“We applaud the leadership of organizations like the Barr Foundation and BostonBRT in building support for bus improvements, including bus rapid transit, and we appreciate the collaboration of municipal leaders in improving transit service,” said Massachusetts Transportation Secretary and CEO Stephanie Pollack. ITDP’s Michael Kodransky and Julia Wallerce joined partners at the Boston BRT initiative in publicly announcing the winners of the pilot grants at LivableStreets StreetTalk And while these BRT elements represent transit improvements for the communities served, they also introduce a new level of innovation characterized by municipally driven partnerships with the MBTA and between the municipalities themselves, which is unusual in the notoriously parochial New England region. The three pilots will include a combination of dedicated bus-only lanes that take bus riders out of car congestion, technology to time traffic signals so that buses get more green light time, and platforms that allow riders, including people in wheelchairs or with baby strollers, to “level-board” the bus quickly as they would a subway. Municipalities were selected by a committee comprised of Massachusetts transportation leaders convened by the Barr Foundation and BostonBRT technical consultants, including ITDP staff, that reviewed criteria such as the number of BRT elements included within proposals, proof of concept, potential impact (including density of population and employment), municipal and community support, and willingness to partner with state agencies to create a successful pilot. In early 2017, BostonBRT issued a request for proposals calling on municipalities to lead the way through innovative pilot projects that would demonstrate the potential of BRT in high-ridership, high-traffic areas, with the goal of improving the regional transit experience.
Working together with the MBTA (regional transit authority) and across municipal boundaries, the communities of Arlington, Everett, and Cambridge in partnership with Watertown will use the grants to test on-the-ground elements of bus rapid transit in order to improve the transit experience of more than 30,000 daily bus riders. On December 5, 2017, ITDP joined partners from the BostonBRT initiative in announcing the recipients of three $100,000 grants provided by the Barr Foundation to demonstrate BRT’s potential in metro Boston.
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