s literally already in effect. Okay then…
430: The 430 currently takes a crazy route in Saugus, running from the Square One Mall to Cliftondale Square and then back up to Saugus Center, then looping around to serve the Saugus Iron Works. This proposal would run service directly from the mall to Saugus Center, as well as cut the Saugus loop. Ultimately, this would speed up the route a lot and give it higher frequencies. The disadvantage is that Cliftondale Square would lose a direct connection to the Orange Line, though, and the transfer between the 429 and the 430 probably wouldn’t work out a lot of the time. It’s a big trade-off, and more people use the route from Cliftondale Square than from Saugus Center – although then again, maybe that’s because it’s so circuitous. We’ll have to see if the 430 ends up getting more Saugus Center riders, I guess.
435: This route would lose its twice-daily Pine Hill variant. Anything to simplify this mess of a route seems good to me. Only 4 riders would lose service.
441, 442, 448, and 449: Bye-bye, 448 and 449! All service on these corridors would be to Wonderland only. It looks like the T is really gonna double down on service from Lynn to Wonderland, including better frequencies and new express runs between Lynn and Wonderland. I won’t be fully happy until the 441/442 become Key Bus Routes, but this seems like a good start, a good start indeed.
455/459: So long, 459! All service on this route would only run to Wonderland. This will allow for huge frequency increases for the 455, with average wait times decreasing by 20 minutes! And since this is the final cut express route, let me just explain why I’m happy they’re getting rid of these: the Blue Line is faster than sitting on traffic-prone highways, and people will actually save money from not having to pay an express bus fare. Even for those going to the Seaport, the SL3 now makes that commute viable – even though it runs through the Ted Williams, you’re sitting in the same traffic that you would’ve on the express bus.
501, 502, 503, and 504: A radical change for Newton Corner! Now, these express routes will only loop Newton Corner when they have to, i.e. the 501/503 will do it in the outbound direction and the 502/504 will do it in the inbound. This mainly saves time for 502/504 riders to Watertown, who used to have to sit through the Newton Corner deviation in both directions. I like this change, but I do hope the MBTA makes it clear how to get to and from Newton Corner by express bus. If anything, having all four routes share a schedule card might be the best way to make the service pattern as clear as possible.
Okay, and those are the 47 changes documented in Phase 1 of the Better Bus Project! Overall, I think most of them are great. Yes, there are plenty of routes that should’ve been tweaked but weren’t (hi, 112) and a few changes that I wasn’t a fan of, but I am so happy to see the MBTA finally giving the bus system some love. Let me know what you thought of these changes and if you disagree with me on any of my opinions, but more importantly, let the MBTA know! This redesign is supposed to be based on rider feedback, so make sure you give them something to work with.