Latest BostonBRT Updates
Greater Boston is seeing a dramatic increase in bus priority projects that bring us closer to BRT. As municipal leaders, the MBTA, and local advocacy organizations collaborate to ramp up planning and construction, people around the region will breathe cleaner air and experience greater freedom, mobility, and economic opportunity. Here’s the latest towards BRT in the region:
Recent milestone bus improvement projects include the state’s first dedicated bus lanes around a major rotary in Everett, connecting essential workers to job centers across the region and adding time savings to the peak hour bus priority lanes on Broadway. New center-running bus lanes on Columbus Avenue in Boston set a new standard for bus service that is free from both mixed traffic and turning vehicles and encourage more people to leave their cars behind.
Pilot projects led by BostonBRT in multiple communities have also been made permanent, creating better quality of life for thousands of riders.
Now, our region is embarking on a process with the potential to supercharge BRT efforts in the years ahead: MassDOT and the MBTA’s Bus Network Redesign. This work will completely reimagine the MBTA’s bus network to reflect changing travel patterns and create a better experience for current and future bus riders through:
More high-frequency corridors
More midday, evening, and weekend service
Better access to key destinations
New bus routes
Cities across the country have used bus transformation efforts as a springboard for BRT projects and for overall street transformation – combating climate change, promoting racial justice, and creating safer, more livable streets for all. Some great examples include Houston, TX, Indianapolis, IN and Aukland, NZ.
What bus routes in Greater Boston are poised for transformation? How can key corridors be improved to enable faster, more reliable bus service? Which corridors should make the push toward true BRT? In 2015, we explored these questions in The BRT Report: Better Rapid Transit for Greater Boston, and since then we have seen mileage of bus priority lanes throughout the region increase by over 400%!
BostonBRT and our local partners are engaging with cities aligned with Bus Network Redesign efforts, focusing on specific corridors poised to receive high frequency bus service as a result of the project. Through technical assistance, community engagement, and sharing examples of successful BRT efforts in other places, BostonBRT will help create a vision of efficient, reliable, and even joyful public transportation that will positively change people’s relationship with the bus forever.
Corridors of focus currently include:
Massachusetts Avenue (Cambridge, Boston and Arlington)
Congress Street (Boston)
This playbook from ITDP outlines critical steps and decision points to implement a bus rapid transit (BRT) corridor in Massachusetts between the cities of Everett and Boston. Included are data-rich insights into specific on-the-ground conditions and illustrations of creative bus priority improvements in Everett along a potential Everett-to-Boston BRT corridor.
