Better Bus Project: Route 104
Helping Malden take flight
The Better Bus Project is the MBTA’s most significant advancement of their public transportation services in many decades. Here at BostonTransit, we will be breaking down the changes route-by-route, with critical evaluation. Priority for articles will be given to routes announced in existing implementation phases.
To begin with, I just wanted to thank everyone for their overwhelming support! I have also enjoyed reading all of your comments and criticisms about the piece. It’s been wild to see folks arriving to this blog from all around the internet.
Content schedule going forward
Going forward, my goal is to write at least 2 articles per month. These will be a mixture of the main content (primarily the Better Bus project right now) as well as a mailbag/comments piece periodically. Furthermore, I will be opening up the subscriber chat! Subscribers will receive an email about this shortly, and any subscriber may use this space to discuss with me and with each other any topic related to Boston transportation. Feel free to ask any questions about transit, Boston, or anything else that comes to your mind, and you might be featured in a mailbag article!
Additionally, there may be “bonus” content on occasion, although I will not commit to any schedule with that. This is content that will be more casual in nature, telling a story or giving a “hot take”. The first bonus content will drop sometime this month, as I share my (humorous) story with, in my humble opinion, the worst transit service in Boston.
Route 104 - A story of duplication
The current 104 bus runs from Malden Center to Sullivan station, running through Malden’s downtown district in a circuitous, asymmetrical route, before continuing on Ferry Street to Everett, where it then follows Broadway all the way to Sullivan. Right now, route 104 is the 31st highest ridership route on weekdays. So while it does not compare to the existing key bus routes in terms of ridership, it is not a slouch either. The MBTA grades it a 5.6/10 for ridership quality, representing “above average” ridership.
The route primarily acts as a feeder to the Orange line, a trend that is very evident in its ridership map. Consider the average outbound trip from Sullivan. A substantial number of boardings (blue) happen at Sullivan station, and then these passengers are largely delivered to stops in Everett (yellow). However, once the bus is halfway along Ferry street, there is a sizeable shift in passenger behavior, as boarding again dominates stop activity. These passengers then largely disembark at Malden Center Orange Line station.
It is clear then from the data that there are two passenger behaviors supported by this route, both of which are dominated by transfers to the Orange Line.
We previously discussed the new key bus route 109, which directly connects Everett to Sullivan square via a frequent, fast route with some new bus lane support. The result of upgrading 109 to Key Bus service, tripling its frequency, is that running the 104 down Broadway would be a highly redundant supplement to an area that will be served by both the 109 and the Silver Line Extension. Therefore, it is clear that a new route is needed for the better bus project.
A total revamp of the route
The new routing proposed by the Better Bus Project has route 104 upgraded to a key bus route, and serving as a new ring route. The new routing runs on a straighter, symmetrical route along Centre Street in downtown Malden, without the redundant stops or routing along narrow, congested streets. It follows the same route along Ferry Street to Broadway, but deviates in downtown Everett, traveling east to Chelsea, snaking through Bellingham Square and downtown, before heading over the drawbridge to Airport Station.
Ultimately, this new route seems to fill a similar role to the 66, albeit with less connections to rail services due to the perpetual underserving of Chelsea and Everett. The goal of this route is to run through as many high-population centers as possible and connect them to rail routes and each other. While I don’t think people will take this end to end (orange to blue is likely always going to be faster), I do think that this will boost connectivity between the four communities it serves, and also boost connectivity within communities, by providing key bus route services in areas that did not previously have it, such as along Ferry Street in Malden/Everett. Even a trip as simple as traveling from one side of Everett to the other is difficult in the current system.
If I had to give a criticism, I am somewhat skeptical about the ridership on the latter half of the route, as it is paralleled by the Silver Line Extension for much of the way. But even then, most of the route in Chelsea runs through dense neighborhoods with substantial enough separation from the silver line, so it does seem likely. According to the MBTA, 55k people live within a quarter of a mile of this bus route. Add on the connectivity to the airport, and that’s a good thing.
Before I sign off on this post, I do want to address one of the criticisms of my first article, and how it relates to this. Many people brought up the excellent point that a one-seat ride to the red line from Everett is worth more than I was necessarily giving credit to the 109 for. Indeed, if the route were terminated at Sullivan, there are non-zero trips that would require 3 seats, as opposed to merely 2. This is a very good point, and I’ll tried to be more open-minded about the value of one-seat rides going forward.
But really, the primary reason I am going easier on the 104 than I did is that it serves a completely unique role within the system and serves a lot of different areas that don’t have adequate transportation service. Furthermore, it supports many shorter trips between the inner suburbs that were previously not possible by transit. This is an admirable improvement, and one that will be felt significantly by the communities of Everett and Chelsea, who still lack proper rapid transit service.
One of your own criticisms of this route would be redundancy with SL3 in the southern half, what if instead of heading into Eastie the bus went into central Revere which is also a transit deadzone and then terminated at one of Revere’s Blue Line stations?