Boston transportation

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Image:Boston CAT Project-construction view from air.jpeg

Contents

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Roads

The streets of Boston, Massachusetts may seem as though they were not planned—a common fiction is that they evolved from old cowpaths—but in the 17th century they avoided swamps and marshes and followed shorelines before the original peninsula comprising the city was expanded with landfill in the 19th century. Except for the Back Bay and part of South Boston, Boston has no street grid, which is confusing for nonresident drivers. Roads change names and lose and add lanes seemingly at random, and many drivers are flummoxed by rotaries. Legally, cars already in a rotary have the right of way; that's not the way it always works in reality.

Back in the 1940s urban planners saw the need for improved road transportation, otherwise Boston's development would be limited. The state Department of Public Works had the novel idea of building a futuristic 1.5 mile "Highway in the Sky" through downtown Boston, with enough on- and off-ramps to service local destinations. This elevated John F. Fitzgerald Expressway - more commonly known as the Central Artery - was intended to work in concert with the Inner Belt, that was to circle downtown Boston from the South End and Back Bay across the Charles River to Cambridge and Charlestown. Local traffic would use the elevated Central Artery, while through traffic would use the Inner Belt.

Construction on the Central Artery began in 1950, but the roadway was not without controversy. The new artery, which displaced more than 20,000 people and demolished more than 1,000 structures, was seen as ugly and divisive of city neighborhoods. Its construction spurred citizen groups and others to successfully oppose the building of the Inner Belt. Central Artery construction concluded in 1959 as part of Interstate 93, and was designed for 75,000 vehicles per day. But from the outset, its 27 on- and off-ramps between Kneeland Street and Causeway Street, combined with a lack of merge and breakdown lanes, made for less than smooth traffic flow. Stall and crawl commuting was born.

By the early 1990s traffic on the elevated artery was an incredible 190,000 vehicles per day, with an accident rate four times the national average for urban interstates. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper for six to eight hours per day, with projections of traffic jams doubling by 2010. Plus, the elevated structure itself was decaying.

For most of the 1990s and early 2000s, driving in Boston was disrupted by the Big Dig, the most expensive (roughly $14 billion) road project in the history of the United States. State officials claim that it will solve the region's traffic woes, but critics recall the same promise in the 1950s when they pushed through the Central Artery—the elevated highway the Big Dig is replacing.

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Subways

Image:Mbta-logo.jpg Main article: Boston subway.

There are four subway lines in the metropolitan Boston area: the Red Line, Green Line, Orange Line, and Blue Line, all of which head into and out of downtown Boston. That is one of the system's strengths—the subways do an excellent job of getting people to and from downtown. However, there is little cross-town service (The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which runs the system, has begun developing a cross-town bus line, though). Also, the subways stop running at 12:45 a.m. each night, although bars and clubs in Boston are open until 2 a.m. The basic fare is $1.25, extra to get on or off at some of the more remote stations, such as Quincy or Riverside. Monthly commuter passes and day and week visitor's passes are available.

Boston has the oldest subway system in North America—the first car began running under Tremont Street in 1897 (today, that line is part of the Green Line). The Red, Blue and Orange lines are traditional subway lines with third rail power (although the Blue Line switches to overhead lines north of Boston Harbor). The Green Line and the Mattapan branch of the Red Line are really light-rail lines, using trolley cars. The Mattapan line uses refurbished pre-war "PCC" trolleys; the Green Line relies on more modern LRV cars from Japan and Italy. The Green Line is actually four different lines; it starts as one and about halfway through the system it splits into four different lines, the B (Boston College), C (Cleveland Circle), D (Riverside) and E (Heath Street) trains. Because the split is only present on the outbound end of the line one may take any train inbound, but when going outbound one must be careful of which train one gets on or else one will end up in a very different place. Because the Green Line 's B branch runs through many college campuses it is often referred to by Boston students as the "drunk college-kid express".

In the early 1960s, the then-new MBTA hired Cambridge Seven Associates to help develop a new identity. Cambridge Seven came up with a circled T to represent such concepts as "transit," "transportation" and "tunnel." Today, Bostonians call their subway "the T."

