An interactive exploration of Boston's subway system | Hacker News Reader

An interactive exploration of Boston's subway system

mbtaviz.github.io

117 pointsparksb28 comments

I have been hacking on a better calculation environment for train speed zones. Alon Levy wrote some python code that calculates how long it takes a train to accelerate and decelerate between different speed zones.

I have been cleaning up the code and adding more to it. I'm bringing it into a jupyter notebook so transit advocates can better present their routings. So far I have a framework that allows easy expression of alternate options along a segment of track

  I'm not far off from being able to click and drag track segments on top of a map with ipyleaflet.  I also want to hook in an optimizer to recommend the best track routings by cost.

There's still a lot of work to do. Is anyone else interested in hacking on this stuff?

[1] https://pedestrianobservations.com/2023/10/27/setting-speed-...

[2] https://github.com/paddymul/train-calculator/blob/main/Segme...

Late in 2006, as a local engineering consultant working for MBTA, I designed and then physically installed OFDM receiver station on top of the Oak Grove (Orange Line) station. Google Street View still shows the antenna present.

This is very interesting, but wow, what a small system: only 3 lines? I'd like to see what a page like this would look like for Tokyo, where we have 121 lines and 882 stations in the greater metro area.

> only 3 lines?

There's a fourth, the Green Line (which actually has 4 branches, B, C, D, and E, on the south/west side of downtown Boston), but it is not shown in the article under discussion. There is a link in the article to another page on the same site that shows the Green Line.

Technically two or three of the silver line buses are also considered to be subway, too. I believe SL1, SL2, and SL3. They’re subway fare and they go underground at some point

And free outbound from Logan! Though I must say, the last time I did this it was a bit of a nightmare. The SL1 was very late and we were packed in like sardines.

As someone who has lived in both Boston and San Francisco.... I'd choose Boston's infrastructure any day. We complained about it constantly, and then we came to SF. And desperately miss it.

They have not included the Green Line which is underground in the central city but is more like a tram in physical dimensions. It is considered a part of the network.

Boston is a very small, dense city, only about 50 square miles. A quick check of wikipedia shows Tokyo proper is nearly 15x the size.

Not that the adjoining cities of Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville have a public transit system that covers all completely (or indeed that even what falls under Boston is comprehensive to some areas with respect to the subway) but the Boston metro does have some form of transit that covers the area within the metro proper--past which it peters out aside from commuter rail--which is decent but which mostly functions as, well, commuter rail.

Boston is no denser than Tokyo, and compared to European capitals, very underserved by mass transit. The MBTA is a shitshow and it is fairly unusable as a reliable means of transportation.

cries in Los Angeles

2014, but still interesting - I wonder how things have changed with more WFH. (And also, from what I hear, with the Red Line basically not working these days?)

ridership is about half of what it was pre-pandemic, so there are likely a lot of differences - the green line extension and some additional orange line stations have also opened since

the whole system is a mess right now, but there's a new general manager that seems to be the best chance we've ever had at turning it around

Worth noting that the bicycle infrastructure in Cambridge, Somerville, and the adjoining parts of Boston has also skyrocketed in quality relative to its pre-pandemic state, it's extremely heartening to see. I don't take the T much anymore just because it's so easy to bike anywhere that I need to go. Shout out to the new path parallel to the green line extension, which makes it feasible to get from downtown to Somerville (and out to the Minuteman and 20 miles beyond!) without needing to navigate that viaduct and nightmare highway overpass east of Union.

The bad part of the new bike lanes however is that it is now politically impossible to implement street cars or dedicated Bus Rapid Transit. There’s not enough space on the main streets and the bike lobby is very powerful.

I say this is someone who bikes, but who would rather have working mass transit first as it is far more useful and also equitable.

I can name several places in Cambridge and Boston which are using dedicated bike+bus lanes as a solution to accommodating public transit and micromobility on our narrow streets. I'm sure that some bike people grumble about it, but the rest of us recognize that every person who decides to bus rather than drive is one less car that we have to contend with.

As for streetcars, Philadelphia shows that you can mix streetcar lanes with car lanes.

I have lived on a streetcar line in Philadelphia and sometimes people double-park. It's not ideal.

True, but we are getting more center-running bus lanes, which in the absence of street cars is at least a reasonable step forward

The bicycle infrastructure, at least in Cambridge, does seem to be very heavily used even if it does make for some pretty crazy intersections between pedestrians, bikes/e-scooters, and cars--especially when it's getting dark in the evenings like now. I drove in last night for an event--really no alternative from well outside the city--and it's a pretty wild mix of transportation modes.

True. I chose my neighborhood in Somerville with proximity to the T as a top priority because I assumed I'd be taking it to work in Kendall every day. Then I bought a bike and found it better in almost every way: free, enjoyable (much of the time), healthier, and much faster. So much so that I biked nearly all of the time, year-round. I had dedicated lanes for most of the trip, and quiet almost car-free neighborhoods for much of the rest.

An unexpected pleasure was the schadenfreude of passing scores of cars on Hampshire/Beacon on my way home during rush hour.

An unexpected annoyance was the fair weather bikers who don't seem to know their bike has gears, and take f.o.r.e.v.e.r. to get going at a green light.

My very anecdotal sense as someone who doesn't come into the city a lot is that rush hour traffic is worse than ever and transit is less crowded than it used to be be.

surprisingly traffic is lower than pre-pandemic overall, though possible it's clustering more at rush hour... anecdotally I do notice that people are worse drivers than ever

there are a lot of differences since 2077...

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Category:MTA_stations

It's a bit faster than walking between Alewife and Porter.

I actually did race it on foot a few weeks ago and won!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Jw_v3F_Q0

This is Tufte-level quality, amazing!

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