There’s a very unusual public transport service, which looks like a subway but in reality is a bus service.
Where a BUS runs in the subway
# You enter through the turnstiles but buses are waiting for travelers at the platforms
In Boston, US, there’s a very unusual public transport service, which looks like a subway but in reality is a bus service. To use the Silver Line managed by the MBTA, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, indeed you have to first walk through a classic subway station. Then, after going through the turnstiles, once they reach the platform level, travelers and commuters will not find trains waiting for them, but electrified buses.
# Bus rapid transit operates a metropolitan-type service to Boston and Chelsea in Massachusetts
The Silver Line Rapid Transit Buses are trolley buses on rubber wheels that run on electricity and have Boston South station as their terminus. The Silver Line is a system of lines in service in Boston and in the municipality of Chelsea, Massachusetts, and is operated as part of the bus system, but marked as a rapid transit bus (BRT) and incorporated within the subway system of Boston.
# The service covers 6 routes with 35 stops in total
There are six routes that run on two disconnected corridors. The four routes of the Waterfront, the port and marine area of Boston, depart from an underground terminal at South Station. They then pass through the South Boston Piers Transitway, which is a dedicated bus tunnel through the Seaport District with stations at the Courthouse and the World Trade Center. At Silver Line Way, the Rapid Transit Bus lines continue on the surface: the SL1 heading for Logan International Airport, the SL2 bound to the Design Center and the SL3 for Chelsea via East Boston. An additional short section, SLW, only operates during rush hours between South Station and Silver Line Way.
Waterfront routes use dual-mode articulated buses that work as electric trolley buses in the Transitway and as conventional diesel buses on the ground. Two lines operate on Washington Street between Nubian Station (at Nubian Square in Roxbury) and Downtown Boston. The SL5 ends at Downtown Crossing and the SL4 on the ground at South Station. Washington Street routes use articulated diesel hybrid buses.
FABIO MARCOMIN
