A loose bolt bounces around in the fluorescent light hanging over my seat. It bumbles down to the back end of the square fixture as the SL4 bus travels down Washington Street, and rolls back forward as the street bends toward E. Berkeley Street.
On the other end of the bolt is a group of students not much younger than me. We got on the bus at Nubian Square at the same time. They are arguing about the best way to get to Back Bay. The point of contention is whether using the Silver Line, and then transferring to another service would be faster than taking the 42 bus going the other direction to Forest Hills and getting on the Orange Line. Next to them is a nurse on her way to Tufts Medical Center, deriding the lack of taxi companies in the city, reminiscing on the affordability and reliability of the independent cab service. No one seems particularly happy to be on the Silver Line.
The Silver Line along Washington Street is two lines which go from Nubian Square in Roxbury toward South Station and Temple Place respectively, known as the SL4 and SL5. For long-time residents of Roxbury and the South End, this bitterness towards the Silver Line comes from a sentimental understanding of the changes they have seen. Nubian Square, then named Dudley Square, used to be home to a station on the Washington Street Elevated, or the El, which reached downtown Boston in seven minutes. Yet it was more than just a train; it was also a vehicle which transported wealth in and out of the communities it served. This is what the Silver Line was supposed to match when it was created in 2005 to replave the El . The goal of the Silver Line was to produce “equal or better” service, and nearly 20 years later, the MBTA is in a position where it can finally reach that lofty goal.
How did we get here?
When Kai Grant founded Black Market in Nubian Square with her husband Chris in 2017, their intention was to be the change you wanted to see. They are both longtime residents of the city and have seen first-hand how disinvestment has impacted their neighborhood.
Kai grew up riding the El downtown from her stop at Dudley Station. “It was an adventurous ride as a child.” She laughed at the memory. “It was scary but enthralling.”
She met her husband Chris while both working for the MBTA, and were around for the dismantling of the El. The El was demolished at a low point for Roxbury, a time when disinvestment was rampant, leading to a middle-class exodus and urban deterioration. Though the soot and pollution which the El rained down on those beneath it played a role in this downturn, tearing it down eliminated the foot traffic that was integral to the businesses.
Washington Street, the longest street in Boston, has long served as a transportation corridor, even before the El was completed in 1901. A predominantly Black and Hispanic community began to grow in the area in the 20th century with heavy economic development centering around the train stations. The area surrounding Washington Street in Roxbury and the South End has consistently been among the most transit-dependent areas in Boston, with high housing density, low car ownership and income levels lower than the citywide average.
Like many urban cores in the United States, beginning in the 1960s, Roxbury and the South End experienced urban renewal firsthand: the exodus of a middle-class primarily through white flight, a loss in social services and government funding and blight from a mix of public policy failures and a depressed economy. With this downturn came the fall of the El as well. The route was realigned to run to the Back Bay, a move described by researcher Yanisa Techagumthorn as one which served tracts of the city which “were richer, more educated, and had a higher White population”.
Kristopher Carter's 2011 documentary “Equal or Better” looks at the promises made by the MBTA and Federal Transportation Administration to the people who previously relied on elevated rail for their daily needs. The title alludes to the central promise about future service on Washington Street: that it would be equal or better than the El's six to seven minute ride to Downtown.
“By the 1970s, the Elevated Rail was in need of a lot of repair,” said Carter. “In the film you hear people say that it created a dark corridor above the street that separated one side from the other.”
In the time after the El was taken down, the community around it continued to suffer, and was disconnected from the rest of the city. Some believed that just taking down the El would bring pedestrians back, but they did not return. It is in this vacuum that the Silver Line was created, one of the first attempts at bus rapid transit in the United States.
Riders around Nubian Square rely on transit primarily for work, shopping, and school. The 50% of riders who ride the Silver Line daily must face the bottlenecked SL4 or SL5 as it rolls down Washington St. at 6.9 miles per hour, slower than most buses in the MBTA system, let alone the Red, Orange, Blue and Green Lines, which it sits next to on MBTA maps. So much for the “silver bullet” which the line is named after.
“From our standpoint, the move from the El to the modern stations did not envision us at the center of change,” said Grant. “It signaled gentrification, and moved hubs away from the historical residents and those who traveled through Dudley to get to wherever you are going.”
The Silver Line came at a time which many were skeptical of bus-rapid-transit as a viable alternative to transit, built in a time when there was only one comparable project within the United States: the Pittsburgh East Busway, which moves through redlined section of Pittsburgh and surrounding towns which bear comparison to Roxbury and the South End.
But as time passes, more transit leadership in cities like Boston, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia, are beginning to rappreciate what buses can do for a robust service. Bus lanes such as the ones completed along Columbus Avenue are signals that the MBTA is ready to take bus planning seriously, and willing to use innovative approaches to address the cracks in our current transit map. This lends credence to the idea that a reimagination of the SL4 and SL5 is not only possible, but also viable.
A series of logistical dilemmas
You do not necessarily need to speak to a transit expert to understand the issues currently facing the SL4 and SL5, just take a ride for yourself and sit with the people who experience the same issues daily. The primary issues are heavy traffic and a lack of bus lane enforcement.
As the SL4 and SL5 run in timed intervals regardless of traffic, many buses end up bunching, a process when a queue of multiple buses forms at one stop as a result of variable ridership and heavy congestion. This can lead to buses being delayed at Nubian Station for 30 minutes before it begins its route.
