View source for Second Community Form on Bus Priority Pilot - Aug 15th, 2018

Held at town hall.  This was the second public form held on
Arlington's Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) pilot.  The first public forum was
held on [[Mass Ave Bus Rapid Transit Pilot - May 16th 2018|May 16th]].

Adam Chapdelaine opens the forum.  Since the last meeting, the town
has been looking engineering options for the BRT pilot.  Arlington has
45k residents, who take approximately 10k trips per day on MBTA buses.
Improving bus reliability could make a big quality of life improvement
for these riders.

Jenny Raitt speaks next.  Why would the town look at BRT?  There are
several bus routes in town, and lots of people use them.  The
Department of Planning and Community Development believes that
enhanced bus service is an untapped opportunity.

Today, we have reliability and congestion problems.  There's a big
variance in travel times, especially on Mass Ave, between Lake Street
and the Alewife Brook Parkway.

The main goals for this pilot are: to improve traffic flow, and to
reduce travel time for buses.  There are design tradeoffs to be made,
for example parking needs, and automobile traffic.  Later in the
evening, you'll be able to look at the different options we're
considering, and you'll be able to indicate your preferences.

Part of tonight is about getting a survey of people's preferences,
which will help guide the pilot implementation.  The pilot will last a
month, and take place in October.

The next speaker is a fellow named Albert, who works for VHB
https://www.vhb.com/.  The pilot will involve very little
construction; most of the changes will be made with traffic cones and
signs.  It will take place in October, during morning rush hours, and
only in the eastbound lane of Mass Ave.  The scope of the project is
Lake Street through the Alewife brook parkway.

VHB looked at the entire Mass Ave Corridor, even though the pilot only
affects East Arlington.  We've done traffic counts, parking counts,
and other data collection.  This information fed into our conceptual
design, and led us to look at different alternatives for three areas:
the intersection of Lake Street and Mass Ave, the intersection of Mass
Ave and Alewife Brook Parkway, and the area between those two points.

Our evaluation criteria included: travel time, reliability (i.e., do
the buses arrive on schedule, and is the trip time predictable),
impacts to pedestrians and cyclists, and feasibility.

At this point, the attendees break into three groups.  Each group goes
to a station, to see the alternatives proposed for each area.  After
seeing the alternatives, we indicate our preference by placing blue
dots on a poster board.  Then, we rotate around to the next area.

My first stop is the intersection between Mass Ave and Alewife Brook
parkway.  Alternatives include: (1) eliminating left-hand turns onto
Alewife Brook Parkway, (2) changing the phasing of traffic lights at
the intersection, (3) making one of the westbound lanes an eastbound
lane, and (4) a fourth option I can't remember.  Traffic light phasing
got the most support.

Next, I visited the station for the intersection of Lake Street and
Mass Ave.  Here, the plan is to move the bus stop from the west side
of lake street to the east side.  The alternatives centered around how
long the right turn/bus lane should be.  There was a short lane option
(which removed fewer parking spaces), and a long lane option (which
removed more parking spaces, but allowed the bus to change lanes
earlier).  The long lane option seemed to get the most support.

Finally, I visited the station for the area between Mass Ave and Lake
Street.  Here there were three options: the first would turn one of
the travel lanes into a dedicated bus lane.  The other two would turn
parking spaces into a bus lane; these differed in how long the bus
lane would be (the short lane option removed fewer parking spaces, and
the long lane option removed more).  I recall the dedicated bus lane
getting the most support.

After visiting the stations, we returned to our seats for a wrap-up.
The pilot will take place in October (exact dates TBD).  The pilot
evaluation will take place in November, and we'll have a final Forum
on Nov 14th.

[[Category:Public Meetings]]