According to the MBTA's 2014 Bluebook, a typical day of service for the bus system entails 7,200 roundtrips that cover a total of 86,000 miles. Moreover, the system serves nearly 390,000 people each day. In order to get a better glimpse as to which neighborhoods have the greatest demand for bus transportation, I joined data on the number of bus stops to the underlying census tracts. The map below shows a shaded gradient for the number of bus stops per census tract, as normalized by the tract's area in acres. Normalizing by the tract area holds constant for the size of the tract and allows one to see which tracts truly demand more bus stops. As expected, the inner-city of Boston has the highest number of bus stops per acre. Particularly, South Boston and the Cambridge-Somerville regions have the highest demand while the least bus stops per acre tends to be near the west and northwestern suburbs.

 

The darkly shaded corridor indicates the highest density for bus usage and can show transportation planners which parts of the bus system may need added investment. For example, the Cambridge-Somerville area shows high bus demand. As a result, it can be deduced that many in these regions necessitate mass transit whether for convenience or cost purposes. Recall that the MBTA plans to extend the green line into this exact region; this map below would make the case that the MBTA should, in fact, build it there to minimize congestion and allow for dispersal between all modes of transport.