The MBTA rolled out a brand new bus community map that may considerably enhance service and repair unpopular route modifications, however it might not have sufficient drivers to make the plan a actuality.
Melissa Dullea, senior director of service planning, stated the T wants to rent 750 bus drivers, which is double its present headcount, over the following 5 years for the plan to take impact.
“It’s a really quite massive number,” Dullea stated throughout a Thursday press name. “That’s another one of the reasons that this is split out over multiple years, because hiring that volume of operators and all the other supporting positions just really takes a lot of time.”
MassDOT Secretary and CEO Jamey Tesler stated at Thursday’s MBTA Board of Directors assembly that the T is working “incredibly hard” on addressing its driver scarcity, which led to cuts in present bus routes this fall.
He stated the T is now recruiting bus drivers with out business driver’s licenses and paying for the roughly $4,500 price of their CDL coaching. More of these “bold changes” can be wanted, he stated, to remain aggressive with different transit companies which can be struggling to make the identical hires.
“Without the operators we’re not going to be able to deliver on this promise,” Tesler stated.
That promise, the T stated, is for a “better bus” community that features a 25% enhance in service and double the variety of excessive frequency corridors, from 15 to 30, outlined as routes the place buses run each quarter-hour or higher, all day, seven days every week.
The new bus community map contains modifications to 85 of the 133 routes that have been first proposed in May, primarily based on 20,000 submitted public feedback.
In Boston, three routes that initially included modifications or cuts that have been opposed by Mayor Michelle Wu — the 11, 39, and 55 — have been both restored or modified.
Areas like South Boston, Chelsea, Dorchester, Roxbury, Everett, Malden and Lynn will get extra frequent service than they do in the present day, stated Project Manager Doug Johnson.
Johnson stated the bus community map was partly designed in response to shifting journey patterns that deemphasize peak intervals, one thing that turned extra prevalent through the pandemic.
The purpose, he stated, is to have a system just like the subway, the place buses come so regularly that individuals don’t should test a schedule. They can simply present up.
Betsy Taylor, chair of the Board of Directors, stated the proposal was “wonderful,” however had issues about whether or not the T might afford it.
The plan’s working prices are budgeted at $20.38 million for fiscal 12 months 2023, and are projected to extend to $123.69 million in FY28, based on MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak.
“I would like some ballpark estimates of what these capital modifications might cost,” Taylor stated. “To make it real we need to be able to afford both the operating and the capital costs.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”