The colors of each line have a meaning: The Green Line runs into the leafy suburbs of Brookline and Newton; the Blue Line runs along the ocean; the Red Line used to terminate at Harvard University (whose school color is crimson) and the Orange Line used to run along Washington Street, which was once called Orange Street.

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Elevated sections

Despite the first section being built underground, many later parts were built as elevated railways. The only old-style elevated remaining is the Red Line at Charles-MGH, between the tunnel under Beacon Hill and the Longfellow Bridge. Until 2004, the Green Line was elevated near North Station; the tunnel to replace it opened in the summer of 2004. The part north of there will remain elevated and runs along a concrete arch bridge.

The Boston Elevated Railway was the company that owned all the elevateds and subways. The following els once existed:

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References

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Commuter rail

The MBTA's commuter rail system, sometimes known as the Purple Line, brings people from as far away as Worcester and Providence, Rhode Island into Boston. Lines from the North Shore and northwestern suburbs begin and terminate at North Station; lines from the South Shore and the west start and end at South Station. There are approximately 125,000 one-way trips on the commuter rail each day.

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Bus Rapid Transit

In an effort to provide service intermediate in speed and capacity between subways and buses, the MBTA has begun projects using the Bus Rapid Transit, or BRT, system. The MBTA has one BRT line, the Silver Line, though it currently operates in two separated sections.

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Buses

Main article: MBTA Bus

The MBTA operates 162 bus routes within the Greater Boston area with a combined ridership of approximately 375,000 one-way trips per day. Included are four of the few remaining trolleybus lines in the U.S. (71, 72, 73 and 77a). The basic bus fare is $0.90; monthly commuter passes are available, as are transfers between some bus lines and the subway.

In addition, South Station is a major bus depot for inter-city travel.

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Walking and Bicycling

Boston is known to travel agents as "America's Walking City". Boston is a compact city, sized right for walking or bicycling and according to a Prevention Magazine report in 2003, the city has the highest percentage of on-foot commuters of any city in the United States. Most of the area's cities and towns have standing committees devoted to improvements to the bicycle and pedestrian environment.

Although cycling is popular in Boston, for both recreation and commuting, Bicycling magazine, in its March 2006 issue, named the city as one of its 3 worst cities for cycling. The distinction was earned for roads that are in terrible shape, few bike lanes that are disconnected, and a city government that makes pro-bike gestures, then rescinds them, such as hiring a bike coordinator, then eliminating the position after only two years. Neighboring Cambridge, MA earned an honorable mention as one of the best cities for cycling with a population of 75,000-200,000.

Boston has an active Critical Mass ride and MassBike is a bike advocacy group active in supporting cyclists in the area. The Minuteman Bikeway (which runs though several suburbs of Boston) and Charles River bike paths are popular with recreational cyclists and tourists. Many MBTA riders use a bicycle to get to the station.

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Satellite parking

The MBTA operates several large park and ride facilities on its subway and commuter rail lines, close to major highways. While most of these tend to fill up with commuters on weekday mornings, they provide a good place for visitors to leave their cars and see the city without parking hassles on evenings and weekends.

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Intercity Trains

There are two major rail stations in Boston: North Station and South Station. There is a third station in Back Bay and a fourth, outside the city, on Rte. 128. All of these are served by commuter rail and Amtrak. Amtrak's Northeast Corridor service terminates at South Station; Amtrak's Downeaster service to Maine terminates at North Station. There is no direct rail connection between North Station and South Station; most transfers from one side to the other can be done using the MBTA Orange Line from North Station to Back Bay. See also North-South Rail Link.

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Aviation

Boston enjoys extensive domestic and international airline service at three airports:

There are also several general aviation facilities including Hanscom Field in Bedford and Norwood Municipal Airport. Silver Line bus rapid transit connects Logan terminals with South Station and there are shuttle buses between the terminals and the Blue Line Airport station. Train service is planned from T.F. Green to Boston.

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See also

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External links

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Sources:

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