Jahvon09
Senior Member
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2011
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It's heavy rail, and the third-rail segment of Blue to boot...so obviously there could never be any grade crossings and any access would be mandatorily up-and-over. That simplifies the "permeability" argument; there is no permeability without covering portions of the cut.
The way I see it, if you're already going to the trouble to dig a trench it's a trivial amount of money to just cap the cut with a roof. Be done up-front with the questions about at-grade access, noise, abutters fetching their smelling salts, and landscaping what-if's in one fell swoop. They could've built the Red Line from Davis to Alewife 40 years ago in a SW Corridor-like trench with only partial cover-overs at the streets since the Community Path wasn't an original part of the RL's mid-70's design. But they didn't pooh-pooh around it at all; they just capped the whole of the cut rather than dealing with partial kludges. That's what you'd be looking at here for sure. Honestly, it's better to not even chew costs in design debating alternatives...just do it.
So will Bowden Station still be used for this purpose, and will it be renamed Gov't Center? And does it mean that the Blue Line would be extened close enough for passengers to be able to be on a short walk to the Blue Line, instead of walking up the street to Bowden Station? While they're at it, they need to fix or replace that escalator & get it back running again!!