As a corollary to our guest contributor post on the disappointing improvements and issues with Commonwealth Avenue, we have a few (much delayed) updates about the T's more progressive plans to improve transit along the corridor.

Back in June, I had the pleasure of attending a forum on Green Line issues hosted by the MBTA and facilitated greatly by Senator Brownsberger. The presentation included updates on the primary issues afflicting the Green Line and its dependent riders as outlined by Brian Kane, MBTA Director of Policy, Performance Management & Process Re-Engineering and former budget analyst with the MBTA Advisory Board.

Others present at the meeting included leading MBTA staff that Dr. Scott heralded as subject matter experts to ensure questions could be answered directly by the most appropriate person from the agency. Top MBTA management included:

Dominick Tribone for questions on information systems

Bill McClellan, Director of Green Line Operations

Laura Brelsford, Deputy Director of System-Wide Accessibility

Melissa Dullea, Director of Planning & Schedules

Mr. Kane broke down the issues into 5 key areas and highlighted the improvements the T is aiming to tackle over the long run.

Speed

The biggest hindrances to speed right now are the incredible closeness of stops on some lines, the lack of signal preemption, and restrictions from fare collection and public outcry about boarding policies.

At the moment, the C line is the slowest, averaging 11.1km/h (6.9mi/h) with an average stop spacing of about 305m (1000 ft), while the D is the fastest, averaging 30.6km/h (19.5mi/h) with an average stop spacing of about 1.2km (4,000 ft).

Stop Consolidation

The number of stops increases time the train spends either stopped or slower than cruising speed. Even if the volume of passengers stays the same, the math still works out to be that the train spends more time slowing down to stop at each stop. Further, each stop that a train has to make before a stop light increases the chances that the train will miss a number of green cycles and get stuck at a red light. Of course, the real culprit of slow loading times is a capacity issue, which we'll discuss below. Ultimately, the promise is faster train speeds at the compromise of increasing the walking distance for some.