About

Why build tools to empower civic scientists on the T?

I live in Boston and use the MBTA (‘The T’) buses, trolleys and subway lines most days. The T and the city of Boston have been working on

The area that I'm particularly interested in bus service, both because I use it frequently, and because lots of people in neighborhoods served primarily by bus are economically disadvantaged.

There is already advocacy work around improving bus service, including Livable Streets’ Better Buses work (https://www.livablestreets.info/better_buses).

I’d like to supplement and support that work by empowering The T’s bus (and trolley) riders to record, understand, and report information in more detail than The T already measures automatically, as far as I understand. The two specific areas are:

  • when a bus or trolley is too full to board (The T already estimates this on subway platforms, but not street stops) so riders are left behind, and
  • the contributions of various delays to a ride time, especially time waiting at traffic signals, time in congested stop-and-go traffic, and dwell time (getting on, off, and paying).

My hope is that with riders measuring, recording and understanding how much time they’re spending in transit vehicles — especially waiting for traffic signals which don't prioritize transit, and waiting in congestion where a curb parking lane could be used at peak times as a dedicated bus lane — they’ll record and report what they find.

With that kind of engagement and data, Boston and other cities would have the political support (and/or pressure) to make changes to how traffic signals work and how city streets are used to the benefit of T riders every day.


T Civic Scientist • Transit Ride Timer • Left Behind!
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