The heavy traffic which also causes bunching also disrupts the bus lanes which go through Washington Street. Multiple riders reported seeing SL4 and SL5 buses having to swerve out of bus lanes to escape obstructing traffic. As the Washington Street bus lanes were built on the curbside of roads, this can be cars turning, trucks unloading for nearby businesses, or people on bicycles and scooters who also share bus lanes. Without traffic enforcement, there is no way to mitigate any violations which occur.
“As it stands right now, the Silver Line is not set up to be a successful bus rapid transit,” said Katie Calandriello of TransitMatters. “A big culprit of that is there is no traffic enforcement.”
Comparable cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago have all announced legislation since 2023 to install traffic enforcement cameras to protect bus lanes from mixed traffic. A similar bill was introduced in the Massachusetts State House, where it sat in the Senate Ways and Means Committee for four months before dying without a vote.
Matt Moran, Transit Team Director for the Boston Transportation Department, a group which works closely with both MBTA and Boston City Hall Officials has pointed to lane enforcement as a key aspect of improving Silver Line service along Washington Street.
“It would allow us to allocate resources in better places,” said Moran. “You would have less officers collecting overtime to monitor traffic and create more separation between traffic enforcement and law enforcement.”
Both Moran and Calandriello also suggested that the SL4 and SL5 should be merged to ease confusion to new riders and to simplify the route.
“The SL4 and SL5 are historically separate routes despite reaching essentially the same place,” said Moran. “Trying to merge the two routes is something we have been working on, since we know many are just trying to reach downtown.”
A roadmap for the future
While Roxbury residents are primary stakeholders, in order to get any plans off the ground it could take someone in the area to build a public-private partnership to receive enough funds to improve service.
Carter offered skepticism with the MBTA current budget that they are positioned to announce a large scale project like they did when they announced a connective tunnel near Tufts Medical Center for the entire Silver Line system in 1999.
"With the MBTA maintenance costs rising to $23 billion dollars, there just is not a lot of interest in building tunnels right now," said Carter. "But things like lane enforcement would be beneficial to the Silver Line, while we are in the process of bringing things from the BRT movement to all buses.”
In recent years the MBTA has been maligned by a myriad of budgetary issues, and is currently facing a $700 million dollar deficit in the next fiscal year, meaning that any plans that are primarily funded by the T must be put on hold. Projects like the South Coast Rail line and a Red-Blue connection at Mass General Hospital are among projects which have been announced but could face delays with a lack of funding.
But public-private partnerships offer some alternative, and has been a frequently used tool by Mayor Michelle Wu to achieve the city's goals.
Nupoor Monani is responsible for reviewing large scale developments for the Boston Planning Department. She detailed how the city has been reviewing the city's controversial development review process for large scale developments, also known as Article 80. The process has been criticized as arduous and unpredictable, and a restructured planning department could streamline negotiations between communities, developers, and City Hall.
"The reason why Article 80 is so discussed within Boston is because the city cannot manage large scale projects itself," said Monani. "Our zoning code is so out of sync; most of our city could not be rebuilt as they are now."
Part of what makes Article 80 restructuring important for any future Silver Line developments is that any large scale developments around the SL4/SL5 could be asked to fund improvements for nearby MBTA service. An example of this is Northeastern's Matthews Arena; the school may be asked to front costs related to creating a new entrance next to the station on St Boltoph Street.
Moran noted that there has been interest in working with developers to create more public space along Washington Street corridor, along with improving service as a way of bringing the Silver Line up to speed with other upgraded lines in the MBTA service. Additional funding could also come from federal grants, as is the case with Blue Hill Avenue's planned center lanes, which is partially being funded by the Department of Transportation.
“You can say the Silver Line was good for its time, in the sense that it provided a legible direct connection to Nubian [Square] to Downtown and is present on subway maps,” said Moran. “But today, there are questions about how we could make it BRT standard, and I think we could, and the MBTA is interested in developing this.”
There have been concerns by some including Boston City Councilors Julia Mejia and Ed Flynn that the Article 80 restructuring could reduce the amount of community involvement in planning decisions as a result of streamlining projects in planning review. However the Wu administration's Article 80 reconfiguration has also includes increasing effective engagement.
Maureen White was a consultant for Boston for their Go Boston 2030 plan under Mayor Marty Walsh beginning in 2015. The study was one of the first within the city which moved civic engagement from planning meetings which largely skew wealthier and Whiter than city demographics towards asking questions at hubs such as Nubian Station and grocery stores.
"The philosophy was to get more people involved in the public process. People in City Hall told us that we changed the way they think about public engagement," said White. "People must think creatively on how we can engage the public, while being intentional in how we think of equity, who gets marginilized and design the community process to invite these people to participate."
A plan which includes recongifuring the street for added public land could take numerous years, a lot of funding, and a lot of public input. Making changes to the grid is difficult, particularly around South Station. But fixes like bus lane enforcement, increased headway management, and simplifying the two routes into one could improve time today. As the Silver Line approaches 20 years, the time is now to evaluate how it can be improved to reconnect the communities it was built to serve.
“Washington Street is the closest thing we have to a main street in Boston, connecting numerous communities to downtown Boston,” said Calandriello. “Historically it was a transportation hub for the city, and it is important to respect that when moving forward.”
