When we talk about problems with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, we think first about our experiences with the train that runs up and down our campus from morning until night — its poor timeliness, its crumbling infrastructure, the way we narrowly avoid being struck by its speeding metal frame while crossing Commonwealth Avenue on the daily.
We rarely think about the MBTA’s bus network, an expansive framework underlying the city that is responsible for much of Boston showing up on time to school or work. The MBTA’s buses are less talked about and perhaps more important for people living in pockets of the city not served by the subway.
The MBTA’s target for on-time bus performance is 75 percent — a red flag from the get-go that the T faces serious problems with timeliness. Why should their target not be 100 percent? The MBTA knows the problems with their service run so deep that they’ve lowered their goal for number of on-time rides to an abysmal three out of four — and what’s more, they still can’t meet that goal. MBTA buses meet their target 65 percent of the time, according to CommonWealth Magazine.
The MBTA has a responsibility to meet their target without blaming inefficiency on passengers themselves or delaying action. But in Boston, communities served by the bus are responsible to an extent for accepting measures to combat bus traffic. The problem isn’t the buses themselves, it’s the spaces they run in and the traffic they get stuck in. A bus sitting in traffic in downtown Boston is the definition of inefficiency — at that point, there’s no difference between the bus and a car.
Bus-only lanes implemented in the outskirts of the city — where buses transport a large portion of the population and the streets have multiple driving lanes — are the best way to reduce traffic. Roslindale implemented a bus-only lane this summer, reserved from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. every weekday. During the monthlong test period, Roslindale buses shortened their commute time by 20–25 percent during the worst traffic, as reported by The Boston Globe.
The Roslindale bus lane leaves one more lane open for cars. In areas like Roslindale, Dorchester and Hyde Park, reserving one lane for buses will leave at least one more lane open for cars, taking buses out of the driving lanes and speeding traffic up for everyone, including people in cars.
The bus system in Greater Boston provides 400,000 rides a day, serving 50 communities. However, bus service is even more inconsistent than normal in areas with large minority populations. A 2017 study found that over 40 percent of the MBTA’s bus routes in minority communities run a below-average number of buses, as opposed to 25 percent in “non-minority” routes.
Low income and minority communities rely heavily on bus routes in neighborhoods that the train doesn’t hit. These results indicate that the MBTA is more concerned with the welfare of its non-minority passengers, and if they want to prove otherwise, they can look into putting bus lanes on the streets of minority neighborhoods. With bus lanes letting buses run on time, there will be no excuse for the MBTA to disregard the passengers who rely on buses the most.
The Boston Globe reported in April that the MBTA was prioritizing buses as a quick and easy way to improve overall service — bus lines are easier to upgrade than rail lines because they don’t require extensive infrastructure upgrades.
If the MBTA is prioritizing buses, they need to show it.
They’re the easiest to upgrade, so they shouldn’t be the T’s least reliable form of transit. Those who ride the buses in Boston don’t want to have to Uber to get to school or work on time, but that’s the position the MBTA has forced them into. The way to bring in revenue for the MBTA that can be used to upgrade infrastructure is to improve reliability.
Some people, when they see that the bus is required for their route, immediately disqualify that route and find another way to get to where they’re going. But for a lot of people, taking the bus is their only option, as it’s cheaper than the train and runs far more extensively into the crevices of the city. These commuters deserve to have the MBTA care about their commute as much as they do the people riding their trains.
